• Casie Arnold of Greenwood, Ind., said her family heard a popping sound while watching a Christmas movie, later learning that a neighbor had recorded a man in a black SUV driving through the family's front yard to run over their 12-foot-tall inflatable snowman.
• Lawrence Brayboy, 69, of Ann Arbor, Mich., accused of threatening journalists at The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press with anti-Semitic and sexually violent messages, was placed on house arrest, where he must wear a GPS tether and is barred from using the Internet or contacting the media.
• Shaun Stroud, 32, of Kiln, Miss., convicted of aggravated assault and other counts for using a front-end loader to ram vehicles because he thought zombies were chasing him, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay $41,000 in restitution.
• Dragos-Ciprian Romanescu, a Romanian police spokesman, said it was "like in the movies" after seven men, ages 27 to 44, were arrested after driving three cars close to a moving truck so they could clamber on and steal laptops and other electronic gear worth $70,000.
• Paige Woodie, who was 12 years old when she and a friend found $3 in cash and turned it over to police in Monmouth Beach, N.J., got the money back when police, doing an audit, discovered it in an evidence bag where it had laid unclaimed since 2004.
• Jerrell Altic, 40, a former minister accused of embezzling more than $800,000 from First Baptist Church in Houston, was indicted on a theft charge, with his attorney saying his client is sorry and "feels horrible for what's happened."
• Todd Moudy, 64, a Madison County, Miss., jail inmate who said he didn't want to return to jail after a bail hearing and escaped by stealing a transport van and ramming a patrol car, driving off while handcuffed and shackled, was recaptured four days later, deputies said.
• Janie Gill, 68, was arrested in Rogers County, Okla., on a child-neglect charge after her 17-year-old grandson, who has special needs and can't speak, was found alone at a rest stop near Beaumont, Kan., with no identification, sheriff's deputies said.
• Modesto Ramos, 23, of Tulare, Calif., who told sheriff's deputies he became angry and used an assault-style rifle to shoot and kill a neighbor's Chihuahua after it urinated on his lawn and car, was arrested on animal cruelty and weapons charges, authorities said.
A Section on 12/12/2018