STATE-BY-STATE

News from across the USA

ALABAMA Auburn: Trustees have authorized Auburn University to sell a property used by the School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences, The Opelika-Auburn News reports. Officials say the U.S. Department of Agriculture has expressed interest in the property to expand its fisheries research program.

ALASKA Kodiak: Kodiak officials are having a public-use crane installed downtown, The Kodiak Daily Mirror reports. The crane, something boaters have asked about for years, will be placed at Oscar’s Dock, possibly by the end of December.

ARIZONA Phoenix: Maricopa County sheriff’s officials say three malnourished horses were seized from a woman who says she was relying on transients to take care of them.

ARKANSAS Little Rock: A Census Bureau survey says the percentage of Arkansas residents living below the poverty line is shrinking. The state ranked 44th in the nation with a more than 17% poverty rate last year, down from 47th with a 19% rate in 2015, The Arkansas DemocratGazette reports.

CALIFORNIA Rocklin: The board of the Rocklin Academy has voted to keep its literature policies following controversy over a book about a transgender child. A teacher read the book to a kindergarten class, The Sacramento Bee reports.

COLORADO Denver: Prosecutors say a former Colorado caseworker falsely reported interviewing victims, family members or witnesses in 12 cases of alleged child abuse or neglect. Richelle Schultz faces forgery and other charges.

CONNECTICUT Hartford: MGM Resorts International is planningn a $675 million waterfront casino in Bridgeport. The project would compete with two casinos owned by Native American tribes who say they have exclusive casino development rights in Connecticut.

DELAWARE Wilmington: The adult obesity rate in Delaware has more than doubled in recent decades, The News Journal reports. The state’s obesity rate is about 30%.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: A new website (www.66expresslanes.org) offers Metro Washington commuters who use I-66 inside the Capital Beltway answers about pending toll lanes. That stretch has been off limits to solo drivers since it opened.

FLORIDA Lake Worth: Authorities say a Florida prisoner who was evacuated ahead of Hurricane Irma was critically injured when he jumped from a bus taking him back to a Florida City facility. Authorities say the inmate climbed through a window and fell to the road.

GEORGIA Macon: A teenager is practicing for his first Rubik’s Cube competition this weekend in Marietta. Hassan Harclerode Jr., a 10th-grader at Central High in Macon, has cut his puzzle solving time from two hours when he bought his first Rubik’s Cube two months ago to about 40 seconds now.

HAWAII Honolulu: Six NASA-backed research subjects who lived in a Mars-like habitat on a remote Hawaii volcano emerged from isolation last weekend to feast on fresh tropical fruit and egg strata. They’d been eating mostly freeze-dried food since January in a psychological impact study of long-term space travel.

IDAHO Boise: A federal judge is holding the Atlanta Gold mining company in contempt of court for

allowing arsenic and iron to enter a tributary of the Middle Fork of the Boise River.

ILLINOIS Chicago: Chicago Shakespeare Theater on the city’s Navy Pier has started performances on a new third stage. The inaugural performance at The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare was Tuesday: James Thierrée’s The Toad Knew.

INDIANA Lafayette: Duke Energy says a power line fell on Interstate 65 this week after an excavator snagged it in a work zone, The Journal & Courier reports. Traffic was brought to a standstill until it was deemed safe for utility crews to remove the fallen line.

IOWA Des Moines: The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is warning residents about callers who demand money to take care of outstanding arrest warrants. The scam includes telling victims that they need to pay to avoid arrest.

KANSAS Lawrence: The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is refusing to release booking photos of some people accused of child sex crimes. Officials say the photos could be used to identify victims, The Lawrence Journal-World reports.

KENTUCKY Leitchfield: Police are seeking a man who broke into a funeral home and stole items belonging to a man awaiting burial, WYMT-TV reports. Surveillance video shows the suspect going in Watson and Hunt Funeral Home in Leitchfield and taking the dead man’s clothes and jewelry.

LOUISIANA New Orleans: The Louisiana Supreme Court has awarded former Jonesboro Mayor Leslie Thompson a new trial for allegedly denying a state auditor access to city financial records. The court also overturned Thompson’s convictions of using city money to pay benefits to ineligible people.

MAINE Brunswick: The Navy plans to expand a search for potential chemical contamination at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station. Officials will meet Thursday to discuss testing for perfluorinated

compounds, or PFCs, The Portland Press Herald reports.

MARYLAND Ocean City: A dozen people face charges in a human trafficking probe, The

Daily Times reports. Ocean City police made the arrests over three days last week. Most of the charges allege prostitution.

MASSACHUSETTS Boston: A man dressed as a clown is running for City Council, The Boston

Herald reports. Pat Payaso will be on the November ballot with seven other candidates for an at-large seat. Payaso, which means clown in Spanish, dons a rainbow wig, red nose and clown makeup in campaign photos.

MICHIGAN Detroit: State police have temporarily stopped patrolling part of Detroit after a trooper fired his Taser at a teenager last month before the boy died in an ATV crash, The Detroit News reports. The death of Damon Grimes, 15, prompted protests and a $50 million lawsuit by his family.

MINNESOTA Cass Lake: The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe has a $3 million federal grant to construct a veterans cemetery in Cass Lake. The Department of Veterans Affairs says the cemetery will serve nearly 3,000 tribal veterans and their families.

MISSISSIPPI Jackson: State health officials confirm four new cases of West Nile virus, bringing Mississippi’s total so far this year to 51. Two of the victims died.

MISSOURI St. Joseph: A company has agreed to pay $5 million to settle claims that its butter flavoring chemicals harmed the lungs of a Missouri worker who handled the product, The St. Joseph

News-Press reports.

MONTANA Billings: A school bus taking students on a field trip collided head-on with a pickup truck this week, killng both drivers. The Montana Highway Patrol says four eighth-graders on the bus were injured along with an adult chaperone, The Billings

Gazette reports.

NEBRASKA Schuyler: Colfax County officials say they’re seeing more juveniles driving without a proper license or permit, the

Columbus Telegram reports. Parents of offending minors could face charges.

NEVADA Las Vegas: Investigations are ongoing after a police officer used pepper spray to break up a brawl between players at a high school football game in Henderson. Authorities are unaware of any injuries being reported.

NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord:

State Police say a tractor-trailer rig hauling about 60,000 pounds of trash overturned early Tuesday

at the merger point of I-93/393, spilling most of the garbage.

NEW JERSEY Saddle River: Police say a pack of coyotes surrounded a dog walker in this New Jersey town last week and tried to snatch the dog. The pack of about five coyotes ran off when a passing motorist honked the horn.

NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: Astronomers are using huge dish antennas in the New Mexico desert for a radio search of the cosmos. Officials expect to turn up supernovae, gamma ray bursts and other things missed by visible-light telescopes.

NEW YORK Syracuse: A police substation at Syracuse’s Skiddy Park has been hit by gunfire more than three dozen times since its part-time opening in June. Officials say no one has been injured,

The Post-Standard reports.

NORTH CAROLINA Greensboro: Two charter schools are approved to open in Greensboro next year, The News & Record reports. The Next Generation Academy and the Experiential School of Greensboro will raise to 11 the number of Guilford County charter schools.

NORTH DAKOTA

Fargo: Potato production in North Dakota dropped 22% last year from 2015. Officials say decreases in planted acres, harvested acres and average yield all contributed to the drop. The value of the 2016 crop was $199 million.

OHIO Akron: The owner of an Akron home where four people died in a fire last December is settling a liability lawsuit for $360,000, Cleveland.com reports. The suit said the rental property lacked smoke detectors.

OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City:

An audit found that test results were repeatedly altered for an adult basic education program at Oklahoma City Community College. The audit found that six students selected for review had scan sheet alterations, The Oklahoman reports.

OREGON Salem: As of Oct. 1, Oregon drivers can be pulled over for not only texting and talking on cellphones, but also for navigating, using social media and any other “hands-on” cellphone or electronics use, The Statesman

Journal reports.

PENNSYLVANIA Abington: A driver who ran into a student distracted by Facetiming while crossing a street near her high school is charged with vehicular assault. Prosecutors say James Clark IV was driving 46 mph in a 25 mph zone Aug. 23 when his car hit the 14-year-old girl, who remains hospitalized.

RHODE ISLAND Cranston: A set of rainbow-colored church doors reading “God’s doors are open to all” was vandalized in Cranston, The Providence Journal reports.

SOUTH CAROLINA Columbia:

The retiring CEO of Santee Cooper opposes selling pieces of an abandoned nuclear power project. Lonnie Carter says the reactors will be built someday. The state-owned utility and South Carolina Electric & Gas abandoned the project July 31.

SOUTH DAKOTA Aberdeen: A weekend water line break flooded businesses in the Super City Plaza shopping center in Aberdeen, The

American News reports. Several businesses were forced to temporarily close or relocate.

TENNESSEE Nashville: Gov. Bill Haslam is reinstating food stamp work requirements for most Tennessee counties starting Feb. 1. That requirement was waived in 2008 amid the recession.

TEXAS Dallas: The Dallas Independent School District is researching historical figures to determine if their slavery or Confederacy ties should lead to a campus name change, The Dallas

Morning News reports. One change already recommended is Stonewall Jackson.

UTAH Salt Lake City: The husband of a woman who died in the Weber County Jail has filed a wrongful death lawsuit. A state medical examiner’s report attributed the May 2016 death of Marion Herrera to narcotics withdrawal and dehydration, The

Standard-Examiner reports.

VERMONT Middlebury: The U.S. Forest Service says the Middlebury Ranger District Office for the Green Mountain National Forest is closing next week.

VIRGINIA Lexington: The Virginia church that Robert E. Lee attended after the Civil War will no longer be named for the Confederate general. Leaders of R.E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church voted this week to return to the parish’s original name, Grace Episcopal Church, The Richmond

Times-Dispatch reports.

WASHINGTON Seattle: An ivory dealer will serve six months in prison after pleading guilty to smuggling charges four years ago and then going undercover to help authorities prosecute a wildlife smuggler, The Seattle

Times reports. David Boone’s 2013 case stayed sealed during his undercover work.

WEST VIRGINIA Charleston:

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection says it’s saving about $42,000 a year on energy costs by switching to LED from fluorescent light bulbs at the agency’s Kanawha City headquarters.

WISCONSIN Rhinelander: The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin expects to sell its largest amount of timber since at least the mid-1990s, WJFW-TV reports. An anticipated sales total of 123 million board feet by the end of the fiscal year would mark the fifth annual increase in a row for the forest.

WYOMING Riverton: Seventeen wild horses and a wild burro found new homes after getting gentleness training by Wyoming Honor Farm inmates,

The Ranger reports. Winning bids by adopters ranged from $125 to $2,700. Adoptions are held twice yearly.