• Sara Shaw, a city commissioner in Kissimmee, Fla., was arrested on theft and fraud charges after authorities said she and her boyfriend illegally moved into a dead woman's home and lived there for two years before being caught when they tried to pay the property-tax bill.
• Michael Fenerty, a fifth-grader who ditched school for a chance to meet Bruce Springsteen at a Philadelphia book-signing, got the rocker to sign a pre-typed note so the boy could explain the absence to his principal.
• Kathy Gross, a former postal worker from Blountville, Tenn., pleaded guilty to an obstruction charge and now faces prison after postal inspectors found nearly 2,700 pieces of undelivered mail in her home.
• Warren Simms said he plans to fight a $75 littering ticket issued to his 91-year-old sister, a dementia patient, in Washington, D.C., by a city inspector who found five garbage bags in front of her rowhouse where she no longer lives.
• Jordin Phipps, 8, of Garland, Texas, a third-grader who gave a passionate speech about wanting to attend the University of North Texas that was posted on social media by her mother, has been awarded a $10,000 scholarship by the university.
• Ryan Turk, 14, a student from Dumfries, Va., faces a November trial date on charges including petty larceny after he was accused of cutting in line to grab a 65-cent container of milk that he said he forgot to pick up when he first went through the lunch line.
• Norma Canales, 41, of Culpeper, Va., was charged with reckless driving and driving without a license after, police said, 20-year-old Sindy Gonzalez fell to her death while trying to hold down a mattress the two women had put on top of a van so they could move it.
• Gregory Logan, 59, of St. John, New Brunswick, and a retired Canadian Mountie, pleaded guilty to 10 money-laundering counts for smuggling 250 spiral narwhal whale tusks valued at $1.5 million to $3 million into Maine in false compartments in his vehicle.
• Bill Bender, mayor of Robinson, N.D., and co-owner of Hanson's Bar, said patrons raised $350 to buy the trademark proclaiming the town as North America's geographic center, upsetting the trademark's former owner, the neighboring town of Rugby, which let the trademark lapse about 20 years ago.
A Section on 10/01/2016