State by state:
News from around the nation
ALABAMA Montgomery: The Alabama Supreme Court has temporarily halted a murder trial. A Montgomery police officer who is white is accused of killing a black man. The court is considering whether the trial judge should be removed because of a social media complaint about being stopped by police because he’s black.
ALASKA Juneau: New standardized tests show that more than half of Alaska’s elementary and high school students aren’t proficient in math, science and English, The Juneau Empire reports.
ARIZONA Flagstaff: Officials are considering rules to limit the number of cars on Flagstaff ’s roads during the winter when people from Phoenix and beyond flock to the city to play in the snow, The Arizona Daily Sun reports.
ARKANSAS Little Rock: An annual report indicates that Arkansas’ public payroll increased by 297 full-time employees to a total of 60,226 during the past fiscal year, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. While the number declined at most state agencies, it increased at public colleges and universities.
CALIFORNIA San Diego: Officials in San Diego County declared a public health emergency due to the spread of the liver disease hepatitis A. The Union-Tribune reports that infections have killed 15 people and hospitalized nearly
400 more.
COLORADO
Denver: Officials say a deal is in the works to allow wild bison from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal
National Wildlife Refuge to roam on 200 acres of Denver airport property. The Denver Post reports that officials say the biggest worry is keeping the bison off Pena Boulevard leading to the airport’s white-tented terminal.
CONNECTICUT Hartford: State Comptroller Kevin Lembo says Connecticut is on track to end the fiscal year with a $93.9 million deficit. State lawmakers have been unable to agree on a budget.
DELAWARE Wilmington: This Delaware city has paid nearly $73,000 in spousal benefits to a dead woman for 20 years, The News Journal reports. Officials are investigating to find out what happened.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: A 19year-old woman was killed and her sister and boyfriend were hurt in shootings outside her Washington home. Police are seeking a suspect. Unique Davis died the day after her birthday.
FLORIDA Titusville: A driver in Florida was injured when lightning struck the driver’s car on Interstate 95, deploying its airbag. Brevard County fire officials say a lightning strike also injured a motorcyclist driving nearby.
GEORGIA Augusta: Atlanta Gas Light plans to appeal the Historic Preservation Commission’s rejection of plans to tear down the historic Trinity CME church. The church was built by former slaves in the 1890s, The Augusta Chronicle reports.
HAWAII Hilo: Hilo Medical Center will conduct a full-scale nuclear disaster drill Dec. 1, The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reports. The drill will piggyback on state plans for a siren test that day.
IDAHO Coeur d’Alene: Borah Elementary School will offer a Total Communication preschool classroom to serve deaf and hard-of-hearing children as they prepare for their future education, The Coeur d’Alene Press reports.
ILLINOIS Springfield: Illinois schools will be required to teach financial literacy skills such as balancing a checkbook and putting money into a savings account this year, The Springfield Journal-Register reports.
INDIANA South Bend: An appeals court has upheld the dismissal of race discrimination claims by former Indiana University South Bend professor Otis Grant, The South Bend Tribune
reports. A school investigation found that many of Grant’s credentials were vague or incorrect.
IOWA Le Mars: A fish kill in a Plymouth County stream was traced to an ice cream plant. Authorities say ammonia from the plant, which makes Blue Bunny ice cream, found its way into the water.
KANSAS Topeka: Kansas is hunting for a new inspector general for its Medicaid program, more than three years after the office became vacant. Kansas lawmakers this year moved the office from the Department of Health and Environment to the state attorney general’s office.
KENTUCKY Crofton: A fire chief and three volunteer firefighters in Kentucky face arson charges linked to an empty building fire in Crofton on Aug. 20.
LOUISIANA Covington: A lack of funding has prompted Covington officials to cancel the annual Holiday of Lights celebration in December. St. Tammany Parish is facing an anticipated $18 million revenue shortfall.
MAINE Augusta: State utility regulators are investigating whether the failure of Maine Natural Gas to correctly bill several big commercial customers will impact other customers. Eleven accounts weren’t billed for full usage.
MARYLAND Perryville: IKEA and workers at a Maryland distribution center that supplies 39 of the chain’s stores have agreed to extend contract talks for two weeks, averting a strike, The Baltimore Sun reports.
MASSACHUSETTS Danvers: In a Facebook post, the Peabody Institute Library is reminding Danvers residents that Chuck E. Cheese tokens aren’t an acceptable form of payment for overdue book fines, The Salem News reports.
MICHIGAN Detroit: Federal data shows that tourism in Michigan’s national parks increased more than 5%, The Detroit News reports. The five parks drew more than 1.5 million visitors from January through July this year.
MINNESOTA Minneapolis: Tribal elders say wood from a sculpture that sparked protests at a city art museum will be buried, not burned. Scaffold depicts elements of gallows used in seven hangings, including the 1862 mass execution of 38 Dakota men.
MISSISSIPPI Greenwood: For
the first time in 11 years, Greenwood is raising property taxes. The 4.1% increase that takes effect Oct. 1 will help cover pay raises for police officers and firefighters and higher health insurance costs for city employees.
MISSOURI Holden: A man who owns an excavated underground missile site in Missouri says he’s getting more interest in the property and has had five potential buyers amid reports of North Korea’s missile testing, The Kansas City Star reports.
MONTANA Helena: The Labor Day weekend proved to be a bust for many tourists visiting areas of Glacier National Park in Montana. Wildfires driven by gusty winds forced extensive evacuations.
NEBRASKA Omaha: Officials with the Ronald McDonald House in Omaha are trying to raise more than $10 million to expand it, The Omaha World-Herald reports. The project would add 20 guest rooms, doubling the number in the facility that houses families of children receiving medical treatment.
NEVADA Las Vegas: Federal authorities are suing Las Vegas officials on a claim of underpaid rent for a golf course on the Strip, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. The claim is for $75.5 million. The Bali Hai Golf Club sits on Bureau of Land Management property.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Hinsdale:
The first of two New Hampshire Department of Transportation meetings on a planned bridge replacement over the Connecticut River is set for Wednesday at the Hinsdale Town Hall Auditorium. The bridge to connect to Vermont would replace the Route 119 bridge.
NEW JERSEY Lawrenceville: Rider University has reached a tentative contract with its teachers’ union, averting a possible strike with classes set to begin Wednesday. The terms of the three-year pact haven’t been disclosed.
NEW MEXICO Angel Fire: State officials say more than 400 memorial bricks with the names of fallen military personnel are being installed at the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Angel Fire. A ceremony was held last weekend. Almost 3,000 bricks currently line the memorial.
NEW YORK Rochester: The Seneca Park Zoo says Spiderman has died. The monkey had terminal cancer. Spiderman was 43 years old.
NORTH CAROLINA Camden: Camden County High School has removed art outside its library that showed President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis side by side. The Daily Advance reports that Principal Billie Berry said there were no complaints, but he decided to act before any arose.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: One hundred years after World War I, a North Dakota powwow on Sunday will honor Native Americans who served in the conflict before they were considered U.S. citizens, The Bismarck Tribune reports. Several hundred family members and descendants of World War I Native servicemen are expected.
OHIO Cincinnati: A smokestack that’s been part of the Cincinnati skyline for more than 150 years is coming down soon. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the Hudepohl smokestack on top of a former brewery will come down when demolition of the building begins in about six months. Asbestos must be removed from the site first.
OKLAHOMA Norman: Attorneys for a man accused of beheading a co-worker at a food plant in 2014 plan an insanity defense at his jury trial, The Oklahoman reports. Alton Alexander Nolen could face the death penalty if convicted.
OREGON Pendleton: Round-Up week’s most visible purveyor of Confederate flags won’t be back on Pendleton’s Main Street this year, The East Oregonian reports. Round-Up host The Main Street Cowboys didn’t accept the application of Liberty Flags & Gifts, which was criticized last year for displaying the Stars and Bars.
PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia:
The city’s grand cultural boulevard, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, is gearing up for its 100th birthday. Philadelphia has a full roster of yearlong celebrations planned starting Friday and continuing through 2018. They include art installations, concerts, tours, talks and guides.
RHODE ISLAND Providence:
The state is offering $3 million in matching grants for communities seeking to invest in recreational spaces. Officials say the grants are funded by a $35 million Green Economy Bond approved by voters last year. Applications are open through Dec. 1.
SOUTH CAROLINA Greenville: Authorities say a safe dye used to track sewer leaks turned the Reedy River bright green in downtown Greenville. Police are trying to determine how the dye got into the river.
SOUTH DAKOTA Spearfish: The City Council is finalizing the nearly $3 million purchase of the former McLaughlin sawmill, The Black Hills Pioneer reports. Spearfish officials say the 80-acre property could potentially be used as athletic fields.
TENNESSEE Nashville: Tennessee’s attorney general is dropping a planned legal challenge of a federal program offering a deportation reprieve to nearly 800,000 immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children.
TEXAS Lufkin: Police in Texas say a woman detained in a shoplifting case managed to squeeze out of handcuffs, crawl through a partition in a police cruiser and take off. Toscha Sponsler reached speeds of nearly 100 mph during a 20-mile chase last weekend before crashing.
UTAH Huntsville: The last monk has left the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity monastery, shutting down a 70-year-old Utah landmark, The Salt Lake Tribune report. The Rev. Patrick Boyle, 89, left to join his brethren at St. Joseph Villa Catholic nursing home in Salt Lake City.
VERMONT Huntington: For the first time in about 150 years, landlocked Atlantic salmon are swimming up some Lake Champlain tributaries in Vermont and New York to spawn in gravel banks.
VIRGINIA Roanoke: Officials will consider renaming Stonewall Jackson Middle School, The Roanoke Times reports. That is Roanoke’s only remaining school that’s named for a Confederate general. A portrait of Jackson hangs in the building, which dates to 1923.
WASHINGTON Vancouver: A Vancouver woman developed a pocket-sized resource guide with survival tips and other information for the newly homeless. Lois Smith organized a team of volunteers to crowdsource ideas. WEST VIRGINIA South Charleston: Bridge Valley Community and Technical College is being evicted from its campus in a rent dispute, The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports. The school’s technology park landlord says it owes $1.8 million in rent.
WISCONSIN Madison: The state’s official government Ethics Commission investigated just one alleged violation in its first year of operation, The Wisconsin State Journal reports. Officials say the panel fielded 39 complaints. Its predecessor, the Government Accountability Board, was more active but was criticized as too partisan.
WYOMING Casper: Officials are studying whether to enter into contracts directly with airlines to guarantee a certain level of air service in Wyoming, The Star-Tribune reports. Such capacity purchase agreements would guarantee airlines a certain payment and set flight frequency, price and destination.