News from across the USA

ALABAMA Pine Level: Authorities say a 3-year-old girl died after her father backed over her on a riding lawn mower Sunday afternoon. Foul play is not suspected.

ALASKA Ketchikan: The wolf population on Prince of Wales Island has soared, prompting officials to decide that hunters will be allowed to kill 20% of them — 44, up from 11 last year.

ARIZONA Phoenix: Arizona taxpayers are on the hook for more than $2 million in legal costs stemming from a series of anti-abortion laws the Legislature has passed over the last eight years. The court-ordered payments were from five cases the state lost or settled or have been nullified by legislative repeal.

ARKANSAS Fayetteville: State officials are seeking immunity from being sued for releasing information about a sexual abuse investigation involving Josh Duggar and four of his sisters. The sisters, once part of the TLC show “19 Kids and Counting,” sued the city of Springdale and Washington County in May, alleging officials breached their privacy by giving a magazine investigative documents that revealed their identities.

CALIFORNIA Berkeley: Police say officers responding to a call about a couple fighting found nearly 700 pounds of psilocybin “magic” mushrooms inside a Berkeley house, alongside a mushrooms cultivation and sales operation. Police say the drugs have a street value of $1 million.

COLORADO Denver: A state law designed to punish people for posting intimate photos of former lovers or spouses online has resulted in 192 charges since it was passed in 2014. But only 42 have ended in a guilty plea or verdict, The Denver Post reports.

CONNECTICUT New Haven: Frederic Pierucci, a former executive of French power and transportation company Alstom, has been sentenced to 2½ years in prison and fined $20,000 for bribing Indonesian government officials to secure a $118 million contract to provide power there.

DELAWARE Dover: West Nile virus was recently detected in caged chickens, and William Meredith, Delaware’s Mosquito Control Section administrator, says concerns about mosquitoborne diseases could continue for several more weeks.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: The Metro Transit Police board is expected Thursday to formally accept radiation detection devices purchased for each member of the department, to guard against attempts to deploy a “dirty bomb” or other radiological weapon, WTOP radio reports.

FLORIDA Key West: Officials say the Florida Keys, hit hard by Hurricane Irma, will reopen to tourists Oct. 1.

GEORGIA Decatur: Power was knocked out to two college campuses and a high school when a mini-van being driven by a high school student driving drunk hit a utility pole Monday morning at Georgia Piedmont Technical College, police said.

HAWAII Honolulu: The Honolulu Zoo has named its first female director. Linda Santos, promoted from assistant director, will be tasked with reclaiming its accreditation, which it lost in 2016.

IDAHO Lewiston: A Washington County assessor says Secretary of State Lawerence Denney improperly received a homeowner’s exemption this year on his home in Midvale. The Lewiston Tribune reports Georgia Plischke appealed the county Board of Examiners’ decision in June that Denney deserved the exemption,

saying he lives most of the time in Canyon County.

ILLINOIS Morris: There is a winner of a nearly $1.6 million Illinois VFW raffle that was delayed after it was discovered to be technically illegal. Morris VFW bar manager Shanna Ramsey says the winner of Monday’s Queen of Hearts drawing was Kevin Repsel of LaSalle.

INDIANA Indianapolis: Indiana’s governor is urging the Trump administration to include nearly $490 million in the federal budget to upgrade and expand the South Shore commuter rail line that runs between northern Indiana and Chicago, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported.

IOWA Des Moines: The Iowa Grocery Industry Association wants to replace the state’s bottle deposit law with an expanded recycling and litter control program.

KANSAS Wichita: Mark Hutton, who served two terms in the Kansas House, has entered the race for the Republican nomination for governor.

KENTUCKY Frankfort: Andy Beshear, the Democratic state attorney general, says he will not comply with Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s request for state agencies to cut spending by more than 17%. Beshear contends state law does not allow midyear budget cuts to go beyond the projected shortfall.

LOUISIANA Albany: Louisiana’s newest museum opens Wednesday in a 111-year-old school in Albany. The Hungarian Settlement Historical Society restored the building and is leasing it from the Livingston Parish School Board as the Hungarian Settlement Museum.

MAINE Portland: Standardized testing results are in, and while Maine students scored high in English and science, only 39% scored proficiently in math, The Portland Press Herald reports.

MARYLAND Baltimore: Officials are more than doubling the city’s speed and red light camera system, The Baltimore Sun reports. The new speed cameras will be in 22 school zones, instead of 14.

They issue $40 fines.

MASSACHUSETTS

Salem: A man charged with stealing nearly $23,000 in four bank robberies says he needed money to pay child support so he could see his 5-yearold son. Justin Hanlon, 28, of Danvers, lost his job six months ago, his attorney says.

MICHIGAN Frankenmuth: A state lawmaker says his granddaughter died Sunday in an apparent drowning at his home in Frankenmuth. Police say 2-yearold Zelda “Zellie” Rowan Horn managed to get out of the home of Republican state Sen. Ken Horn and into an in-ground pool.

MINNESOTA Bagley: A Bemidji man, Christopher Baumann, 27, has been charged with criminal vehicular homicide. He is suspected of driving drunk when his Ford F-350 pickup struck a horse-drawn buggy from behind on Highway 92, killing a 23-yearold woman and injuring her brother.

MISSISSIPPI Greenville: A proposed site has been chosen for a new $40.1 million federal courthouse: the vacant lot in downtown Greenville where the first Stein Mart department store once stood, the Delta DemocratTimes reported.

MISSOURI Kansas City: Missouri prisons must eliminate smoking by April 1 after an asthmatic double murderer won a court judgment. Missouri allows smoking in designated areas outside, but evidence at trial showed that inmates are commonly written up for smoking in their cells.

MONTANA Bozeman: Dorothy Eck, who helped draft Montana’s Constitution 45 years ago and later served in the state Senate for two decades, has died in Bozeman. She was 93.

NEBRASKA Hartington: The mayor of Randolph in northeast Nebraska has pleaded not guilty to four counts of child sexual abuse and one of intentional child abuse. Dwayne Schutt, 61, has been mayor since 2011.

NEVADA Las Vegas: The sister of a slaying victim was hit by a car Monday on a sidewalk outside the Las Vegas courthouse where the man charged in the killing is standing trial. The woman is a potential witness but was not expected to testify; court officials say the suspect is a relative of defendant Asa Javon Brown, 24.

NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: A potted tree that had been blocking a portrait of Democratic former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen at the Statehouse has been moved. Shaheen’s former legal counsel, Judy Reardon, said Republican Gov. Chris Sununu’s chief of staff initially told her the tree had to be in that specific spot.

NEW JERSEY Trenton: A 16year-old Mercer County girl who helps homebound people ensure

that their pets are nourished is the latest “New Jersey

Hero.” Jordyn Cascone founded Jordyn’s Cause

4 Paws as a Girl Scout project and developed it into a nonprofit that has partnered with Meals on Wheels.

NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: New data from the FBI show that rising rates of property and violent crime in the state are largely propelled by increases in Albuquerque. Violent crime and property crime increased by 6.8% and

6.2% across the state between

2015 and 2016. Albuquerque saw violent crime increase by 15.5% and property crime rise by 13.3%.

NEW YORK New York: Former state Senate leader Dean Skelos and his son Adam were granted new trials Tuesday in their corruption case. A federal appeals court found the jury in the case was wrongly instructed.

NORTH CAROLINA Garner: A Raleigh man has been accused of stealing a street sweeper and using it to drive doughnuts around a shopping mall. Jason Lee Robinson, 39, was charged with larceny, driving while impaired and hit and run.

NORTH DAKOTA Fort Yates: A tribal court injunction will prevent members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe from voting on seven proposed constitutional amendments in an upcoming council election. Tribe members will vote Wednesday on tribal council positions. But a series of proposed revisions to the constitution won’t be included.

OHIO Cincinnati: A federal appeals court panel has agreed with a judge who blocked the suspension of a University of Cincinnati student accused of sexual assault. The student argued he was denied the right to confront his accuser, who did not show up at a disciplinary hearing.

OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: About a dozen drug companies have asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the state’s attorney general accusing them of fueling the state’s opioid epidemic through fraudulent marketing.

OREGON Portland: The Dabney State Recreation Area and three state parks have reopened in the scenic Columbia River Gorge after being shut down because of a large wildfire. The humancaused fire that began Labor Day weekend is about 50% contained. Eleven parks remain closed.

PENNSYLVANIA West Chester: A man caught on video suckerpunching a man with cerebral palsy has pleaded guilty to simple assault. The May 10 attack outside a West Chester convenience store was recorded by the store’s surveillance camera. It showed Barry Robert Baker Jr., 29, mocking the man before punching him in the face without warning.

RHODE ISLAND Providence: Peter Neronha, one of 46 U.S. attorneys appointed by President Obama who was ordered to resign by President Trump in March, has filed to run for state attorney general as a Democrat.

SOUTH CAROLINA Lugoff: A county sheriff says a man clocked doing 141 mph on Interstate 20 told a deputy he was on his way to see his girlfriend in Myrtle Beach. Liam Buckley, 20, was cited and spent a night in jail.

SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: The soybean and corn harvests are underway, though less than half of both crops are rated in good to excellent condition after a summer of drought. The federal Department of Agriculture says about 1% of the corn crop and 4% of the soybeans are harvested, well behind the average pace.

TENNESSEE Nashville: Police say a neighbor of a 12-year-old girl who was strangled in April has been arrested. A Davidson County grand jury indicted Roy D. Coons, 45, on two counts of first-degree murder and one count each of first-degree premeditated murder, attempted rape of a child and aggravated burglary.

TEXAS Austin: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has blocked a lower court’s ruling that prevented special prosecutors in Attorney General Ken Paxton’s felony securities fraud case from collecting a $205,000 payment.

UTAH Salt Lake City: A Orem chiropractor has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for tax evasion and obstructing the Internal Revenue Service. Louis Delynn Hansen, 65, who also owned a health care products business, was ordered to pay $342,699 in restitution to the IRS, The Salt Lake Tribune reports, after giving the IRS a check for back taxes in 2012 that was drawn on a closed bank account.

VERMONT Vernon: Good Samaritans rescued two men from a fiery crash after their truck ran off Route 142 and struck a tree, the Brattleboro Reformer reports.

VIRGINIA Alexandria: A lawyer has been indicted on charges he embezzled more than $650,000 from the campaign fund of state Senate Minority Leader Richard Saslaw. The indictment alleges that David H. Miller, 68, of Fairfax, also embezzled from a Canadian business and an autism organization. Prosecutors say the thefts totaled $1.4 million.

WASHINGTON Spokane Val

ley: A new manufacturing plant will employ 150 people next year. The Katerra plant will produce cross-laminated timber and other engineered products that can replace concrete and steel in wooden high-rise buildings and parking garages. They also can be used in walls and flooring.

WEST VIRGINIA Charleston:

U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins says West Virginia has received a $1.4 million federal grant to support the state’s drug courts.

WISCONSIN Town: Gov. Scott Walker picked former legislator Dan Meyer as the next state Department of Natural Resources secretary Monday, amid contentious battles over mining, permitting a massive electronics plant and chronic wasting disease.

WYOMING Laramie: The University of Wyoming has recorded a slight increase in enrollment for the first time in several years, good news to a college dealing with cuts in state funding.