• Cyrus Habib, a Democrat who is Washington state's lieutenant governor, declined to preside at Gov. Jay Inslee's State of the State speech, saying he was concerned over policies that could have allowed people to take concealed weapons to a joint session of the Legislature.
• Felix Coffman, 52, of Palm Coast, Fla., who stopped to help a 27-year-old Daytona Beach man whose car caught fire after he crashed into a tree, got out of his pickup only to have the wrecked vehicle's driver jump into his truck and drive off, sheriff's deputies said.
• Frank Koloski, a rodeo promoter in Anchorage, Alaska, said one of his cows, a 3-year-old named Betsy, which has spent six months since its escape wandering trails on the city's outskirts, has become very "self-sufficient" and just "doesn't want to be caught."
• Bary Habrock, school superintendent in Omaha, Neb., said elementary school Principal Jennifer Sinclair, placed on leave after prohibiting Christmas and other holiday symbols at her school, was reassigned to a different district job after a Christian group threatened legal action over the ban.
• Lawrence Browder, the chancery court clerk in Humphreys County, Miss., was indicted and arrested on charges that he overpaid himself and created fake cases to drive up his share of court fees to collect more than $237,000, prosecutors said.
• Autumn King, 20, of Austin, Texas, faces a manslaughter charge after police said she accidentally shot and killed her boyfriend when she pointed a rifle at him while posing as he took a photo to post online.
• David Callisch, who agreed to rent a studio apartment in San Jose, Calif., for $1,500 per month so two cats could have a place to live after their owner moved away to college, said he feels bad wasting valuable living space on animals during a housing shortage but wanted to help a friend.
• Jake Archer, with the FBI's Art Crime Team in Philadelphia, said a gunpowder container fashioned from an ox horn in 1757 and stolen more than 60 years ago from a Detroit-area museum was recovered after being tracked to an estate auction in Pennsylvania.
• Mickey Sparks, 64, and Patricia Laws, 44, originally charged with child abuse for locking an autistic 10-year-old girl in a cage at a home in Washington County, Tenn., both received probation after pleading guilty to child neglect, prosecutors said.
A Section on 01/16/2019