In the news

George Clooney, who was attending a showing of his movie Hail, Caesar! at the Berlin Film Festival, met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to voice support for Europe’s efforts to help refugees.

Ross Perot, 85, the Dallas businessman who ran as an independent presidential candidate in the 1990s, returned to his hometown of Texarkana, Texas, to help dedicate Texarkana College’s Ross Perot Leadership Museum, which he helped fund with a $5 million pledge.

Maite Oronoz Rodriguez, 39, the first openly gay justice to serve on Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court, has been nominated by territory Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla as the next chief justice.

Riek Machar, South Sudan’s rebel leader, has accepted an appointment by President Salva Kiir to be vice president, saying his movement welcomes the leadership role and the promised integration of government and rebel forces in Juba, the country’s capital.

Patrick D. Lenard, a former inmate in Dallas County, Texas, who had a romantic relationship with his probation official, Selena Ball, and persuaded her to help him run a drug ring from his jail cell, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison on drug conspiracy charges.

Russell Percenti, 34, a southern New Jersey man who shot down a drone that was taking pictures above his neighborhood in 2014, has pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal mischief.

Lucy Hunt and Paul Eastwick, psychology researchers at the University of Texas, released a new study in which they found that in online dating, two people have a “higher likelihood of hitting it off” when they use video interaction and speed dating rather than pictures and text.

Faye Ku has been taken into U.S. custody after her sons, ages 9 and 15, who disappeared in August during a supervised visit with her, were found safe in Mexico and returned to their father and stepmother in Bellevue, Wash.

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