• John Sparapani, 30, a private tutor in Springfield, Mo., who pleaded guilty to a child-pornography charge, was sentenced to 30 years in prison without parole after a student said he sexually assaulted her when she was 10 and 11 years old and photographed the assault with his cellphone.
• Saleh Omar, 40, and his brother Yazan Omar, 18, were charged in the death of Mohamed Mezlini, 29, an employee at Saleh Omar's cellphone business in Terrytown, La., who, investigators say, suffocated when the brothers wrapped his body in duct tape over a financial dispute.
• Amanda Hawkins, 20, whose daughters Brynn Hawkins, 1, and Addyson Overgard-Eddy, 2, died in June 2017 after she left them in a hot vehicle overnight while she visited friends and smoked marijuana at a residence in Kerrville, Texas, was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
• Kalif Jones, 21, a teacher at Brockett Elementary School in Georgia, was arrested after surveillance video captured him stealing a violin worth $750 from one of his students, with him then telling police that he took the instrument because he recently got a $700 ticket and needed the money to pay it.
• Nathaniel Robinson, 31, of St. Louis, received a suspended seven-year sentence for felony child endangerment after crashing into another car while drag-racing, severely injuring his 2-year-old son, who was unrestrained in the back seat and was thrown out.
• Michael Saripkin was chosen by the Sardis, Miss., Chamber of Commerce to preside over the city's Christmas parade, drawing complaints in the town over Saripkin's multiple convictions, including sexual battery, statutory rape and inappropriately touching a child.
• Amberly Ondria, an animal shelter manager in Broome County, N.Y., said a dog has "quite the road to recovery ahead of him" after someone threw the animal out of a moving vehicle on a highway, resulting in the amputation of the dog's front leg, authorities said.
• Jamaica Hall, 31, a former front-desk clerk at Walt Disney World in Florida, was accused of stealing $48,000 by making 107 fraudulent credit-card refunds and applying the refund amount to his debit account.
• David Winbush, 35, faces a murder charge after police in Lawton, Okla., say he confronted Brian Brown, 15, near Winbush's reported-stolen pickup and shot the teenager in the back as he fled.
A Section on 12/16/2018