STATE-BY-STATE
ALABAMA Selma:
A fire last week damaged the historic Lee-BenderButler House in this Alabama city, The Selma Times-Journal reports.
ALASKA Anchorage:
A showdown is looming in the nation’s capital over whether to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
ARIZONA Buckeye:
Guards at the Lewis prison recovered a crashed drone trying to deliver marijuana and cellphones to inmates.
ARKANSAS Little Rock:
State alcohol regulators have voted to issue new permits allowing grocery stores to sell all wine varieties, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.
CALIFORNIA Los Angeles:
A wellpreserved 1938 comic book featuring Superman is heading to the auction block Dec. 19 in Los Angeles. Action Comics #1 is expected to sell for between $800,000 and $1.2 million.
COLORADO Colorado Springs:
A county judge says defendants who’ve been held in jail because they can’t afford a fee for pre-trial services must be released if they’ve been granted a personal recognizance bond.
CONNECTICUT Hartford:
Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman says she’s not planning to run for governor in 2018. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has already announced he won’t seek a third term.
DELAWARE Wilmington:
A woman charged with transferring more than $6 million from the financial services company where she was vice president into her own bank accounts has been sentenced to four years in federal prison, WDEL-FM reports.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA:
The longawaited Museum of the Bible is open. The $500 million facility has restaurants, a theater and clear views of the Washington Monument and Capitol.
FLORIDA South Daytona:
A man who police say blew off a dog’s paw with a firecracker because the animal was running in his yard faces a felony animal cruelty charge, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports.
GEORGIA Atlanta:
An accountant is accused of falsifying multiple life insurance applications and collecting more than $11,000 in death benefits.
HAWAII Honolulu:
Island Air workers were told by a bankruptcy judge that there’s no guarantee they’ll get their final paychecks, The Honolulu StarAdvertiser reports. Island Air’s Chapter 11 reorganization case has been converted to a Chapter 7 liquidation.
IDAHO Caldwell:
State farmers are increasingly turning to the guest worker program to fill the gap left by Idaho’s shrinking labor force, The Capital Press reports.
ILLINOIS Carrier Mills:
A $1.2 million federal grant will allow development of a 26-mile off-road vehicle trail system at the Sahara Woods State Fish and Wildlife Area.
INDIANA Fort Wayne:
Mayor Tom Henry has decided to drop plans for a $105 million downtown arena.
IOWA Muscatine:
A local elementary school is using Frankie, a therapy pig, to help special education students manage emotions and focus on learning, The Muscatine Journal reports.
KANSAS Garnett:
Court records show that a fired Anderson County jailer had sex with five inmates.
KENTUCKY Henderson:
Transportation officials say the U.S. 60 bridge in Henderson County span- ning the Green River will be closed the first two weekends in December for repairs of steel sections.
LOUISIANA Baton Rouge:
Gov. John Bel Edwards attended last week’s ribbon-cutting for a new emergency room at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center.
MAINE Lewiston:
Police say damage could run $2,000 or more at a community recreation center that was vandalized. All of the suspects identified through video surveillance are juveniles.
MARYLAND Baltimore:
Environmental groups are calling for tighter laws to prevent stormwater runoff at state industrial sites. The groups say records show that 36% of 180 industrial sites released excessive pollutants from January 2014 to March of this year.
MASSACHUSETTS Boston:
A man authorities dubbed the “spelling bee bandit” because of a mispelling of his bank “robery in progress” notes has pleaded guilty to four counts.
MICHIGAN Lapeer:
Mott Community College officials say a bacteria that can cause Legionnaires’ infections was detected in the water at the school’s Lapeer branch. But officials say no legionella-related illnesses have been documented.
MINNESOTA St. Cloud:
Police arrested a suspect in an arson fire at the Pure Pleasure adult bookstore. The man allegedly poured fuel from a can in the store and lit it.
MISSISSIPPI Starkville:
Ulysses Grant is back in Mis- sissippi. The Union general who crushed the Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg in 1863 will get an expanded presidential library opening Nov. 30 at Mississippi State University.
MISSOURI Kansas City:
City schools won’t get full accreditation after missing annual performance test goals, Kansas City Star reports.
MONTANA Missoula:
The Board of Regents has formally approved hiring General Electric executive Seth Bodnar as president of the University of Montana.
NEBRASKA Omaha:
Metropolitan Community College will pay the Department of Labor more than $151,000 for using a grant to buy vehicles that weren’t in the program, Omaha World-Herald reports.
NEVADA Las Vegas:
Police have begun testing a network of acoustic gunshot sensors called ShotSpotter. The pilot program is designed to detect, locate and alert city police of gunfire in less than a minute.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Manchester:
Elliot Hospital says four ER workers and two police officers were treated after exposure to an unidentified white powder while working on a patient, WMUR-TV reports.
NEW JERSEY Atlantic City:
An investigation found serious problems with the Northfield VA clinic where a Gulf War veteran set himself on fire and later died. The report said the veteran went almost a year without a counselor or taking meds.
NEW MEXICO Las Cruces:
State agriculture officials will launch a 180-day quarantine Monday in hopes of stopping the weevil posing a threat to the state’s pecan industry.
NEW YORK Queensbury:
A woman pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child by giving vodka and marijuana to three children.
NORTH CAROLINA Morganton:
Western Piedmont Community College has received a state exemption to help turkey farmers process the birds in time for Thanksgiving, The Asheville Citizen-Times reports.
NORTH DAKOTA Des Lacs:
Voters approved an $11.9 million bond issue for school construction projects.
OHIO Toledo:
Three pastors are accused of sex trafficking children. Prosecutors say the men worked together to entice underage girls with money in exchange for sex.
OKLAHOMA Duncan:
Auditors say the Stephens County Fairgrounds director collected more than $15,000 in unauthorized pay and gave unapproved discounts to select vendors.
OREGON Portland:
Parents in the Dallas School District filed a lawsuit challenging a policy to allow a transgender male student into the boys’ locker room and bathrooms.
PENNSYLVANIA Delta:
A nuclear power plant control room operator was barred from the controls after failing a drug test.
RHODE ISLAND Tiverton:
A casino under construction near the state’s border with Massachusetts is expected to open later than originally planned, in October 2018.
SOUTH CAROLINA Cayce:
Utility SCE&G wants to cut rates in half over the next three years after abandoning construction of two nuclear reactors.
SOUTH DAKOTA Amherst:
TransCanada says its Keystone pipeline leaked an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota. Officials don’t think drinking water was threatened.
TENNESSEE Nashville:
The state Historical Commission has given a marker honoring the original Fisk Jubilee Singers. The spiritual music chorale toured the country in 1871 to raise money for the university.
TEXAS Houston:
The state saw a 28% turnover rate in prison guards in the last year, leaving units understaffed, The Houston Chronicle reports.
UTAH Salt Lake City:
More than 4,000 people rushed to sign up for rooftop solar panels just days before a new deal with Rocky Mountain Power reduces credit for generated electricity pushed back onto the grid, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.
VERMONT Montpelier:
A new homeless shelter has opened here for the winter. About 20 beds will be available at Bethany Church.
VIRGINIA Richmond:
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is working to put a memorial park in Shockoe Bottom, the center of Richmond’s slave trade.
WASHINGTON Seattle:
Police arrested a man and seized his AR-15 rifle after he allegedly sent threat messages to a local church.
WEST VIRGINIA Charleston:
A group that includes teachers, public workers and state retirees opposes proposed health insurance benefit cuts, Charleston Gazette-Mail reports.
WISCONSIN Madison:
The University of Wisconsin received reports of more than 70 incidents where someone felt attacked because of their race, religion or gender last spring.
WYOMING Riverton:
A new Civil Air Patrol unit is forming in Riverton, The Ranger reports.