In the news

• Heather Axtman, a Washington State Police trooper, said a passing driver turned around and called 911 after spotting 4-year-old twin girls who had freed themselves from their car seats and climbed a 200-foot embankment on Whidbey Island to seek help after a car crash that killed their father.

• Alex Kuprienko of Anchorage, Alaska, said he was hiking a trail on Flattop Mountain when he saw moving feet sticking out of the snow, enabling him to rescue a fellow hiker whose head and upper body became trapped when he was partially buried by an avalanche.

• Travis Fisher, 42, accused of aggressively brandishing a foot-long, thin-bladed sword toward another man during an argument at a home in New Orleans, was arrested on an aggravated assault charge, the Louisiana State Police said.

• Joseph Ciaveralla, 52, and Loretta Wilhelm, 34, both of Columbia, Mo., face child abuse charges after being accused of repeatedly locking a 9-year-old boy in a closet without food and water for hours at a time and only letting him out to eat in the mornings, investigators said.

• Michael Mueller, mayor of Berlin, and Chinese Ambassador Wu Ken revealed that two 100-day-old male giant panda cubs, which were born at the Berlin Zoo and now weigh about 13 pounds each, have been named Meng Xiang and Meng Yuan -- desired dream and fulfilled dream.

• Lindsay Casperson of Kaysville, Utah, filed a lawsuit against Mississippi's Fair Commission alleging that fairgrounds workers sprayed liquid onto a 30-year-old, 40-foot-tall superslide, causing her to go airborne and injure her back.

• Joseph Vandevere, 53, of Black Mountain, N.C., faces up to five years in prison after being convicted of anonymously posting a tweet in 2018 in which he threatened to lynch a Muslim-American man who was running for a state Senate seat in Virginia, federal prosecutors said.

• Aljahon Joyner, 17, faces two murder counts as well as a feticide charge after being accused of fatally shooting a pregnant 18-year-old high school student and her boyfriend in a drug-related robbery, said police in McDonough, Ga.

• Kristen Hunter, a police spokesman in Greenville, N.C., said employees opening a Bed, Bath & Beyond store for the day discovered an uninvited guest, who turned out to be a 14-year-old runaway who had "camped out" at the store overnight after he left home.

A Section on 12/10/2019

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