• Elie Wiesel, 86, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, will receive an honorary doctorate from the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland, in recognition of his efforts to reveal the full evil of the Holocaust and defend human dignity.
• Beryl Howell, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., threw out an Obama administration decision to remove gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region from the endangered species list, calling the removal "arbitrary and capricious" and in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act.
• Michael Fallon, Britain's defense minister, said women should be allowed to serve in front-line army combat units and that he hopes the first will join them within two years.
• Sakeena Majeed, a Muslim woman who said she was forced to attend Christian church services during a 60-day jail stint on an assault charge in Ohio, has sued Cuyahoga County.
• Rachel Anne Hayes, 27, of Clearwater, Fla., was charged with aggravated battery on an elderly person, accused of slapping a 72-year-old woman who denied her friend request on Facebook.
• Charles Ramsey, Philadelphia's police commissioner, said officer Kollin Berg, an eight-year Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, showed "unbelievable restraint" in disarming a man firing an AR-15 assault rifle on a city street who now faces firearms-violations and reckless-endangerment charges.
• Rick Carroll, a Salvation Army spokesman in Kansas City, Mo., where someone dropped a gold tooth into a holiday collection kettle, said he worries that the donation might have been unintentional and is temporarily hanging on to the tooth in case someone claims it.
• Cheryl Semien, a worker at a Houston-area Whataburger, complimented a customer at the drive-thru about her $10,000 mink coat and ended up the new owner of the fancy fur after the woman took it off and handed it to Semien through the pickup window.
• Heather Cagle was fired as a math teacher and yearbook instructor at a middle school in Catoosa, Okla., after she went on a candy run to Wal-Mart with 11 students, including two locked in the trunk of her car.
• Damian Murray, a judge in New Jersey, ruled that a bobcat named Rocky that has escaped from owner Ginny Fine's home multiple times will live at a zoo.
A Section on 12/20/2014