Around the nation
News from every state.
ALABAMA Montgomery: St. John’s Episcopal Church has removed a pew honoring Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
ALASKA Anchorage: The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race officially begins March 2, but preparations are underway for care of dogs on the trail. KTVA reports about 60 people helped with the annual straw drop last week.
ARIZONA Flagstaff: A new study says extending the tourist season at the Grand Canyon’s North Rim by a month would boost the regional economy by $14 million.
ARKANSAS Little Rock: The state has begun mailing out medical marijuana identification cards.
CALIFORNIA Palm Springs: U.S. Forest Service officials say the government shutdown caused the agency to miss wildfire prevention and mitigation work done each winter.
COLORADO Steamboat Springs: A man’s attempt to launch a worldrecord aerial fireworks shell failed. The Steamboat Pilot & Today reports Tim Borden tried to launch the 62inch-diameter shell from the top of Howelsen Hill Ski Area on Saturday night, but it exploded too early.
DELAWARE Dover: The state’s medical director says last year Delaware saw the fewest new HIV infections since it started keeping records.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washington: A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives report says a September fire that gutted a public housing complex for seniors was likely caused by human activity.
FLORIDA Naples: Sportscaster Warner Wolf is facing a felony charge after police say he damaged a sign outside his community because it which included he the considers word “Plantation,” racist.
GEORGIA Cumberland Island: The federal government is planning prescribed fires to help maintain one of coastal Georgia’s most pristine barrier islands. The National Park Service says controlled burning on Cumberland Island could begin Tuesday.
HAWAII Honolulu: The state does not have an accurate count of legally owned and registered guns, and there is no reliable way to find out how many there are, a state study says.
IDAHO Lapwai: The Nez Perce Tribe has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency for a water quality improvement project in north-central Idaho.
ILLINOIS Springfield: One of the youngest additions to the Henson Robinson Zoo is a titi monkey born about three weeks ago, the (Springfield) State Journal-Register reports.
INDIANA Indianapolis: Several state parks, state forests and state recreation areas are looking for volunteers to serve as campground hosts.
IOWA Des Moines: The Iowa State Fair says it will require all food and drink vendors to accept credit and debit cards beginning in 2020.
KANSAS North Newton: A woman who sold land farmed by her family for five generations donated a portion of the profits to help preserve the heritage of the Kaw Nation. Florence Schloneger tells the Wichita Eagle she gifted $10,000 to the Kanza Heritage Society to acknowledge her family’s land ownership “came at a great cost” to the Kaw, or Kanza, people.
KENTUCKY Louisville: The Forecastle Festival has announced top acts for this year’s July 12-14 event are The Killers, The Avett Brothers and 2019 Grammy-winning Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals.
LOUISIANA New Orleans: Jefferson Parish has approved an ordinance allowing people to throw beads at a truck at the end of Metairie parades for recycling, WWL-TV reports.
MAINE Scarborough: The state is accepting applications for coveted permits for its annual moose hunt.
MARYLAND Towson: It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and at Towson University, a mother has been trying so hard to find a date for her son that police are concerned. The Baltimore Sun reports a woman in her 50s approached students last week, showing them a photo on her phone and asking if they’d date him.
MASSACHUSETTS Salem: Salem State University is holding a week of free events to celebrate the 210th birthday of Charles Darwin with its 40th annual Darwin Festival.
MICHIGAN Detroit: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s downtown building lit up with the initials of former U.S. Rep. John Dingell on Monday. Dingell, who was the longest-serving member of Congress in U.S. history, died Thursday at 92.
MINNESOTA Inver Grove Heights: Authorities say a resident reported a strange intruder in her basement – a pale horse. Police Sgt. Adam Wiederhoeft said it wasn’t clear how the horse got into the house, but the owner came by to remove it.
MISSISSIPPI Centreville: A segment of highway is being named for civil rights activist Anne Moody. A dedication ceremony is set for Feb. 20 in Centreville, where Moody grew up.
MISSOURI Springfield: Recreational drones are now legal to fly above Missouri Department of Conservation lands with a permit.
MONTANA Jackson: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has resumed feeding elk on the National Elk Refuge after deciding against supplemental feed last winter.
NEBRASKA Wood River: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released its final environmental impact statement on what a 345,000volt transmission line through the Nebraska Sandhills could mean to habitat for the endangered American burying beetle.
NEVADA Las Vegas: A fire chief who warned lawmakers months before a mass shooting at a music festival that the state should bolster its emergency management planning says he wants to bypass lawmakers to get changes made.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: A summer home and a former seminary are among eight properties added to the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places.
NEW JERSEY Asbury Park: Icarus Brewing Company in Lakewood, Dark City Brewing Company of Asbury Park and Point Pleasant Beach’s Last Wave Brewing Co. have joined forces for the Jersey Triad, a beer collaboration starting from the same New England Double India Pale Ale base recipe. Icarus’ Brux Trois-fermented version comes to its tasting room Wednesday. Dark City will unveil its kettle-soured version Thursday, followed by Last Wave’s Brut-fermented iteration Saturday.
NEW MEXICO Santa Fe: Reies Lopez Tijerina, turned activist a Pentecostal who led preacher a violent raid of a northern New Mexico courthouse more than 50 years ago and helped sparked the Chicano Movement, is the subject of a new Spanish-language documentary. “They Called Me King Tiger” will make its debut in the state Friday, the Santa New Mexican reports.
NEW YORK Albany: Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s standing with voters has fallen to a new low, according to a poll out Monday.
NORTH CAROLINA Raleigh: The NBA All-Star Game is bound for the state this weekend after the league delayed Charlotte hosting the event for two years because of North Carolina’s “bathroom bill,” which singled out transgender people.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: Lawmakers are considering proposals to make it easier for patients to get doctor approval for medical marijuana.
OHIO Cincinnati: The Cincinnati Reds are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the professional baseball-pioneering Red Stockings team with a variety of throwback uniforms.
OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: The judge who presides over Oklahoma County’s mental health court says the county jail isn’t a safe place to house detainees awaiting mental health treatment.
OREGON Salem: Suction dredge miners, recently banned from gold mining in salmon-bearing streams, are asking the Legislature to fund stream cleanup projects using their dredge equipment.
PENNSYLVANIA York: Dream Wrights theater is receiving more publicity for a production of “James and the Giant Peach” than it might have anticipated, after an image surfaced of the set that bears what some social media commenters think is a remarkable resemblance to female genitalia.
RHODE ISLAND Smithfield: Bert the pelican has finally found a flight out of the frigid Northeast. The juvenile brown pelican had remained stranded at a wildlife facility because of the 35-day government shutdown.
SOUTH CAROLINA Charleston: Department of Corrections investigators suspect potato guns have been used to launch banned items into prisons.
SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: The Sioux Falls Butterfly House and Aquarium plans an expansion and a new name, the Dakota Aquarium.
TENNESSEE Franklin: The United Daughters of the Confederacy wants a court to declare that it owns the town’s public square and a Confederate monument that sits on it.
TEXAS Abilene: Art students at Madison Middle School donned curly wigs and painted little trees in a flash mob last week to pay homage to the late painter Bob Ross.
UTAH Salt Lake City: Lawmakers’ contentious plan to scale back a voter-approved Medicaid expansion is headed to the governor’s desk.
VERMONT Montpelier: Lawmakers have introduced a bill that would raise fines for texting while driving and other distracted driving offenses.
VIRGINIA Harrisonburg: James Madison University will name a residence hall after Paul Jennings, a freed slave once owned by founding father James Madison.
WASHINGTON Spokane: expect a tougher year even Farmers if political can leaders finalize trade deals, Washington State University professor Randy Fortenbery told the Spokane Ag Expo and Pacific Farm Forum last week.
WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: Wildlife officials say the number of whitetailed deer killed in 2018’s hunting seasons rose slightly vs. a year prior.
WISCONSIN Madison: University of Wisconsin System officials say graduation numbers are up from 10 years ago, and the number of graduates of color has more than doubled.
WYOMING Cheyenne: The governor will consider a proposal by high school students to recognize the blotched tiger salamander as Wyoming’s state amphibian.