50 ★ States

IOWA Iowa City: News from across the USA

ALABAMA Cullman: An underwater forest with trees as tall as 60 feet has been hampering the search for the body of a woman who was thrown off a boat in Smith Lake on July 4.

ARIZONA Phoenix: Barbie is Instagramming her way across Arizona this week. The @BarbieStyle account has partnered with Visit Arizona to showcase travel in the Grand Canyon State. Her post Wednesday shows her and a pal visiting Antelope Canyon. Before that, she posed at the internationally famous Horseshoe Bend.

ARKANSAS Little Rock: The nonprofit Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care plans to develop an online database of opioid-related overdoses in the state.

CALIFORNIA Oakland: An animal rescue group is asking for help caring for 89 baby snowy egrets and blackcrowned night herons left homeless last week after a tree fell downtown.

COLORADO Denver: Officials say greenhouse gas emissions in the state peaked in 2010 and have been in decline since.

CONNECTICUT Hartford: Prisons officials say errors by nurses at the state women’s prison have caused five inmate methadone overdoses in recent months.

DELAWARE Wilmington: Ladybug Music Festival, believed to be the country’s largest annual celebration of women in music, kicked off Thursday and continues through Friday.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washington: Protesters angered by the federal detainment of migrants at the U.S.Mexico border blocked access to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters this week. News outlets reports at least 10 sit-in demonstrators were arrested Tuesday.

FLORIDA West Palm Beach: Officials are hoping a continuous loop of children’s songs like “Baby Shark” played through the night will keep homeless people from sleeping on the patio of a city-owned rental banquet facility.

GEORGIA Savannah: The Chatham County Emergency Management Agency plans to hold a free “Citizen Hurricane Academy” this weekend.

HAWAII Kailua-Kona: A developer has agreed to cancel a planned condominium project to preserve the Banyans, a popular surfing area on Holualoa Bay.

IDAHO Pocatello: Beekeepers and maintenance workers have removed roughly 30,000 bees that built a massive hive inside the Swanson Arch, an Idaho State University landmark.

ILLINOIS Springfield: A woman who recently got a 1993 postcard from Hong Kong in her mailbox has tracked down the man who sent it to his kids more than two decades ago.

INDIANA Indianapolis: The state’s attorney general has reversed himself and decided against appealing a federal judge’s decision to block a state law that would ban a second-trimester abortion procedure.

The director of the state’s social services agency was a huge fan of the late rapper Tupac Shakur, and he frequently let his subordinates know it, before being abruptly ousted. Emails show Iowa Department of Human Services Director Jerry Foxhoven routinely sent messages to employees lauding Shakur’s music and lyrics even after at least one complained to lawmakers.

KANSAS Wichita: Authorities say a lab technician “fudged” the test results of sewage treatment plant wastewater that is dumped into the Arkansas River.

KENTUCKY Frankfort: A new list of rankings from a high-profile polling organization is giving a big red thumbs-down to Gov. Matt Bevin. Kentucky’s chief executive is the least popular in the nation among voters in their own state, according to Morning Consult’s Q2 rankings.

LOUISIANA New Orleans: A favorite local confection is making a comeback seven years after a devastating fire. Louisiana’s economic development office announced Thursday that Hubig’s Pies will be produced again next year in suburban Jefferson Parish.

MAINE Kennebunkport: A curious visitor to the Seashore Trolley Museum that resembled a white throw pillow or perhaps a lost toupee turned out to be a rare albino porcupine, staff have determined.

MARYLAND Baltimore: An audit says a possible infusion of $3.2 million in state funds and savings from a shortened season may not be enough to save the cash-strapped Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

MASSACHUSETTS Cape Cod: A citizens group is calling for eliminating federal protections for seals as officials seek ways to protect beachgoers from great white sharks.

MICHIGAN Traverse City: Three historic Great Lakes lighthouses owned by the federal government are going on the auction block. Their lighting mechanisms will continue aiding navigation and remain the U.S. Coast Guard’s property.

MINNESOTA St. Paul: The developers of a proposed copper-nickel mine near the Boundary Waters plan to use a potentially safer dry method of storing mine waste instead of the kind of wet tailings pond more common in the industry.

MISSISSIPPI Jackson: The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi is asking 16 cities to get rid of local laws penalizing panhandling, calling them unconstitutional.

MISSOURI Kansas City: The U.S. Department of Agriculture now says less than 40% of the researchers whose jobs are being transferred from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City will make the Midwest move.

MONTANA Billings: Wildlife officials say evidence of invasive Asian clams has been found for the first time in a state water body.

NEBRASKA Lincoln: A team of University of Nebraska-Lincoln plant scientists and biological systems engineers has built a robot that can quickly phenotype corn hybrids, the Lincoln Journal Star reports.

NEVADA Reno: Lake Tahoe is almost entirely full. For weeks, the second deepest lake in the U.S. has been within an inch of its maximum allowed surface elevation.

NEW HAMPSHIRE Milan: The Nansen Ski Jump has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The ski jump was the largest in the U.S. when it was built in 1938.

NEW JERSEY East Newark: Famed restaurant Tops Diner will soon be demolished and rebuilt in the same spot, at nearly three times its size.

NEW MEXICO Santa Fe: Thousands of small-dollar contributions have helped propel former CIA operative Valerie Plame to the financial lead in a crowded Democratic primary for an open congressional seat in 2020.

NEW YORK Vernon: Woodstock 50 organizers have applied again for a permit to hold their festival at an upstate horse track, a day after losing an appeal for a prior denial.

NORTH CAROLINA Hatteras: Sea turtles have set a fresh record for nesting at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: The state has sued the federal government to recover the $38 million the state spent policing protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

OHIO Columbus: The Republicanled Legislature has passed a measure that would allow farmers and university researchers to grow industrial hemp and would legalize sales of hemp-derived CBD oil.

OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: Oklahoma County has joined over 50 other cities and counties in the state to prosecute drug companies for damages caused by the opioid epidemic.

OREGON Keizer: Four scorpions were brought to the Keizer Fire District after a woman found the arachnids inside a Red Vines licorice container near a playground Wednesday. District Chief Jeff Cowan says they were confirmed as Pacific Northwest forest scorpions, a nonaggressive species native to the Willamette Valley.

PENNSYLVANIA Wilkes-Barre: City officials have removed a monument that included a recently added brick sponsored by a Ku Klux Klan affiliate.

RHODE ISLAND Cranston: The state’s prison population is continuing to shrink as the percentage of older inmates rises.

SOUTH CAROLINA Greenville: The Greenville County Council has moved forward on a roughly $40 million plan to relocate state offices from expensive real estate downtown to a pair of office buildings near Haywood Mall.

SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: Dozens of children up to age 5 in the Sioux Falls School District and five rural districts now have access to mental health support thanks to a $2 million grant given to Southeastern Behavioral Healthcare.

TENNESSEE Memphis: If famed local dive bar Earnestine and Hazel’s didn’t have enough haunted lore swirling around it already, bones of an unknown origin tumbling out of the walls and landing at the feet of construction crews serve as one more paranormal episode the historic bar can now tout.

TEXAS Austin: A former judge who served on the state’s highest criminal court has denounced President Donald Trump in announcing her decision to leave the Republican Party. The Austin American-Statesman reports retired Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Elsa Alcala made the announcement on Facebook.

UTAH Salt Lake City: Wildlife officials say reports of bears coming down from the mountains and rummaging through backyards and campgrounds throughout the state have more than doubled this year.

VERMONT Burlington: The Vermont Mozart Festival will not have a summer concert series this year.

VIRGINIA Richmond: A limited-edition license plate is being offered to celebrate the University of Virginia men’s basketball team’s 2019 national championship.

WASHINGTON Olympia: The state Transportation Commission is expected to vote this December on a proposal to replace the gas tax with a pay-per-mile system.

WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: A permanent prescription drug disposal site is being placed at the Capitol.

WISCONSIN Madison: Gov. Tony Evers has signed a bill creating new tiers of sign language interpreters.

WYOMING Thermopolis: The skeleton of a cousin of the velociraptor is on display at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. The Rock Springs RocketMiner reports the museum opened a new permanent exhibit featuring the fossils and full-size reproduction of the dinosaur known as Lori.