STATE-BY-STATE
News from across the USA
ALABAMA Elkmont: Nearly two dozen horses died in a barn fire in Alabama’s Limestone County last week. Authorities say the owners were able to save only two horses, WBMA-TV reports.
ALASKA Anchorage: Bears and moose are a common sight on Alaska roads, but this was different. KTUU reports that loose sheep and a ram wandered through traffic in Anchorage one day last week.
ARIZONA Phoenix: Officials recommend that people eating lake fish caught in three Arizona counties limit their consumption because of elevated levels of mercury in fillets. The advisories involve Canyon Lake in Maricopa County, Becker Lake in Apache County and Black Canyon Lake in Navajo County.
ARKANSAS Widener: Arkansas troopers say a woman riding in a stolen SUV being chased by police was found dead after the vehicle crashed into a church. Riverside Baptist Church pastor Marland Brown tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the impact created a hole about 15 feet wide.
CALIFORNIA Los Angeles: A study says more parents want medical exemptions for kindergartner vaccinations since California ended a personal-belief exemption. The Los Angeles Times says the results suggest that some parents may have found doctors willing to give exemptions.
COLORADO Loveland: Colorado officials say a Fort Collins resident died of West Nile Virus, The Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald reports.
CONNECTICUT Middletown: State Police have raised the arrest total of Whiting Forensic Division staff at Connecticut Valley Hospital to nine. The maximumsecurity psychiatric hospital’s workers are accused of cruelty and disorderly conduct involving patient abuse.
DELAWARE Wilmington: DuPont has offered pension buyouts or annuities to about 9,500 U.S. retirees, The News Journal reports. The offer came just before the company completed a nearly $150 billion merger with Dow Chemical.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: The Washington National Cathedral is removing two stained glass windows that depict Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson. A cathedral statement says the images are “a barrier to ... racial justice and racial reconciliation.”
FLORIDA Miami: Two Florida businessmen pleaded guilty in a $3.6 billion money-laundering case involving South American gold, The Miami Herald reports. Prosecutors say the defendants bought gold from a drug trafficker.
GEORGIA Stockbridge: Police say a tiger that was running loose on Interstate 75 in Georgia and then ran into a neighborhood was shot and killed when it began chasing a dog. Officials aren’t sure where the tiger came from.
HAWAII Honolulu: Organizers of the first Hawaii big-wave surfing contest exclusively for women need a sponsor willing to spend about $150,000. The Women’s Waimea Bay Championship starts Oct. 1, Hawaii News Now reports.
IDAHO Hailey: A jury convicted a former Blaine County sheriff ’s deputy of felony grand theft for stealing about $80,000 from a program intended to prevent juvenile crime, The Idaho Mountain Express reports.
ILLINOIS Normal: Illinois State University saw a slight drop in undergraduate enrollment for the fall semester but an increase in graduate students. The undergrad loss was about
1.7% to 18,330 students.
Graduate enrollment was up 2.4%.
INDIANA Terre Haute: Indiana’s top school official is pushing for mandatory kindergarten. Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick tells the (Terre Haute) Tribune-Star that 7,000 children in the state aren’t enrolled in kindergarten.
IOWA Clear Lake: The Globe Gazette reports that the dock at Sunset Bay Marina in Clear Lake may have to be cut from almost 500 feet to less than 300 feet to comply with a state regulation on private docks. That could displace up to 70 boats.
KANSAS Kansas City: The EEOC is suing the former operator of a Pizza Studio restaurant in Kansas City, saying it offered a higher wage to a 17-year-old boy than to a girl applicant of the same age, The Kansas City Star reports.
KENTUCKY Union: A four-year project to update the visitor center at Big Bone Lick State Historic Site is complete, The Kentucky Enquirer reports. The updates include exhibits on the history of the area and a skeletal reconstruction of a ground sloth.
LOUISIANA New Orleans: The City Council is looking into making some $40 million in payments owed to plaintiffs who successfully sued New Orleans dating back 20 years, The Times-Picayune reports.
MAINE Portland: The Gulf of Maine Research Institute is getting $1.1 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to investigate the impacts of climate change on commercial fish species such as cod and haddock.
MARYLAND Ocean City: State police are investigating the death of a man who was shocked with a
stun gun while being arrested in Ocean City following a traffic stop. Authorities say Byron Tunnell later suffered an apparent seizure.
MASSACHUSETTS Boston: Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey this week certified 21 proposed ballot questions submitted for legal review, clearing the way for sponsors to proceed with getting signatures. Seven other initiatives were disqualified.
MICHIGAN Byron Township: Paleontologists are investigating the discovery of mastodon bones in a housing development construction site, The Grand Rapids Press reports. Workers found the bones while excavating a road.
MINNESOTA Princeton: A 5-foot-long boa constrictor is on the loose in this Minnesota town. “Rocky” was last seen about a week ago but escaped its tank and made its way outside, the Star Tribune reports.
MISSISSIPPI Jackson: A Mississippi child behavior center is being sued for giving a 15-year-old girl an HPV vaccination despite her mother’s objection, The Clarion-Ledger reports.
MISSOURI Kansas City: Consultants are recommending a new jail in Kansas City to replace the outdated facility, The Kansas City Star reports. The cost could be as much as $180 million.
MONTANA Bozeman: A federal lawsuit is challenging Montana’s automatic suspension of the driver’s licenses of people who fail to pay court fines, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports. The suit says the system discriminates against poor residents.
NEBRASKA Grand Island:
Court records say a woman accused of letting six children stand on the running boards of her moving SUV intends to use an insanity defense at her Dec. 4 trial. Police say all six fell off when Stephanie Wedige stopped in a church parking lot.
NEVADA Las Vegas: Recreational marijuana is legal in Nevada, but not at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. Clark County commissioners have banned possession at the airport.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Ossipee: A woman who had 84 Great Danes seized from her home has pleaded not guilty to animal cruelty. Authorities say they found the dogs living in filth and suffering from infections and other health problems.
NEW JERSEY New Brunswick: New Jersey Transit wants to buy 25 acres as a safe haven for trains after more than 300 were flooded during Superstorm Sandy, NJ.com reports.
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: The New Mexico State Fair is underway through Sunday. Activities include barrel-racing dogs and pig and duck races. And there’s plenty to eat, including green chile apple pie.
NEW YORK LaGrangeville: Seven live sandbar sharks and three dead sharks, two leopard and a hammerhead, were seized from a pool in the basement of a home in New York’s Hudson Valley.
NORTH CAROLINA Goldsboro: About half of the three dozen corpses that floated out of their graves in this North Carolina city’s Elmwood Cemetery during Hurricane Matthew last October have not been reburied while identifications are sought, The Goldsboro News-Argus reports.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: Vietnam is resuming imports of dried distillers grains, creating another market for North Dakota producers. Officials say ethanol plants in the state produce about 1.4 million tons of the livestock feed each year as a byproduct.
OHIO Akron: A medical examiner says an Ohio jail inmate suffered sudden cardiac arrest after a weekend altercation with sheriff ’s deputies, The Akron Beacon Journal reports. Two deputies suffered minor injuries in the altercation.
OKLAHOMA Broken Arrow: This Oklahoma town has its first homicide of 2017. Authorities say a man was fatally shot last week near a Walmart Neighborhood Market store after agreeing to meet another man for an alleged drug deal.
OREGON Portland: Cycle Oregon organizers had to disappoint some 2,000 riders expected for a weeklong bicycle journey that’s canceled because of wildfires along the tour route, The Oregonian reports. The tour had been scheduled to begin Sunday at Tumalo State Park.
PENNSYLVANIA Harrisburg: A woman who claimed to be the adoptive mother of a Ukrainian teen posing as a Harrisburg High School student was ordered to serve five months in prison for harboring someone in the country illegally. The Ukranian had overstayed his visa and used false documents to enroll in school.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: The city has unveiled its first giving meter so people can donate to homeless causes without giving to panhandlers. The “Donation Station,” a retrofitted parking meter, will support Providence organizations that provide housing and services to those in need.
SOUTH CAROLINA Fort Mill: Some descendants of former slaves say there’s one Confederate monument in South Carolina that should stay put, The Herald reports. The monument built in 1895 in Fort Mill’s Confederate Park is dedicated to “faithful slaves” who protected the homes of their masters during the Civil War.
SOUTH DAKOTA Pierre: A collections program meant to recover money owed to South Dakota agencies recovered more than
$3.3 million in its first year. Also,
$7.6 million in payment plans were established. The program enforces child support and restitution orders, among other collections.
TENNESSEE Nashville: The Tennessee Valley Authority says it would take 24 years to clean up the coal ash at its Gallatin Fossil Plant. TVA is under a court order to clean up the site because of concern about pollutants leaking into the Cumberland River.
TEXAS McAllen: Seven men were sentenced to prison for smuggling people across the border with Mexico and demanding ransom from their families. Authorities say a group of people in the country illegally were abducted at gunpoint in May 2016 and their families were told to pay $2,000 to free them.
UTAH St. George: The stunning red rocks at Utah’s Zion National Park are on pace to set another record for visits this year. And park managers are considing a first-of-its-kind plan to require reservations, The Spectrum reports.
VERMONT Brattleboro: Police are searching for a pair of bronze lion statues that were stolen from The Vermont Building in Brattleboro. A $1,000 reward is offered for the recovery of the lions.
VIRGINIA Richmond: Virginia has the fewest number of inmates on death row since July 1979, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. The state has four death row inmates, and none have been added in more than five years. Virginia executed two men earlier this year.
WASHINGTON Pullman: The Board of Commissioners of Pullman Regional Hospital voted unanimously to offer sex reassignment surgery. It will be the first hospital in the state to offer the surgery, The SpokesmanReview reports. Officials expect to perform no more than two operations per month.
WEST VIRGINIA Charleston:
The West Virginia Treasurer’s Office is encouraging residents to check the state’s unclaimed property list to see if someone left behind life insurance money, The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports. As of June, the office’s Unclaimed Property Division had taken in $16.4 million for beneficiaries since 2012.
WISCONSIN Madison: Scores held steady for Wisconsin’s Class of 2017 on the ACT college entrance exam. The state’s average composite score was 20.5 for the second year in a row, behind the national average of 21.0 but the third highest among 17 states where all graduates were tested.
WYOMING Albany: Forest experts say massive infestations of beetles are responsible for about 20% of dead trees in the West, posing a serious threat to crews that battle wildfires. The timing of such threats is unpredictable, as dead trees can topple without warning.