In the news

■ Robert Leonard, a judge in metropolitan Atlanta, is doing what he can to stop the tyranny of the Christmas tradition of “Elf on the Shelf,” issuing an order banning the tiny creatures from sitting and spying, then dropping lumps of coal in the stockings of mischievous kids in Cobb County.

■ Philip Olson, 69, of Iowa City, Iowa, surrendered to police after learning that while shooting at a squirrel in his yard with an air rifle he had struck a passing Missouri motorist in the head, seriously injuring the man.

■ Jen Niswonger of Wentzville, Mo., saw her daughter hospitalized and her household and two others evacuated after the Environmental Protection Agency found high mercury levels on surfaces and in the air after children were playing with a vial of liquid elemental mercury and it spilled.

■ Alex Littlejohn of The Nature Conservancy said, “we want to learn from the other successful programs like this in other states, work through the kinks and make this a viable program for Mississippi,” as the environmental group announced plans to use fines from the 2010 BP oil spill to create Mississippi’s first oyster shell recycling program, using the empty shells to build coastal reefs.

■ Damara Holness, 28, the daughter of a South Florida county commissioner now in a too-close-to-call race for Congress, faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing $300,000 in covid-19 relief funds by claiming that her company employed 18 people when it actually had no workers.

■ Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s governor- elect, made election integrity central to his campaign, but state election officials said his 17- year- old son twice tried to cast a ballot even though he was underage, with a spokesman for Youngkin explaining that the teen misunderstood Virginia law.