In the news

■ Thurston Smith, a candidate for Memphis City Council who is accused of pointing a gun at a poll worker during early voting as the two men argued over money that Smith owed the worker, was charged with felony aggravated assault, police said.

■ Robert Cissell, whose yak Meteor spent more than two weeks on the lam after escaping from a trailer as it was being taken to a butcher, said the yak’s “spirit is now free and has taken flight,” after it was struck and killed by a vehicle on a highway in rural Nelson County, Va.

■ Ben Reason, an Indiana state trooper, was on duty but heading home when he responded to an emergency call and saved a 5-yearold Georgia boy using the Heimlich maneuver when the child got something stuck in his throat as his family was driving home from a vacation in Michigan.

■ Melissa D’Angelico said security cameras recorded a thief using a net to take 10 koi fish, colorful ornamental versions of the common carp, valued at more than $4,000 from a pond in front of her landscaping business in Santa Fe, N.M.

■ Justin Boccio, 34, of Deerfield Beach, Fla., who, with a Spanish man now facing extradition to the U.S., was accused of kidnapping a plastic surgeon and torturing the doctor for hours with a blowtorch in an extortion attempt, faces life in prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy.

■ Lester Langley, a dog trainer in Monroe, La., was charged with felony theft, accused of stealing a $25,000 Labrador retriever and telling the owner it had died, after he was caught when the dog’s owner showed up at Langley’s home and demanded that the dog’s grave be dug up, revealing that it was empty, authorities said.