STATE-BY-STATE Boise: NEW MEXICO Santa Fe: The

News from across the USA

ALABAMA Birmingham: A former Huntsville doctor once considered the nation’s most prolific Medicare prescriber of opioid painkillers has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Shelinder Aggarwal pleaded guilty to illegally prescribing controlled substances and conducting at least $9.5 million in health care fraud.

ALASKA Juneau: Alaska Gov. Bill Walker has issued a disaster declaration for two Bering Sea communities hit by storms earlier this winter. The storms brought hurricane-force winds, extreme cold and storm surge.

ARIZONA Phoenix: Chip-making giant Intel says it will finally complete a multi-billion dollar Arizona plant announced in 2011. The Chandler plant was built and then left vacant by the company after the chip market changed.

ARKANSAS Fort Smith: Fort Smith’s Board of Directors has terminated the city’s contract with two partners to construct a softball sports complex, The

Southwest Times Record reports. The directors cite a failure to meet deadlines.

CALIFORNIA Fresno: California water regulators are considering whether to extend what are now largely symbolic conservation measures lingering from the drought. Some officials believe it’s time that Gov. Jerry Brown ended the emergency drought rules.

COLORADO Durango: Durango voters will decide in April whether their water should continue to be fluoridated, The Durango

Herald reports.

CONNECTICUT Mystic: A Connecticut woman who suffered permanent injuries when she was attacked by a pit bull at a petfriendly hotel has reached a $300,000 settlement with the hotel’s owner, The Day reports. The woman has disfigurements and limited use of her right arm.

DELAWARE Dover: Delaware’s environmental secretary halted commercial and recreational harvesting of shellfish in the Delaware Bay for 21 days after a sewage spill in the St. Jones River, which feeds into the bay.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: A man pleaded guilty last week to a federal charge stemming from a 911 call he made last summer that falsely claimed numerous bombs were set to go off at Union Station in Washington. James Cherry’s call led to the evacuation of the station and disruption of train service.

FLORIDA Orlando: The public defender for the Orlando area is reviewing almost 2,000 cases following the reassignment of a sheriff ’s office fingerprint expert because of mistakes.

GEORGIA Atlanta: Georgia lawmakers are moving to extend a tax on hospitals that would allow the state to draw $600 million in federal support for Medicaid. Gov. Nathan Deal has called the extension a priority for the session.

HAWAII Honolulu: Hawaii is exploring setting up “safe zones” for homeless people to camp. Considerations include allowing people to lease their driveways for people to live in cars or tents and allowing counties to set up parks with mobile homes and shipping containers.

IDAHO A decades old fight over appropriate Indian gaming is back before Idaho lawmakers. The measure would ban lucrative video gaming terminals at tribe casinos.

ILLINOIS East St. Louis: Illinois Community College Board money will reopen an East St. Louis library that was closed due to the state’s lack of a budget, The Belle

ville News Democrat reports.

INDIANA Bedford: The Hoosier National Forest has developed an interactive story map featuring the historic Buffalo Trace’s route across southern Indiana. The sites include historic Native American villages, forts, and trading posts that have disappeared from the landscape.

IOWA Cedar Falls: A former dance director accused of stealing from the University of Northern Iowa was given probation. Daniel Wells made an Alford plea to a reduced theft charge.

KANSAS Topeka: Kansas lawmakers may allow Sedgwick County voters one more chance to put slot machines at the closed Wichita Greyhound Park, The

Wichita Eagle reports. Owner Phil Ruffin shut down the track after voters narrowly rejected slot machines in 2007.

KENTUCKY Bowling Green: A man told police he was “moved by the message” before stabbing his father at a church service. The

Bowling Green Daily News reports that Ethan Andrew Buckley pleaded guilty but mentally ill to first-degree assault.

LOUISIANA Meraux: No injuries were reported in a fire last week at the Valero refinery in Meraux, about 12 miles from New Orleans, WVUE-TV reports.

MAINE Portland: It’s called a lottery, but the prize is wet and wriggly. Some fisherman say a lottery system that allows people to get into Maine’s big-money baby eel fishery is the best way to keep the industry sustainable.

MARYLAND Annapolis: Annapolis Mayor Michael Pantelides has fired the city’s police chief. Pantelides says the dismissal of Michael Pristoop was “not about the person, but rather about creating a new direction for policing and enforcement efforts.”

MASSACHUSETTS Boston: The Boston Pops will get a little more pop than usual this spring. Queen Latifah will perform with the orchestra when it opens its spring season on May 10.

MICHIGAN Grand Rapids: Three people were sentenced to jail or probation for stealing parts of a war memorial honoring a Cedar Springs soldier killed in Iraq. Community members built the memorial for Michigan National Guard Spc. Timothy Brown.

MINNESOTA St. Paul: Former officials at one of Minnesota’s licensed medical marijuana manufacturers are charged with illegally shipping marijuana oil to a New York subsidiary.

MISSISSIPPI Jackson: Mississippi lawmakers are working on a proposal to add firing squad, electrocution and gas chamber as execution methods. As of now, lethal injection is the state’s only execution method.

MISSOURI Columbia: The University of Missouri is planning a mass immunization clinic this week as it works to control a mumps outbreak that has grown to more than 320 confirmed and probable cases. The three-day clinic opens Wednesday.

MONTANA Billings: A U.S. Senate committee last week approved federal recognition of Montana’s Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The tribe has been without a recognized homeland since the late 1800s.

NEBRASKA Schuyler: Schuyler City Council members are divided over whether a residency requirement should be removed for police supervisors. The Co

lumbus Telegram reports that Police Chief K.C. Bang wants a waiver to hire a police sergeant.

NEVADA Reno: A federal judge refused to set bail for a Reno doctor who’s been jailed for 10 months awaiting trial on charges related to an illegal prescription painkiller ring. Dr. Robert Rand is scheduled for trial in April.

NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: University of New Hampshire researchers have found a new strain of disease-causing bacteria thriving along the Atlantic Coast. The strain that’s sickening seafood lovers who eat contaminated shellfish is detailed in a Journal of

Clinical Microbiology study.

NEW JERSEY Newark: The head of New Jersey Transit says the agency will meet a December 2018 federal deadline for installing a new emergency braking system. nation’s only Latina governor is denouncing a claim by a white former Santa Fe mayor that she is a racist. Ex-mayor David Cross says Gov. Susana Martinez has made it more difficult for people in New Mexico illegally to get driver’s licenses.

NEW YORK New York: Some 80 years after German Jewish art owner Max Stern was forced by Nazis to sell his collection, the FBI has returned one of the pieces to his heirs. The 17th century oil painting by a Dutch master was presented last week at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.

NORTH CAROLINA Greensboro: A federal judge is considering whether the newest boundaries for Greensboro City Council members were improperly drawn for racial and political reasons, The News & Record reports.

NORTH DAKOTA Fargo: A former University of North Dakota police officer has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on child pornography charges. Investigators found more than 50,000 pornographic images and videos on Paul Bradley Meagher’s devices.

OHIO Lima: Interim Allen County Sheriff Jimmy Everett has died less than a week after he was appointed to the job, The

Lima News reports. Officials say Everett, 62, suffered a sudden illness.

OKLAHOMA Henryetta: This Oklahoma town canceled a Valentine’s Day dance because of an old ordinance enforcing a strict moral code, KTUL-TV reports. The dance was to take place 300 feet from a church, a violation of dancing within 500 feet of a place of worship.

OREGON Medford: An Oregon man whose home was destroyed in an explosion that he said was set off by intruders seeking records from his medical billing company has been indicted on arson and attempted theft charges, The Mail Tribune reports.

PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia: A $227 million settlement has been reached in a lawsuit over a deadly Philadelphia building collapse. Six people were killed and 13 were injured when a brick wall from a demolition project crushed an adjacent Salvation Army store in 2013.

RHODE ISLAND Newport: A former Rhode Island town official is charged with stealing a pit bull from a panhandler. WJAR-TV reports that ex-Jamestown coun- cilwoman Barbara Szepatowski faces a misdemeanor charge. Szepatowski’s lawyer says she knew the dog she’s accused of stealing and had a shared-custody arrangement with the panhandler.

SOUTH CAROLINA Charleston: The employee-owned parent company of Piggly Wiggly Carolinas says the grocery store chain is essentially worthless, The Post

and Courier reports. Former employees are told they’ll receive no stock payments this year. The last company-owned store closed last spring in Charleston County.

SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: Nearly a dozen former Wells Fargo employees in several states are suing the bank. The Argus

Leader reports that the plaintiffs claim they were fired for minor criminal charges they had already disclosed when they were hired.

TENNESSEE Nashville: A transition team has provided the leader of Nashville Metro Public Schools with more than 100 recommendations to improve student achievement.

TEXAS Dallas: A company planning high-speed rail service between Dallas and Houston says it has reached land option agreements on about 30% of the route that stretches through 10 counties. The “bullet train” would take passengers between the two cities in 90 minutes.

UTAH Lake Point: The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is offering public tours of its next big wild horse roundup in western Utah. The bureau began gathering up to 700 mustangs last weekend in the Cedar Mountains. The plan is to offer more than 200 for adoption and return the rest to the range.

VERMONT Montpelier: Gov. Phil Scott says 30,000 of Vermont’s Medicaid patients will take part in a pilot project to test a new system designed to reward health care providers for keeping patients healthy rather than paying providers to cure people who get sick.

VIRGINIA Sweet Briar: Meredith Woo will become Sweet Briar College’s 13th president on May 15. She was a dean at the University of Virginia, where she oversaw 11,000 undergraduates.

WASHINGTON Redmond: A DNA hit led to the arrest of a suspect in an assault at Redmond’s Marymoor Park. King County Sheriff ’s detectives say the victim was walking her dog on a trail when she was grabbed and punched repeatedly.

WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: Gov. Jim Justice has appointed a businessman, hunter and fisherman to head the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. Stephen McDaniel is a member of Trout Unlimited and the National Rifle Association.

WISCONSIN Madison: The Environmental Protection Agency has approved a plan allowing Wisconsin companies to pay to delay compliance with phosphorous pollution standards. The companies can apply to the Department of Natural Resources for a variance permit. Paper and cheese manufacturers were among those pushing for the delay.

WYOMING Cheyenne: Opposition from local landowners and a competing company is slowing down a permit for what would be the first major new coal mine in Wyoming in decades. Kentuckybased Ramaco plans to mine up to 8 million tons a year from the Brook Mine north of Sheridan. Some landowners worry that the mine could cause their wells to run dry and that blasting could destabilize their homes.