In the news
■ Heidi Fleiss, 56, dubbed the “Hollywood Madam” in the 1990s when she was accused of running a Los Angeles prostitution ring, is angry that someone shot one of her parrots with a pellet gun and says she’s relocating her exotic bird collection from Pahrump, Nev., to Missouri.
■ William Jeffrey West, 48, had his appeal rejected by the Alabama Supreme Court after being convicted of reckless manslaughter in the death of his wife, an online adult model who prosecutors said was killed by a blow to her head from a liquor bottle.
■ Jermicha Fomby, special agent in charge of the FBI in Jackson, Miss., hailed the Violent Gun Reduction and Interdiction Program for its work combating a record number of homicides by saturating the streets and prosecuting those involved in gun crimes to the “fullest extent of the federal law.”
■ Chad Jacobs, 55, formerly a supply chain manager for the Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System, was handed a year in prison and ordered to pay $63,584 after stealing personal protective equipment, electronics and other items and selling them at pawnshops and on eBay.
■ Billy Nungesser, lieutenant governor of Louisiana, embraced the donation of seedlings and labor that let Fontainebleau State Park replace more than 400 cypress trees destroyed by hurricanes in the past two years.
■ Rob Moreau of Southeastern Louisiana University’s environmental research station says although the holidays have come and gone, there’s still time to give a gift to the environment, namely donating old Christmas trees that can help restore marshland.
■ Lee Sentell, Alabama’s tourism director, sees the state’s expenditure of $1 million to train as many as 2,000 students to work in the pandemic-battered hospitality industry as a much-needed opportunity.
■ Raven Leilani, whose debut novel, “Luster,” about a young Black woman striving to become an artist and inhabit the full spectrum of humanity, was met with critical acclaim, will write and teach at the University of Mississippi as the John and Renee Grisham writer-in-residence.
■ Leilani Fideler, a Los Angeles actress, said “it was just wild” when she got an alert on her backyard motion sensor and was shocked to see a mountain lion jump over her gate, which a tracking collar revealed was the city’s famed P-22, still stalking the hillsides around Griffith Park after 10 years.