• Clarese Gainey, 65, of Gainesville, Fla., said she picked up her softball bat, braced herself, eased open the door and whacked a 300-pound man in the head after she saw him trying to break into her car, prompting him to flee and later be tracked down by a K-9 unit and arrested.
• Alfred Keating, 59, a naval commodore who served as New Zealand's senior U.S. military attache, faces up to three years in prison after being found guilty of hiding a camera in a bathroom at the nation's embassy in Washington, D.C., prosecutors said.
• Josh Bratchley, a British cave diver who helped rescue 12 soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave in Thailand, became separated from a group of divers exploring Mill Pond Cave in Jackson County, Tenn., and spent 28 hours alone in the cave before being rescued.
• Joe Schepman of Seymour, Ind., said "it's amazing to think about something this large roaming around this area" after workers installing a sewer line across his farm unearthed the fossilized bones and most of a tusk from a mastodon that likely stood about 9 feet tall.
• Cory Palka, a Los Angeles police captain, said investigators arrested five people, breaking up a band of scooter-riding thieves who broke out windows in dozens of parked cars, snatched valuables, then zipped away passing the items among them.
• Raina Jones, a disabled North Carolina woman, filed complaints after 20 handicapped parking spots near the Raleigh Kennel Club Dog Show venue at the state fairgrounds were reserved for judges, forcing her to walk over a quarter mile to attend the show.
• Lauren Worley, spokesman for a Cincinnati elementary school, said students were moved and then classes were canceled after a raccoon was seen in the building but couldn't be found, and the animal will be euthanized once it's caught.
• Sharday Thomas, 32, of Hammond, La., convicted of faking her own kidnapping and sending her ex-boss texts demanding $4,500 in ransom before she was caught by the FBI in Jackson, Miss., was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison.
• Anthony Wilson, 30, was charged with aggravated assault and other counts after being subdued by police who said he attacked a woman as she arrived for work at the state Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., throwing her to the ground and beating her, inflicting injuries including a broken nose.
A Section on 04/19/2019