STATE-BY-STATE

News from across the USA

ALABAMA Decatur: Construction of two schools is on track for completion by this fall, WAAY-TV reports. Both new high schools will have storm shelters.

ALASKA Juneau: The state will levy a $3 per-ride fee on ride-sharing programs such as Uber and Lyft that use the Anchorage and Fairbanks airports, The Juneau Empire reports.

ARIZONA Phoenix: A grand jury indicted a Tempe man for allegedly operating a large-scale cannabis extraction lab in a condominium.

ARKANSAS Little Rock: The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences says it will lay off 258 workers and leave another 350 positions unfilled as it addresses a $30 million hole in its budget.

CALIFORNIA Anaheim: Officials notified hundreds of homeless people camped out along a dusty Orange County riverbed that they must move starting in two weeks.

COLORADO Denver: A village of tiny homes in Denver’s RiNo Arts district has moved, KMGH-TV reports. The Beloved Community Village’s move affected at least 15 people.

CONNECTICUT Enfield: State prison officials say an inmate who escaped from a medium security prison has a tattoo on his neck that reads, “Time Waits For No One.” Jerry Mercado, 25, was serving three years for burglary.

DELAWARE Dover: State lawmakers are back at work on issues ranging from the budget to capital punishment and recreational marijuana.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Customs officers at Dulles Airport in suburban Washington seized 400 pairs of counterfeit Air Jordan shoes last month that arrived from China.

FLORIDA Fort Lauderdale: Weather officials say stricter safety policies have cut the number of fatal lightning strikes in the state, the Sun Sentinel reports. Florida had five lightning fatalities last year.

GEORGIA Atlanta: Emory University is receiving a $400 million gift from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation to find new cures for disease.

HAWAII Honolulu: Hawaii State Hospital has earned a three-year reaccreditation, two months after a highprofile patient who escaped was able to fly to California, where he was arrested. Randall Saito said the facility made him want to escape.

IDAHO Coeur d’Alene: A family is seeking the return of a blanket made by the Texas grandmother of a 7year-old girl. The blanket was in a package stolen from the family’s porch, Coeur d’Alene Press reports.

ILLINOIS Aurora: Libraries in Chicago’s suburbs are making efforts to welcome people who are homeless, the Chicago Tribune reports. Staffs in Aurora and Naperville are getting training from a shelter official on how to work with homeless patrons.

INDIANA Bloomington: City officials say sharpshooters killed 62 deer during a hunt to reduce the herd at Griffy Lake nature preserve, The (Bloomington) Herald-Times reports.

IOWA Des Moines: The Iowa Board of Regents isn’t expected to decide tuition increases at the state’s three public universities until June, The Des Moines Register reports.

KANSAS West Mineral: Preservationists and volunteers are working to get a 5,500-ton electric shovel on the National Registry of Historic Places. Big Brutus was placed on the Kansas register in November.

KENTUCKY Hazard: Citing “extraordinary” cold, local officials declared a water emergency this week and implemented mandatory conservation.

LOUISIANA New Orleans: A new statue of Pope John Paul II is in place at the French Quarter cathedral where he celebrated Mass in 1987, The New Orleans Advocate reports.

MAINE Scarborough: The 480-acre Scarborough Downs track in Maine has sold for $6.7 million to Cross Roads Holdings. The buyer plans to transform the site into a town center that sits alongside an active race track.

MARYLAND Annapolis: Gov. Larry Hogan announced $2.5 million in emergency funds to fix heating problems in Baltimore schools.

MASSACHUSETTS Spring

field: Control of the historic Springfield Armory was transferred this week from the Army to the National Park Service.

MICHIGAN Detroit: The Detroit Institute of Arts will debut a gallery Friday dedicated to some of the museum’s newest acquisitions. “Out of the Crate: New Gifts & Purchases” will also offer a look at the art acquisition process.

MINNESOTA Chaska: A building and grounds worker making repairs to a heater at a middle school athletic center died after falling off a ladder, The Star Tribune reports.

MISSISSIPPI Columbus: A federal judge has rejected a strip club’s demand for longer business hours, The Commercial Dispatch reports. The Pony wants to stay open to 3 a.m., but Lowndes County refused to extend the 1 a.m. closing time.

MISSOURI Jefferson City: A state audit shows that Missouri is paying out income tax refunds later and later because of a cash shortage. The state paid roughly $423,000 in interest on late refunds to nearly 155,000 taxpayers last fiscal year.

MONTANA Polson: Lake County Sheriff Don Bell has started posting on Facebook the names of people who are cited for crimes rather than jailed. He says that’s because his 46-inmate jail is full. NEBRASKA Lincoln: State lawmakers are revving up another debate this year on whether to repeal the law requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets.

NEVADA Las Vegas: Police are seeking an armed suspect who robbed a Subway restaurant of $69 and two macadamia nut cookies, KSNV-TV says.

NEW HAMPSHIRE Bed

ford: State environmental officials will meet with Bedford residents Thursday to give an update on the investigation into PFOA chemicals.

NEW JERSEY Hoboken: A suspect jumped into a New Jersey Transit SUV and drove it into the doors of the waiting room at the Hoboken rail terminal. No one was hurt.

NEW MEXICO Santa Fe: City officials are considering installing a public toilet in a downtown area that lacks public restrooms, The Santa Fe New Mexican reports.

NEW YORK New York: Authorities say a man arrested 30 times for stealing buses and trains is taking a plea deal that will send him to a mental institution. Darius McCollum, 52, has a disorder that includes difficulty with impulse control. NORTH CAROLINA Morehead City: State officials are rethinking commercial fishing licenses because only about 3,000 fishermen who have one sell their catch to dealers, while another 4,000 don’t, the Virginian-Pilot reports.

NORTH DAKOTA Fargo: The twoday National Sunflower Association forum is in Fargo this week. Researchers present findings on sunflower studies dealing with disease, insects, irrigation and blackbirds.

OHIO Rocky River: Postal carriers say a cluster of aggressive wild turkeys makes it unsafe to deliver mail to homes in this Cleveland suburb. Officials say some carriers have been pecked but none have been injured.

OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: Five limestone panels attached to a building being renovated in downtown Oklahoma City came loose and fell 22 floors to the street below. No one was injured, but three vehicles were damaged, The Oklahoman reports.

OREGON Bend: A $10.7 million project designed to help fish move around better is coming to the Crooked River, The Bend Bulletin reports. It’s called a fish ladder, and it allows chinook salmon and steelhead in the Deschutes Basin to travel up the river more effectively.

PENNSYLVANIA Pittsburgh: A federal judge sanctioned two environmental attorneys $52,000 for “continued pursuit of frivolous claims and defenses” in fighting an oil and gas wastewater disposal well, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

RHODE ISLAND Newport: Officials are planning a multimillion-dollar restoration project on the landscape at The Breakers mansion, The Providence Journal reports.

SOUTH CAROLINA Irmo: Authorities say a man buying drugs and the man selling them killed each other during a weekend shootout in Richland County. A third person was wounded.

SOUTH DAKOTA Belle Fourche: Officials don’t believe any sensitive information was compromised when city servers were hacked, The Black Hills Pioneer reports.

TENNESSEE Nashville: Wildlife officials propose endangered species designation for the Barrens topminnow, found only in central Tennessee. Fewer than 400 are left.

TEXAS Corpus Christi: Nearly 400 sea turtles found stunned by the cold weather along the Texas coast have been warmed up and returned to the Gulf of Mexico, The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports.

UTAH Salt Lake City: Police are investigating two attempts to use propane tanks to blow up ATMs. One succeeded in causing an explosion. At the other location, the propane was turned off by officers before an explosion occurred.

VERMONT Montpelier: State residents who don’t identify as male or female may soon get to choose another gender on their driver’s license. Oregon, California and the District of Columbia offer a third gender option.

VIRGINIA Richmond: State colleges awarded the highest number of bachelor’s degrees in Virginia history last year, The Times-Dispatch reports.

WASHINGTON Spokane: The $40 million Spokane Tribe Casino opened this week, the third casino serving the regional gambling market, The Spokesman-Review reports. The casino was first proposed in 2006.

WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: The state Department of Environmental Protection has awarded nearly two dozen recycling grants worth $1.3 million to groups in 20 counties.

WISCONSIN Madison: The state reached a $1 million settlement in a lawsuit filed by the estate of a prisoner who died after a guard ignored a warning from his cellmate that he was having a seizure, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

WYOMING Casper: The University of Wyoming will host its first diversity workshops next month since hiring a chief diversity officer last May, The Casper Star-Tribune reports. The university has a five-year plan to boost enrollment of “underrepresented students.”

Compiled from staff, wire reports.