• Francois Gabart broke the speed record set last year by a fellow Frenchman for sailing around the world alone, ending his 42-day, 16-hour journey near Ouessant island off France's western coast, according to organizers of the trip.
• Lauren Price, 31, and Amy Laker, 29, were allowed to skip a waiting period and get married ahead of the anticipated Jan. 9 start of same-sex weddings in Australia because their families had traveled to Sydney from overseas to attend what was to have been their commitment ceremony.
• Jasen Dixon, whose "zombie Nativity" scene in Sycamore Township, Ohio, has faced vandalism and claims of zoning violations in past years, said this will be the last year he'll put up the display featuring zombie Mary and zombie baby Jesus.
• Brandon Ramirez, a 27-year-old Houston firefighter, was charged with sexually assaulting a child, with authorities saying he met a teenage girl online, sent sexually explicit photos and videos of himself to her over weeks, and then met her in person for a "sexual encounter."
• Keith Laham, co-founder of the Boston-based Beantown Greentown cannabis club and advocacy group, said the group, which rolled a 100-foot-long joint during an exhibition of pro-marijuana vendors and supporters, hopes people will join and "become part of a bigger community."
• Sgt. Stephen Wheeles of the Indiana State Police said a dog was the only survivor of a single-engine Cessna plane that crashed near Oldenburg, about 40 miles northwest of Cincinnati, killing three people and another dog on board.
• Celine Bookin, a political science major at the University of California, Berkeley, founded the Berkeley Conservative Society and invited a college Democratic group to take on her group in a series of debates to address what she saw as a lack of political dialogue after a series of violent protests.
• Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat and former Newark mayor, is getting extra security at his home from Newark police, Mayor Ras Baraka said, after the department was notified by U.S. Capitol police of a threat on Booker's life.
• Cole Hamels, a pitcher for the Texas Rangers baseball team, and his wife, Heidi, donated a 32,000-square-foot mansion and 100 acres near Missouri's Table Rock Lake to Camp Barnabas, a charity that provides camps for children with special needs and chronic illnesses and for their siblings.
A Section on 12/18/2017