STATE-BY-STATE
ALABAMA Huntsville: Researchers are trying to determine why the Sand Mountain area of northeast Alabama seems so prone to tornadoes. The University of Alabama in Huntsville says scientists and students will spend the next year studying the role that the region’s mountains and valleys play in twister formation. A release from the school said the area was affected by 49 tornadoes in the last decade.
ALASKA Anchorage: The city had its first measureable snowfall of the season and a rash of accidents along with it. Higher elevations on the eastern side of Anchorage reportedly had 5 to 6 inches of snow.
ARIZONA Tucson: The Pima County Health Department said that a fox and a bat recently tested positive for rabies.
ARKANSAS Texarkana: Police said a man was killed when he stepped into the path of a tractortrailer rig on Interstate 30.
CALIFORNIA Los Angeles: Two burglars who led authorities on a wild chase were sentenced to two years each in state prison. Prosecutors said Herschel Reynolds and Isaiah Young were involved in a burglary at a Cerritos home in April followed by a long chase through L.A. including Hollywood Boulevard, where the car stopped to do “doughnuts.”
COLORADO Pueblo: A utility with 1.3 million Colorado customers is pursuing peak hours and an option for as many as 10,000 users to get all of their energy from renewable sources. Xcel Energy and the Colorado Public Utilities Commission have reached a pending settlement that includes these options, the
Pueblo Chieftain reported.
CONNECTICUT New Haven: Yale University will be accepting more undergraduate students this year, but don’t expect it to be any easier to get in. Freshmen classes will be larger by about 200 students beginning next year under a long-planned expansion that will see the Ivy League college’s student body grow by about 15%, to 6,200.
DELAWARE Bethany Beach: The No. 1 surf fishing tag in Delaware sold for $26,000. The News
Journal reported that Jim Weller, a Lincoln businessman, secured the tag in the final bid of an auction during a barbeque competition at Delaware Seashore State Park. Weller said he purchased the tag in order to resell it — he doesn’t fish.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Federal officials said two safety inspectors had to leap out of the way of a Metro train when it exceeded temporary speed restrictions in an area where they were working.
FLORIDA Viera: Swells from Hurricane Nicole sent hundreds of baby sea turtles onto the beaches along Florida’s Space Coast. By Sunday, the Brevard Zoo Sea Turtle Healing Center had taken in 366 struggling turtles that were rescued from the beach, Florida Today reported.
GEORGIA Cumming: Twentytwo public boat ramps at Lake Lanier are now closed due to low water, WSB-TV reported.
HAWAII Wailuku: A ferry that runs between Maui and Molokai will be decommissioned by the end of the month after reporting a nearly 50% drop in ridership from January to July. The Molokai ferry service will cease its operations Oct. 28.
IDAHO Nampa: The Idaho Transportation Department’s report said Fire Chief Karl Malott was driving too fast for conditions, made an improper lane change and was inattentive in the motorcycle crash that occurred Sept. 24, KTVB-TV reported.
ILLINOIS Carlyle: The Army Corps recently ended Illinois’ lease for the nearly 300-acre South Shore State Park, the Belle
ville News-Democrat reported. The federal agency said Illinois has allowed the park to “become degraded, resulting in unsafe conditions and minimal usable recreation facilities.”
INDIANA Indianapolis: Authorities said 19 people were evacuated following an early morning fire at a senior citizen apartment complex caused by a discarded cigarette.
IOWA Des Moines: A Des Moines man pleaded guilty to murder in the death of his wife and was sentenced to life in prison, The Des Moines Register reported. Barney Fraaken, 48, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife, Amy Fraaken, in November 2015.
KANSAS Overland Park: Firefighters rescued seven people, including four children, from a burning apartment building, officials said.
KENTUCKY Florence: A woman sleeping in a trash container was dumped into a garbage truck in northern Kentucky. The woman, who was not identified, was rescued and wasn’t hurt, The Ken
tucky Enquirer reported.
LOUISIANA Baton Rouge: Residents are being asked to haul any remaining debris left from the catastrophic mid-August flooding to their curbs by Nov. 6.
MAINE Augusta: The Northern New England Rail Authority will host an open house in its new train layover facility in Brunswick. The authority will begin stowing overnight trains in the facility on Nov. 21.
MARYLAND Baltimore: Two people were shot at the same gas station near Morgan State University in the span of three days,
The Baltimore Sun reported.
MASSACHUSETTS Boston: The fourth annual Halloween Pet Parade and Costume Contest will be held Saturday at Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Pet owners are invited to dress themselves and their pets in costumes and walk around the marketplace.
MICHIGAN Ypsilanti: At the Fuller Cut barbershop, kids get a $2 discount if they read a book aloud to their haircutter, WUOM-FM reported. And barber Ryan Griffin said kids get quizzed in the chair to make sure they understood what they read.
MINNESOTA Minneapolis: Police officers Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze followed proper procedure in a confrontation that led to the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark in November and won’t face discipline, the city’s police chief announced.
MISSISSIPPI Jackson: Restoration work is about to start again at the Mississippi Capitol. Crews will soon be putting up scaffolding around the central dome of the building. A state official said this is a continuation of the $7.4 million exterior work that began two years ago.
MISSOURI St.
Louis: Police are investigating after a motorist told officers he was shot by someone who tried to run his car off of Interstate 44. Police said the 45year-old victim was shot in the leg and is stable.
MONTANA Billings: Police are investigating reports that absentee ballots have been removed from mailboxes in several neighborhoods, The Billings Gazette reported.
NEBRASKA Fort Calhoun: The nation’s smallest nuclear power plant was set to permanently shut down. Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant shutdown is only one of the first steps of a decommissioning process that could stretch on for as many as 60 years and cost more than $1 billion.
NEVADA Reno: Opponents of a Nevada mine project want a federal appeals court to override a Bureau of Land Management permit. The Great Basin Resource Watch and Western Shoshone Defense Project argued the permit for Eureka Moly, LLC violated a water protection executive order issued by former President Calvin Coolidge, the
Reno Gazette-Journal reported.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Salem: The town opened its rail trail after 20 years of planning. The Eagle
Tribune reported construction of the 1.1-mile first phase of the nearly 2-mile pedestrian and bike trail began in April.
NEW JERSEY Harmony Town
ship: State trooper Dwayne Phillips came to the rescue of a deer that appeared to be drowning in a swimming pool. Phillips grabbed the buck by its rack and pulled it from the water.
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: New Mexico’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is up for the third straight month. The Department of Workforce Solutions reports that the September rate was 6.7% as non-farm employment dropped by 2,000 jobs from September 2015.
NEW YORK Sennett: A couple returned nearly $10,000 in cash that a restaurant owner left in a shopping cart at a Tractor Supply store. The restaurant owner said she’d like to find the couple to reward them.
NORTH CAROLINA Raleigh: The State Board of Elections said 164,207 ballots were cast at early-voting sites in all 100 counties. That compares with 166,943 ballots on the first day of early voting during the 2012 presidential election. Early in-person voting continues through Nov. 5.
NORTH DAKOTA Williston: A proposed ordinance would require stores selling e-cigarettes to get the same North Dakota license as businesses that sell other tobacco products, the Wil
liston Herald reported.
OHIO Nimishillen Township: Trustees in this township near Canton are trying to resolve the fate of a private mausoleum slowly collapsing as no one cares for the remains of up to 62 people inside, The Repository reported.
OKLAHOMA Norman: Norman has taken a hard-line stance against small businesses that sell glass pipes and other products commonly associated with marijuana use, shutting down retail stores and threatening legal action against convenience stores accused of peddling drug paraphernalia, The Oklahoman reported.
OREGON Portland: The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality found asbestos at the blast site after natural gas sparked an explosion in northwest Portland, The Oregonian reported.
PENNSYLVANIA Greensburg: Fire Chief J. Edward Hutchinson announced his retirement just ahead of his 95th birthday, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. Hutchinson served more than six decades as
Greensburg ’s fire chief but has decided not to run for a 22nd term.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: Operation Stand Down Rhode Island will hold its third annual coat giveaway for veterans at the medical center on Chalkstone Avenue in Providence from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday.
SOUTH CAROLINA Columbia: Gov. Haley issued an executive order to pay state employees who missed work because their offices were closed Oct. 5-7 during Hurricane Matthew.
SOUTH DAKOTA Rapid City: The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development accused an apartment landlord of discrimination for allegedly favoring a male renter over a single woman and her teenage daughter, the Rapid City
Journal reported.
TENNESSEE Spring City: Despite construction starts and stops since 1973, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear reactor began operation Wednesday, the Knoxville News
Sentinel reported. It is the USA’s first new nuclear reactor in 20 years and came in billions of dollars over budget.
TEXAS Houston: Police said a 56-year-old man called a 911 operator to report he’s responsible for a slaying in Houston more than 30 years ago.
UTAH Salt Lake City: Fourteen Utah state parks applied to be listed as International Dark Sky Parks in an effort to promote starry nights that attract tourists. More than a fourth of Utah’s 43 state parks are pursuing dark sky certification, reported the Deseret News. Goblin Valley and Dead Horse Point were recently certified.
VERMONT Burlington: The Vermont Agency of Transportation has paid $400,000 and issued an apology to three former gay and lesbian employees who said they were harassed on the job, Burlington Free Press reported.
VIRGINIA Norfolk: A regional transportation board recommended expanding the congestion-plagued Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. Media outlets reported that if the recommendation is followed by a state transportation board in December, the span will grow from four lanes to six.
WASHINGTON Seattle: U.S. District Judge John Coughenour ordered two companies owned by a Greek shipping magnate to pay $1.5 million after a jury found that a cargo ship deliberately pumped oil-polluted water into the ocean, then repeatedly lied and falsified records in an effort to deceive inspectors with the U.S. Coast Guard.
WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: The Kanawha County Commission is joining the city, state and three other cities in the state in suing West Virginia Paving over an alleged monopoly, the Charles
ton Gazette-Mail reported.
WISCONSIN Milwaukee: Three people were killed when a vehicle ran a red light and struck an Uber vehicle early Sunday, Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel reported.
WYOMING Jackson: Three wolves in a problematic pack were targeted by wildlife officials after another attack on cattle, the Jackson Hole News and Guide reported. Wildlife Services has killed 11 of an estimated 19 wolves in the pack.