News from across the USA
ALABAMA Huntsville: Ronnie Lee Neeley, 64, was charged in a shooting that injured a 16-yearold boy playing a common teenage prank, AL.com reported. Neeley turned himself in on charges of second-degree assault, discharging a weapon into an occupied vehicle and two counts of menacing, according to DeKalb County Sheriff Jimmy Harris. Harris said the teen and several friends were trying to roll a neighbor’s yard with toilet paper.
ALASKA Fairbanks: Eielson Junior and Senior High School won the Follett Challenge, a national competition that rewards schools with exceptional educational programs, newsminer.com reported. The school won for its entry “Aiming High at Eielson,” which details how the school partners with the Air Force to provide internships for students to learn with Air Force personnel.
ARIZONA Tempe: Tests of a new hydraulic dam at Tempe Town Lake will delay the lake’s reopening longer than the city had hoped, The Arizona Republic reported.
ARKANSAS Bentonville: Stephen James Duwel, 51, a former Northwest Arkansas swim coach, was sentenced to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to sex crimes involving children, Arkansas-Online reported.
CALIFORNIA San Jose: Hasib Bin Golamrabbi, 22, and his 17year-old brother were arrested in connection with the slaying of their parents, who were found shot to death inside their home beside a message that read, “Sorry, my first kill was clumsy,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
COLORADO Boulder: Dynel Lane, 36, of Longmont was sentenced Friday to 100 years in prison for cutting a baby from a stranger’s womb, KUSA-TV reported.
CONNECTICUT Waterbury: Jahana Hayes, 43, who considered dropping out of school as a teenage mother, has been named the National Teacher of the Year, the Hartford Courant reported. She’s a social studies teacher at John F. Kennedy High.
DELAWARE Cape Henlopen: Delaware State Parks and Cape Henlopen State Park kicked off a fundraising campaign to raise money for new camping cabins at the popular beach vacation spot,
The Daily Times reported. The park wants to add additional cabins after realizing the popularity of the original six cabins last summer.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Metrobus operators racked up almost 2,300 traffic camera tickets in the past six years, The Washington Post reported.
FLORIDA Pensacola: Billy Joe Pitts, 47, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for leaving the scene of a March 2015 accident where pedestrian Betty Ann McNeeley was struck and killed, the Pensacola News Journal reported.
GEORGIA Atlanta: Lisa Kinsel, manager of volunteer services at Children’s Health Care of Atlanta at Scottish Rite, said service dogs help ease the anxiety and make hospital visits more comfortable for children, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
HAWAII Honolulu: The biggest dengue fever outbreak ever recorded in the state appears to be over, Gov. Ige said. The outbreak started in September, and sickened a confirmed 264 people, Hawaii News Now reported. The last case was reported on March 17. The outbreak started in September and sickened a confirmed 264 people.
IDAHO Bingham County: A man killed in accident earlier this week was driving a stolen truck. It was the third vehicle he had stolen that day, KIFI-TV reported.
ILLINOIS Chicago: Deadmau5 and Steve Aoki will headline the Spring Awakening festival in June, the Chicago Tribune reported. More than 100 electronic music acts are scheduled to play on five stages June 10-12 at Addams/Medill Park.
INDIANA Indianapolis: Hendricks Commercial Properties LLC remains interested in building a $259.6 million mixed-use project at the site of the former Coca-Cola bottling plant downtown and will continue to vie for it no matter how long it takes,
The Indianapolis Star reported. Indianapolis Public Schools, which owns the site, had postponed selecting a developer to give Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration time to get involved in the process.
IOWA Le Mars: Travor Koontz, 22, of Remsen, faces operating while intoxicated charges after he allegedly drove his car into a house early Friday, the Sioux City Journal reported.
KANSAS Wichita: A woman was found guilty in the death of another woman who was hit by an SUV here following an argument at a party, The Wichita Eagle reported.
KENTUCKY Louisville: About 9,000 people in Kentucky were expected to lose food stamps Sunday under a change in federal policy that limits aid going to people who have no children and are considered able to work, The Courier-Journal reported.
LOUISIANA New Orleans: A sinkhole swallowed part of Constantinople Street after a band of heavy rains passed over the city, The Times-Picayune reported.
MAINE Augusta: Maine’s spring turkey hunt begins on Monday. Hunters are allowed to harvest only two bearded wild turkeys in the spring.
MARYLAND Berlin: Police charged Bakeel Mofleh Alsayidi with transporting untaxed cigarettes after a traffic stop led them to seize 1,292 cartons in Berlin, The Daily Times reported. The value of the cigarettes is $83,334 and a tax loss of $25,840 to the state of Maryland.
MASSACHUSETTS Boston: Organizers scrapped plans for an IndyCar race here, The Boston Globe reported. The race was scheduled for the Labor Day weekend in the city’s Seaport District.
MICHIGAN Bay City: Restoration work is planned for the bronze Doughboy Statue in a Bay City park leading up to the 100th anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War I in April 1917, The Bay City Times reported. Madden Brady, 14, of Essexville, elected state president of Children of the American Revolution in February, is seeking to raise $5,000 for the project.
MINNESOTA St. Paul: The city’s east side is getting a new middle school in fall 2019, the Pioneer Press reported. The school board OK’d that $65 million plan and numerous other infrastructure projects worth a total of $484 million over five years.
MISSISSIPPI Mantachie: Tim Edge, 37, and the horse he was riding were struck and killed by lightning, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported.
MISSOURI Jefferson City: Gov. Nixon signed a mid-year increase to Missouri’s budget that adds more than $460 million in spending to the state’s current $26 billion budget.
MONTANA West Glacier: The Going-to-the-Sun Road is open to vehicles as far as Avalanche for people who want to hike and bicycle the road before it opens to vehicles, the Great Falls Tribune reported.
NEBRASKA Norfolk: OCT Pipe, a Texas-based pipe manufacturer, officially broke ground on a new plant, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. The 1-million-squarefoot plant is expected to cost $130 million and provide about 180 permanent jobs.
NEVADA Las Vegas: The Clark County School District is looking to fill more than 2,000 open teaching positions with an accelerated teacher training program for military veterans and their spouses, the Las Vegas Review
Journal reported.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: All CVS stores across the state will now sell the overdose reversal drug Narcan without requiring a prescription, following a move by Rite Aid in December, New Hampshire Public Radio reported.
NEW JERSEY Cape May: The U.S. Coast Guard rescued three men from a life raft after their recreational fishing boat sank 6 miles off Cape May, The Press
of Atlantic City reported. The Coast Guard said the 42-foot Last Stand collided with the 78-foot tug Dean Reinauer. The captain of the Last Stand called for help before the ship went down.
NEW MEXICO Santa Fe: The Santa Fe Opera’s 2017 season runs June 30 through Aug. 26 and will open with Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss II.
NEW YORK Whitney Point: A loose bull was tranquilized after its roaming forced a brief lockdown of Whitney Point High School, the Press & Sun Bulletin reported. After the bull was found and tranquilized, Mayor Ryan Reynolds tweeted a photo of the animal and said, “Everything can go back to normal.”
NORTH CAROLINA Durham: Interim Police Chief Larry Smith said police were pulling out all stops to address recent violence that left two people dead and nine others with gunshot injuries,
The News & Observer reported. “The Durham Police Department has all hands on deck on this,” Smith said.
NORTH DAKOTA Minot: The city is installing the energy-efficient LED street lights in connection and Xcel Energy is pursuing an effort to upgrade its highpressure sodium street lights with the new LED units, too, the Minot Daily News reported.
OHIO Sandusky: Officials at Ohio’s Cedar Point amusement park have broken ground on a $23.5 million youth-sports complex, a venture between Cedar Point, Erie County and the Georgia-based Sports Force Parks, the
Detroit Free Press reported. It includes a sports center capable of hosting major amateur competitive events in several sports and is scheduled to open in spring 2017.
OKLAHOMA Sapulpa: A 40year-old man accused of igniting a wildfire in 2012 that burned nearly 60,000 acres and destroyed hundreds of homes in Creek County was arrested, the Tulsa World reported.
OREGON Aloha: KOIN-TV reported that Cashly Herman,24, gave birth in the back of her brother’s car. She had planned to have a C-section next week, but her baby Ryan had other plans.
PENNSYLVANIA Pittsburgh: Authorities are investigating the death of a woman killed in a crash near here in a vehicle she had reportedly stolen earlier.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: Rhode Island has been awarded nearly $1.25 million to provide re-employment and eligibility assessments to people who are unemployed.
SOUTH CAROLINA Charleston: Less than four months after leaving office as the longtime mayor, Joe Riley Jr. was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame, WCSC-TV reported. Trustees said they chose Riley because of his unprecedented 10 terms as mayor.
SOUTH DAKOTA Rapid City: The South Dakota Department of Agriculture is looking for grant applications for the Volunteer Fire Assistance program. The department says applications should be postmarked no later than June 1.
TENNESSEE Gatlinburg: An online National Park Service lottery to win one of 1,800 parking passes to see the synchronous firefly light show near the former Elkmont community in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is going on until 8 p.m. Monday, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. While wooing the ladies, males of this species of lightning bugs flash at the same time, one of about a half dozen areas in the USA where such a phenomenon happens. Register at Recreation.gov; search for firefly.
TEXAS Austin: The average pay of the six university presidents and chancellors in Texas has increased from $565,000 in 2012 to $955,000 in 2016, The Texas Tribune reported.
UTAH Logan: Authorities say a man assisting a youth group on a rock climb in Logan Canyon fell and died.
VERMONT Montpelier: State officials announced that the Amtrak Vermonter trains are launching a new service allowing bikes to be loaded onto trains. Officials say they’re hoping adding the feature to the service between Washington, D.C., and St. Albans with stops in between will promote bike tourism in the state.
VIRGINIA Richmond: The zoo welcomed 13 new cheetah cubs to its growing cheetah family, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
WASHINGTON Verlot: The Big Four Ice Caves reopened. KINGTV reported the trail was closed last July when a collapse killed Annalisa Santana, 34, and injured five other hikers.
WEST VIRGINIA Institute: Roslyn Clark-Artis, who interviewed to become the next president of West Virginia State University, withdrew her candidacy, the school announced. Clark-Artis reiterated her commitment to Florida Memorial University, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
WISCONSIN Milwaukee: The Show Dome at the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory here reopened after undergoing repairs, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
WYOMING Gillette: The Gillette News Record reported that Heidi Jo Huggins, 33, pleaded guilty to stealing from Wyoming Downs. Prosecutors say Wyoming Downs reported more than $59,000 missing from two safes.