In the news
■ Torie Gibson, superintendent of a school district in Amador County, Calif., said an elementary teacher suffered “lacerations on his face, some bruising on his face, and a pretty good knot on the back of his head” when he was beaten by a parent who had grown upset after seeing his daughter wearing a mask.
■ Deondre Brown, 31, of Houma, La., pleaded guilty to arson charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison for setting fire to a house in 2019, destroying the structure and leaving a family displaced.
■ Ralph Puglisi, 59, a former accounts manager for a nonprofit affiliated with the University of South Florida’s medical school, pleaded guilty to embezzling almost $13 million, spending most of it at an adult website but still reaping hundreds of thousands of dollars by splitting profits from a video channel belonging to his stepson’s fiancee.
■ Fatima Shaik, an author of nonfiction, short stories and children’s books, was named this year’s recipient of the Louisiana Writer Award, with State Librarian Rebecca Hamilton praising Shaik’s “incredibly important contribution” to her home state’s literary heritage.
■ William Stenger, 72, a former Vermont ski resort president indicted on federal fraud charges over a failed plan to build a biotechnology plant using tens of millions of dollars in foreign investors’ money, has pleaded guilty to providing false documents.
■ Ethan Grumke, 27, a former high school teacher in Oak Grove, Mo., faces several charges after he sent pornographic videos to female students and attempted to persuade one student to have sex with him, Jackson County prosecutors said.
■ Chen Mei and Cai Wei, amateur Chinese computer coders who have been jailed for more than a year after they archived deleted news articles about the pandemic’s initial outbreak in China, are to be released today, according to Chen’s brother.
■ Bobby Parker, 57, is being held in the Orleans Parish, La., jail on rape and kidnapping charges after authorities said DNA evidence linked him to the assaults of three women 28 years ago in New Orleans.
■ Kent Lawrence, the police chief of Eatonton, Ga., who went on paid leave in December after he was arrested on battery charges in an excessive-force case, has retired after nearly 35 years of leading the Police Department but said the decision had nothing to do with his pending prosecution.