State by state
News from around the nation
ALABAMA Montgomery: Alabama has a new law on virtual currency and online transactions, Al.com reports. The Alabama Monetary Transmission Act passed in May covers bitcoin and the regulation of money transfers, among other things.
ALASKA Seward: A walrus calf found aboard a gold mining dredge was taken in by a sanctuary and given an Inupiaq name, KTUU-TV reports. The calf ’s name is Aku, which means the stern of a boat.
ARIZONA Phoenix: State election officials say 97% of the more than 111,000 signatures turned in to block Arizona’s school voucher program expansion have passed an initial certification.
ARKANSAS Little Rock: A death penalty expert says Arkansas may have found a reliable source for an execution drug. The state put four men to death in April and says it has enough drugs to execute two more inmates.
CALIFORNIA Altadena: Six people are charged with selling more than $7 million worth of drugs on the dark web in an operation run out of a Los Angelesarea home. The Los Angeles Times reports that the group completed more than 78,000 orders for marijuana, oxycodone and other substances.
COLORADO Snowmass Village: Email scammers robbed this Colorado resort town of almost $60,000, The Aspen Daily News reports. Officials say the culprits mimicked a town email account to request a money transfer.
CONNECTICUT East Haddam: A Filipino church that purchased an abandoned Connecticut village here plans a neighborhood appreciation day Saturday. The collection of Victorian-style buildings known as Johnsonville was falling into disrepair when
Iglesia Ni
Cristo purchased the 62-acre property.
DELAWARE
Glasgow: A developer plans a 500-plus apartment and retail project on a historic farm in Glasgow, The News Journal reports.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Schools in the District of Columbia opened for a new academic year Monday, despite the eclipse. The D.C. government pays for all 70,000 students in public and public charter schools to use Metro system transportation, WTOP reports.
FLORIDA Pensacola: Officials temporarily closed an Escambia County day care after a 3-yearold girl died, The Pensacola News Journal reports. The sheriff ’s office says the child may have been left in a vehicle.
GEORGIA Columbus: The National Park Service is considering changes to a 101-year-old bridge after the recent drownings of two jumpers, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Officials say removing beams on the Chattahoochee River bridge would keep people off.
HAWAII Lihue: A Hawaii research team is investigating a possible hybrid whale sighting off the Kauai island coast, The Garden Island reports. What appears to be a cross between a melon-headed whale and a rough-toothed dolphin was spotted during an 11-day field project in early August.
IDAHO Weiser: Monday’s solar eclipse brought a contingent of 22 people from Latvia to Idaho, a trip of more than 5,000 miles, the Idaho Statesman reports.
ILLINOIS Springfield: State officials say that in the 20 years since Illinois lowered the drunken driving limit to .08 bloodalcohol, vehicle crash fatalities have fallen by 43%.
INDIANA Indianapolis: A state commission created four years ago to address the needs of vulnerable Indiana children finally has its first director, Julie Whitman, vice president for engage-
ment and advocacy at Indiana Youth Institute.
IOWA Des Moines: Iowa’s economic development board has approved $13.5 million in state financial assistance for a series of proposed Sioux City projects total- ing $134 million, The Sioux City Journal reports.
KANSAS Man
hattan: Six horses in Finney County will be euthanized after becoming infected with equine infectious anemia. The facility where the problem arose is under quarantine.
KENTUCKY Lexington: The city is at risk of paying millions more dollars into its police and fire pension fund, The Lexington Herald-Leader reports. The Kentucky Supreme Court declined last week to hear an appeal from Lexington, leaving a lower court to decide how much the city owes.
LOUISIANA Baton Rouge:
Three men are accused of cheating a Baton Rouge casino out of $56,000, allegedly by manipulating dice in a craps game. Police say one of the suspects was seen on tape “sliding dice,” or casting them so they slide or roll instead of bounce.
MAINE Brunswick: Amtrak is bringing back a domed railroad car that offers panoramic views for riders of the Downeaster. Four daily trips will be available through Sept. 24.
MARYLAND Clinton: Police say three young girls were found stabbed to death in a Maryland home and a 24-year-old man who’s the brother of one of the victims is charged with their murder.
MASSACHUSETTS Lowell: Thousands of people from around the world converged on Lowell last weekend for the 21st annual Southeast Asian Water Festival. The city has one of the largest populations of Southeast Asians in the United States.
MICHIGAN Dearborn: Two men who entered the Dearborn police station with body armor and firearms to file a complaint are sentenced to time behind bars. The men claimed they had been illegally stopped and felt the need to protect themselves.
MINNESOTA Fergus Falls: A weeklong summer camp in Minnesota teaches teenagers about duck and goose hunting, Minnesota Public Radio reports. The Woodie Camp teaches up to 50 students about bird calls, outdoor ethics and shooting.
MISSISSIPPI Meridian: Regulators are approving plans for Mississippi Power to buy electricity from a solar facility to be built in Lauderdale County. The $100 million solar farm will be able to supply enough electricity at peak to power about 8,000 homes.
MISSOURI Fulton: The president of Westminster College in Fulton is leaving. Benjamin Akande, who became president in 2015, resigned to pursue other interests in higher education.
MONTANA Billings: Nearly all of Montana is experiencing drought or trending toward drought. The condition is fueling wildfires and costing farmers millions of dollars, The Billings Gazette reports.
NEBRASKA Omaha: Police say DNA collected in 2004 from several black men in a controversial sweep has been destroyed, now that a suspect in a series of rapes is charged, The Omaha World-Herald reports.
NEVADA Las Vegas: The Las Vegas skyline shifts constantly, but airline pilots always could rely on landing at two McCarran International Airport runways. Now, The Las Vegas ReviewJournal reports that a geographical shift of 4 degrees in the magnetic poles prompted the FAA and airport officials to redesignate the runways last week.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Epping: A woman who became stuck in a swimming pool after the ladder broke turned to Facebook for help getting out. Leslie Kahn didn’t have the strength to pull herself out but used a pool pole to drag over the chair with her iPad and posted a “911” message, WMUR-TV reports.
NEW JERSEY Margate: A state plan for storm protection using sand dunes along the entire 127 miles of New Jersey’s coast was endorsed by two courts last week. But some beach town residents still want to opt out.
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: The largest publisher of books in New Mexico is struggling for survival amid layoffs and budget cuts, The Albuquerque Journal reports. The University of New Mexico Press in recent months made plans to reduce its annual output by about one-third.
NEW YORK Hunter: A weekend celebration marked the 100th anniversary of the fire tower atop Hunter Mountain in the Catskills. It’s the highest elevation fire tower in New York at 4,040 feet.
NORTH CAROLINA Greensboro: Duke Energy is dropping a demand for advance payment to cover possible delinquent bills from the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro. The museum’s power was briefly turned off in February.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: The North Dakota Development Fund board awarded nearly $2.5 million in financial aid to five projects last month. The loan program was created to help businesses that create new wealth.
OHIO Toledo: Students with lengthy commutes are getting Wi-Fi access on their buses in a pilot program for Toledo public schools, The Blade reports.
OKLAHOMA Stillwater: A Payne County judge has distributed $100,000 in insurance money to victims of a 2015 homecoming parade crash at Oklahoma State University. Four people were killed and dozens were injured when a woman steered her car around a police barricade and plowed into the crowd.
OREGON Umatilla: Umatilla County has instructed a strip club to stop operations amid allegations that it lacks a permit to operate. But an official of the Zen-Den club disputes the claim, The East Oregonian reports.
PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia:
State health officials are requiring students to get vaccinated within five days of the start of the school year. In the past, students had eight months to get their shots.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: State environmental officials are working with the Arbor Day Foundation to give away 1,000 trees to help Rhode Island homeowners conserve energy, reduce utility costs and beautify their neighborhoods.
SOUTH CAROLINA Conway: The Horry County auditor’s office plans to check the lines of cars dropping off kids at school for out-of-state tags, The Sun-News reports. South Carolina law requires owners to register their vehicles within 45 days of moving to the state.
SOUTH DAKOTA Aberdeen: A woman who was among a handful of people charged in a South Dakota tribal embezzlement case was sentenced to 10 months in prison. Carrie Godfrey also was ordered to pay back more than $31,600 to the Big Coulee District of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Tribe.
TENNESSEE Murfreesboro: Officials in Rutherford County say it’ll take a couple of weeks before the water tastes normal again after treating an algae bloom, The Daily News Journal reports. The problem is in the Stones River and Percy Priest Lake.
TEXAS Dallas: A Texas lab that’s a world leader in specialized DNA testing has stopped accepting samples from outside the state because of funding issues. The result is that family members of missing and unidentified people will wait longer for results.
UTAH Salt Lake City: Copper Hills High School teacher Rickee Stewart is asking for shoes and backpacks to give homeless children at her school instead of wedding gifts when she gets married next month. Stewart says she was shocked to find out that more than 100 homeless students attend her school, KSL-TV reports.
VERMONT Manchester: Residents of this Vermont town are fed up with the impact of the nationwide opioid epidemic on their community, and they’ve started an organization to help combat the problem, The Bennington Banner reports.
VIRGINIA Norfolk: Federal officials say Old Dominion University must take corrective action in response to a complaint that it mishandled the response to a woman’s sexual assault. The woman said, among other things, that ODU police prevented her from getting a medical exam to preserve evidence until after an eight-hour interrogation.
WASHINGTON Port Orchard: Authorities say a waitress at the Madison Diner in Port Orchard is charged with skimming about $30,000 from the restaurant over nine years, The Kitsap Sun reports.
WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: The West Virginia Ethics Commission says state employees can attend a business conference at the Greenbrier resort, which is owned by Gov. Jim Justice, The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports. However, they can’t spend state money on food and lodging.
WISCONSIN Madison: Authorities say a man drove through about 100 construction barrels in Wisconsin’s Vernon County and the next night drove through more in the opposite lane of traffic, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. The man left the scene before police arrived on both occasions but was eventually tracked down and arrested.
WYOMING Cheyenne: Police in Wyoming are being trained on livestock issues after state lawmakers decided to cut three out of four full-time state livestock officer positions, The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports. The livestock officers investigate cattle rustlings and animal health violations.