• Amanda Winchel, a manager at a Kmart store in Springfield, Mo., said many customers who put Christmas gifts on layaway don't believe her when she calls to let them know that an anonymous couple spent about $30,000 to pay for 203 layaways, including clothes, toys and bicycles.
• Dolly Parton, the country music singer and songwriter, said a star-studded telethon that she organized raised about $9 million in pledges to the Dollywood Foundation's My People Fund that will be used to help Tennessee residents who lost homes in recent wildfires.
• Oscar Martinez, 81, who started out as a busboy in 1955 and is now a cook at Disneyland's Carnation Cafe on Main Street, U.S.A., is celebrating his 60th anniversary working at the Anaheim, Calif., theme park, saying he has no plans to retire.
• Crystal Garlin, 32, of Fort Myers, Fla., was arrested on a battery charge after police said she grabbed a knife and cut her boyfriend on the wrist during an argument because he wouldn't pay to have her hair and nails done for her birthday.
• William Campbell, 56, was charged with driving while intoxicated and other counts after failing a field sobriety test after police in South Brunswick, N.J., said they found whiskey and vodka bottles when they stopped Campbell as he drove a backhoe.
• Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., said the school will spend $1 million to open a state-of-the-art rifle, pistol and shotgun shooting range on campus next fall to show its commitment to promote gun ownership and firearm sports.
• Sandra Hinkle, a councilman in North York, Pa., who, during an argument at a council meeting over the borough's budget, told volunteer firefighter Christopher Wilhelm that she would beat him over the head with his prosthetic leg, has resigned.
• Krishna Nadalall, 45, said his mother, Bayban, was reunited with $5,000 in cash meant for mortgage payments that she accidentally threw in the trash after he and three other sanitation workers sifted loads of trash at a Long Island, N.Y., transfer station.
• Shirley Gibson and her husband, Harrison, of Washington, D.C., who lost their police officer son in a 1997 ambush shooting, said they have hosted their 20th and final Christmas turkey dinner for police families, an event that grew from 15 people in its first year to nearly 400 this year.
A Section on 12/16/2016