In the news
■ Lisala Folau, 57, a retired carpenter who was painting at his home on the Tongan island of Atata when it was hit by tsunami waves caused by an undersea volcano 40 miles away, survived 26 hours afloat clinging to a tree after being swept out to sea by a 20-foot wave before making it to a nearby island to find help.
■ Alexis Krot, a district judge in Hamtramck, Mich., criticized for telling an ill 72-year-old man in open court that she wished she could send him to jail for allowing weeds to overtake his property, apologized, saying she was embarrassed and failed to meet the “high standards” expected of judicial officers.
■ Lech Walesa, 78, Poland’s former president and the one-time leader of the Solidarity pro-democracy movement, said he was surprised to test positive for covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated, adding “After this painful lesson I will never separate from my mask.”
■ Jennifer Harris , a spokesman for Charles County, Md., said officers removed 124 venomous and nonvenomous snakes, including king cobras, black and green mambas and rattlesnakes, from a house in Pomfret after the owner was found dead inside.
■ Terika Clay, 30, of St. Louis, accused of shooting a worker after the two argued at a McDonald’s drive-thru window in Normandy over a discount for french fries, faces first-degree assault and other charges, police said.
■ Paulinus Ebhodaghe, 40, was sentenced to 46 months in prison, while Ohimai Asikhia, 37, was sentenced to 18 months after the two Nigerian men who live in New Jersey pleaded guilty to laundering money stolen in an online “romance scam,” federal prosecutors said.
■ Nedeltcho Vladimirov, 53, of Cross Lanes, W.Va., convicted of organizing a network of shoplifters to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in store merchandise that he then resold on the internet, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.
■ Chad Williams, 47, of Johnston, Iowa, accused of making and placing several homemade bombs in suburban Des Moines, including one that was found by an 8-year-old girl, faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal weapons charges.
■ Brian Schaake, 39, who pleaded guilty to stealing an unattended mortuary van left with the engine running outside a convenience store in North St. Louis County, Mo., with a body inside, was sentenced to six years in prison.