In the news

Elisabeth Malloy, a 43-year-old Utah woman who survived an avalanche while skiing in the mountains near Salt Lake City and suffered frostbite in her toes and fingers, said in a news conference that she felt a “strange serenity” while trapped beneath the snow before she became unconscious.

Craig Slee, 42, who implied he was a member of the Taliban on a Facebook page, was sentenced by a British court to five years in prison for posting gruesome beheading videos on the social-networking site.

Ricardo Marquis Davis, a 35-year-old Florida man, is being held on aggravated-battery charges after police say he bit off his girlfriend’s left thumb during a fight while he was driving her to work.

Coral Li Rape, 23, a Texas woman who police say was pulled over after cruising down the street in the wrong direction and then danced the moonwalk when asked to perform a standard sobriety test, was arrested with a blood-alcohol level twice the legal limit and faces a misdemeanor charge of driving while intoxicated.

Jana Winter, a Fox News reporter who cited unnamed law enforcement sources in describing a notebook that theater shooting suspect James Holmes gave to his psychiatrist in a July 25 article, has been ordered by a judge to testify in Colorado about who gave her the information.

Stephen Graham, a 47-year-old British professor who specializes in cities and urban life at Newcastle University in England, was found guilty of using a screwdriver to scrawl inoffensive words such as “very silly,” “really wrong” and “arbitrary” into the paintwork of luxury vehicles including a Mercedes, an Audi and a Volvo, an act he previously blamed on a bad reaction to alcohol, antibiotics and prescription drugs.

Robert London, a 49-year-old Northern California man who authorities say was arrested in nothing but a trench coat and socks after a break-in at a home in San Andreas, told investigators responding to a burglary call by the homeowner that he had been using the sauna at the house, which he thought was vacant.

Sherry Appleton, a Democratic Washington state lawmaker, withdrew a bill limiting self-defense rights after saying she received threats by telephone and e-mail, adding that she introduced House Bill 1012 because “I was so appalled by the Trayvon Martin shooting” last February.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/21/2013

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