• Michael Combs, police chief in Minersville, Pa., said his department got a letter with a return address of "Feeling guilty, Wayward Road, Anytown, Ca.," containing $5 from a nonresident who decided it was time he paid a $2 parking ticket written in 1974.
• Stephen McNulty and Kim Tavares, two Boston police officers, decided to do what they're calling "Cop Pool Karaoke" by posting a video on social media of their discussing the upcoming Fourth of July holiday before belting out a stirring rendition of "God Bless America."
• David Ray, 15, of Twiggs County, Ga., texted his mother: "I'm coming home," with an exclamation point, after his parents regained custody of David, who was placed in foster care after authorities learned they had let the teen smoke marijuana to treat his seizures.
• Mitch Blackmon, a sheriff's deputy in Lake County, Fla., fired a single shot from an AR-15 rifle to kill a 10-foot alligator that had trapped a 15-year-old girl for nearly an hour in a tree where she had climbed to safety when the gator threatened her as she floated on a raft in a creek.
• Scott Donaldson, 48, who gave up on a similar attempt in 2014 because of storms, became the first person to kayak alone across the Tasman Sea, taking two months to make the 1,300-mile voyage from Coffs Harbor, Australia, to New Plymouth, New Zealand.
• Varun Sarja, 20, of Olathe, Kan., a former University of Kansas student who pleaded guilty to hacking the school's computer system to change his failing F grades to A's, was sentenced to 18 months of probation and ordered to apologize to his professors.
• Yvonne Mair, a great-grandmother from North Attleboro, Mass., completed her third sky-diving trip, tandem-jumping from about 10,000 feet to celebrate her 90th birthday, and was greeted with a champagne toast by her family when she landed at an airport in Middletown, Conn.
• Simon Drobik, a police spokesman in Albuquerque, N.M., said officers were called but couldn't locate an intruder who walked onto a television station newsroom set, forcing the station to abruptly cancel two evening newscasts so the building could be searched.
• Zachary Machnikowski, 21, of Naperville, Ill., faces up to 60 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted murder for sneaking into a home of a girl who called him "ugly" while the two were at a same party in 2015 and stabbing her parents.
A Section on 07/03/2018