STATE-BY-STATE
ALABAMA Gardendale: Police say a pastor was robbed of his vehicle in the First Baptist Church parking lot. The suspect fled in the vehicle. No one was hurt.
ALASKA Kenai: State environmental officials say excessive motor boat traffic in July made a section of the lower Kenai River too muddy. But the stirred up sediment producing the turbidity wasn’t enough to damage fish and aquatic wildlife.
ARIZONA Tucson: The Air Force will issue an environmental impact study on basing F-35 jet fighters in Tucson. Some city residents have voiced opposition to the idea, citing noise, health and safety concerns. ARKANSAS Little Rock: Police arrested a 12-year-old boy accused of firing a handgun in a Burger King robbery. No one was hurt. The boy ran away but came back later to surrender.
CALIFORNIA San Francisco: The California Academy of Sciences has opened its annual Scuba Santa show to run through Christmas Day.
COLORADO Colorado Springs: A man landed in jail after offering to trade homegrown marijuana for an SUV listed on Craigslist, The Gazette reports. A sheriff owned the vehicle and set up a meeting where investigators found four pounds of pot.
CONNECTICUT Scotland: Residents here are becoming Lords and Ladies of the town’s namesake country, a gift from Highland Titles. DELAWARE Dover: The widow of a lawyer for whom New Castle County’s courthouse is named is seeking court permission to sell several properties he owned to pay estate debts.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit says construction on the light-rail Purple Line can continue without updating an environmental study. Construction of the line scheduled to open in 2022 began in August. FLORIDA Orlando: A garbage truck that was backing up struck and killed a 73-year-old man walking his dog. The state Highway Patrol says the dog was taken to a veterinary clinic for treatment.
GEORGIA Forsyth: The Monroe County Sheriff ’s Office is playing Santa for several dozen “down on their luck” people this season with $100 bills, The Telegraph reports.
HAWAII Honolulu: A study finds that almost 94% of rats in the Hilo region are infected with a parasite that causes rat lungworm disease.
IDAHO Boise: After environmentalists filed a lawsuit, the U.S. Forest Service withdrew snowmobile maps for Payette and Boise national forests. The suit says the maps aren’t restrictive enough for snowmobiles that have become more powerful and numerous.
ILLINOIS Quincy: Two veterans panels of state lawmakers will hold a joint hearing Jan. 9 on a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak at a veterans home, Quincy Herald-Whig reports. Thirteen residents at the Illinois Veterans Home have died from the disease over the past three years.
INDIANA Fort Wayne: Indiana Tech may become the first tenant at a former General Electric campus that’s being redeveloped. GE vacated the buildings in early 2015.
IOWA Clarion: The 4-H Schoolhouse Museum is settling into its new home at the Heartland Museum complex, Mason City Globe Gazette reports.
KANSAS Manhattan: Kansas State has hired consultants to fix declining enrollment, Manhattan Mercury says. The school had 22,796 students this fall, a drop of more than 4% from the previous fall.
KENTUCKY Frankfort: State Police say a record total of nearly 210 tons was donated during the agency’s “Cram the Cruiser” food drive.
LOUISIANA Baton Rouge: Ochsner Health System will manage day-today operations at state-owned safety-net hospitals in north Louisiana.
MAINE Thomaston: Authorities say Montpelier, an early 20th century replica of a Revolutionary War-era home, could close if its nonprofit operator can’t raise $150,000 soon.
MARYLAND Annapolis: Gov. Larry Hogan has signed an executive order recognizing the Accohannocks tribe on the state’s Eastern Shore.
MASSACHUSETTS Boston: Police recovered dozens of stolen packages at the home of a subcontractor making deliveries for Amazon.
MICHIGAN Grand Rapids: A fish dealer was sentenced to four months in prison for buying and selling Lake Michigan trout that was illegally taken, The Grand Rapids Press reports.
MINNESOTA Duluth: Scientists studying moose skulls on Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior say the animals are shrinking, with 16% smaller skulls over 40 years, Minnesota Public Radio reports. MISSISSIPPI Jackson: Starting in January, the state will stop suspending driver’s licenses just for unpaid court fines and fees.
MISSOURI Kansas City: The state’s maternal mortality rate is one of the worst in the country at more than 28 deaths per 100,000 live births. MONTANA Missoula: The University of Montana Foundation has sold the Montana Island Lodge on Salmon Lake for $1.6 million.
NEBRASKA Hastings: Administrators at Hastings Public Schools say classroom doors will be locked when classes resume in January.
NEVADA Las Vegas: Clark County has scrapped the idea of building a $200 million elevated expressway to McCarran International Airport.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Gilford: Live Nation Entertainment has a 51% stake in Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion, Laconia Daily Sun says. NEW JERSEY Trenton: Gov. Chris Christie has signed a bill to ease restrictions facing residents seeking to expunge criminal records. Christie says it gives criminal offenders a “second chance.”
NEW MEXICO Clovis: Vandals spray-painted “Happy Birthday Jesus Christ” on the Golden Mosque in Clovis, The Eastern New Mexico News reports, but misspelled the signature: “From a real Christain.” NEW YORK East Greenbush: Michael’s Auto Plaza in suburban Albany is accepting bitcoin purchases.
NORTH CAROLINA Raleigh: Campus police at North Carolina State University say a phone scam tells students there’s a problem with their status but they can fix it for a fee, The News & Observer reports.
NORTH DAKOTA Minot: State prison officials have ended special monitoring at the Ward County Jail that started in 2015 after an inmate died. OHIO Columbus: The state’s adult prison population fell below 50,000 for the first time in four years. The tally this week was 49,596 inmates.
OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: An ex-finance official says the state health agency was “a financial time bomb” before a $30 million budget shortfall was found. Deborah Nichols says the agency was overstaffed and couldn’t pay its bills on time when the shortfall was discovered. OREGON Bend: A workplace safety report says employees at the Chimps Inc. chimpanzee sanctuary experienced attacks and injuries by the seven animals housed there. The violations could result in more than $20,000 in fines.
PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia: Token sales end next month at some subway station cashier booths. But sales will continue at major offices, regional stations and more than 200 thirdparty retailers.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: Officials say a special-needs school bus driver was retrained after the vehicle’s mechanical lift got stuck, stranding several students.
SOUTH CAROLINA Spartanburg: Officials defend mold reduction efforts at the county courthouse, despite ongoing worker complaints.
SOUTH DAKOTA Brandon: Authorities say a student brought an unloaded handgun to Brandon Valley High School to sell to another student, The Argus Leader reports. The school was placed on lockdown.
TENNESSEE Chattanooga: Prosecutors say the driver of a school bus that crashed, killing six elementary school students, took a cell phone call at the time of the crash, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. Johnthony Walker faces six counts of vehicular homicide at a trial beginning Feb. 27.
TEXAS Houston: Harris County is moving ahead to complete a project to widen and deepen Brays Bayou, The Houston Chronicle reports. Construction of the flood prevention effort is expected to begin next summer and finish in 2021. UTAH Cedar City: Wildlife managers in the Trump administration are moving to loosen endangered species protections for prairie dogs. Officials say the plan preserves prairie dog numbers while helping people in Cedar City, where residents say the animals have overrun playgrounds, cemeteries and backyards.
VERMONT Burlington: State health officials report 29 physicianassisted deaths since 2013, the year that the Patient Choice at the End of Life law passed, Vermont Public Radio reports. The law lets doctors prescribe a lethal dose of medication to patients with a terminal condition. VIRGINIA Chesapeake: By a 7-1 vote, the City Council rejected what might have been Chesapeake’s first solar farm, The Virginian-Pilot reports. Some neighbors of the 146-acre proposal expressed concern about how it might impact their property values. WASHINGTON Tacoma: A man accused of leading an opioid trafficking ring that brought about 10,000 pills a month to the state from Los Angeles was sentenced to five years in prison.
WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: State officials say liquor sales are barred on Christmas Eve and Christmas. But wine, beer and champagne can be purchased on Sunday after 1 p.m. WISCONSIN Madison: An eastern pipistrelle, the state’s smallest bat, was tracked with an ultra-light transmitter beaming its movement after emerging from hibernation, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
WYOMING Jackson: Despite a lack of snow, wildlife managers have started putting out feed for elk, The Jackson Hole News and Guide says. The idea is to keep elk from feeding on hay intended for cattle at ranches across the state.