50 ★ States

ALABAMA Tuscaloosa: Students at Taylorville Primary School crowded around a new vending machine, but this machine is different than other vending machines, which typically dispense snacks or drinks. The new machine dispenses books. Taylorville Primary unveiled the machine in the school library by cutting a golden ribbon that was wrapped around the machine. Principal Laurie Presley said the machine is a way to reward students and to promote reading.

ALASKA Anchorage: An Alaska woman hoping to cash in after a man offered her $9 million in an online murder-for-hire plot has been sentenced to 99 years in prison for orchestrating the fatal shooting of her friend, state officials said.

ARIZONA Phoenix: A bipartisan bill that cleared a Senate committee last week would spawn a medical psilocybin mushroom industry in Arizona that could grow into a larger market in the future.

ARKANSAS Fayetteville: Officers said a woman was arrested after one dog and 34 cats were found neglected in her home, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

CALIFORNIA Berkeley: The 19-yearold son of a former YouTube executive died last week at the UC Berkeley campus where he resided, officials and a relative said.

COLORADO Fort Collins: Poudre School District removed many of the drinking fountains and replaced faucets on dozens of classroom sinks in its elementary schools to ensure the amount of lead in water students drink was within the limits allowed under a new Colorado law. The classroom drinking fountains are being replaced by hydration stations, where students can fill bottles with filtered water, PSD’s environmental coordinator said.

CONNECTICUT Killingly: Two dogs were rescued from a house fire in Killingly. The two adults and three children who live in the house were not home when the fire occurred.

DELAWARE Wilmington: Wilmington Airport received $5.6 million in federal infrastructure funding to update and expand its terminal, according to an announcement from the Federal Aviation Administration.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washington: Robert Spano was recently hired to become music director of the Washington National Opera starting with the 2025-26 season. Evan Rogister, the principal conductor since 2018, will end his role at the conclusion of the 2024-25 season. Spano, 62, agreed to a three-year contract and will have the title music director designate until starting his new role.

FLORIDA Fort Myers: Florida lost another iconic cat recently as a 10year-old male dubbed 255 was hit and killed by a vehicle in eastern Lee County. Photographers, preserve managers and advocates had seen the cat for years, roaming the Corkscrew Swamp Ecosystem Watershed, a 60,000-acre marsh near the LeeCollier border.

GEORGIA Cedartown: A company that recycles solar panels announced that it would build a $344 million factory in northwest Georgia, for the first time expanding to making new glass for panels.

HAWAII Honolulu: Authorities are searching for multiple suspects after a fatal shooting over the weekend, Hawaii News Now reported.

IDAHO Boise: A man was sentenced to 20 years in prison for shooting a man on Christmas day in 2022, the Idaho Press reported.

ILLINOIS Springfield: Paul Powell, the southern Illinois political powerhouse who died and left behind $800,000 in cash in the notorious “Shoebox Scandal,” used to say, “The only thing worse than a defeated politician is a broke one.” For more than half a century, a Powell-established $250,000 trust sustained his legacy, for better or worse. But the account that maintained his birthplace as a museum will soon run dry. The fate of the home in Vienna is uncertain, but it likely will be sold.

INDIANA Indianapolis: The Earth may be warming at an even faster rate than expected, escalating the threat from climate change, according to a new study by a research team that included an Indiana State University professor.

IOWA Des Moines: Iowa’s smallest and largest farms have proliferated over the past 20 years, while the number of those in the middle is shrinking, the latest U.S. Census of Agriculture shows. Farms of fewer than 180 acres have increased nearly 12% over the past two decades, according to the census, a comprehensive farm survey the U.S Department of Agriculture conducts every five years. Experts say that’s because farmers are scaling down in the face of record-high land prices and escalating expenses for seed, fertilizer, tractors and other equipment and products.

KANSAS Topeka: Kansas lawmakers are considering a likely ill-fated move to ask permission from the federal government to ban purchases of candy and soda using food stamps.

KENTUCKY Louisville: Multi-family housing construction took off again in Louisville in 2023, while the number of new single-family homes continued to slow − furthering a trend that has left many people searching for housing within their budgets as some residents push back against denser developments.

LOUISIANA Baton Rouge: Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser is once again partnering with the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board for the eighth annual Pardoning of the Crawfish. Breaux Bridge, the crawfish capital of the world, will host the event Feb. 20.

MAINE Brewer: A state agency rejected a Canadian mining company’s zoning application for a proposed mine on Pickett Mountain in northern Penobscot County, near Baxter State Park and the Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument.

MARYLAND Baltimore: A Baltimore County police officer is accused of using excessive force when he pepper sprayed a handcuffed man in the face and closed him inside a hot patrol car, even as the man repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe.

MASSACHUSETTS West Boylston:

Less than a year into its contract with the state Registry of Motor Vehicles to administer road tests for applicants seeking Class D driver’s licenses, a Massachusetts driving school claims the agreement was terminated four months short and has asked its attorneys to demand it be reinstated without prejudice.

MICHIGAN Lansing: Three newborn North American river otters are the newest addition to Potter Park Zoo. This is mom Nkeke’s fourth litter and second set of triplets.

MINNESOTA St. Paul: A Minnesota high school teacher of students with developmental and cognitive disabilities was arrested on criminal sexual misconduct charges for allegedly having sex with a former student, several outlets reported.

MISSISSIPPI Jackson: Chronic wasting disease has been detected in deer in six additional Mississippi counties in recent months and among them is one that has been a source of controversy – Claiborne County.

MISSOURI Columbia: The University of Missouri is paying attention to artificial intelligence, the director of the MU office of academic integrity said. An AI task force is being formed looking at how faculty uses AI to teach and what students should be learning about AI, or AI literacy, he said.

MONTANA Great Falls: From Montana’s continental divide on east across the Great Lakes, the region’s snowpack is critically low, leaving climatologists concerned over implications for the summer ahead.

NEBRASKA Omaha: Rescue groups are seeking donations after 18 cats were found at an abandoned trailer home, Omaha World-Herald reported.

NEVADA Las Vegas: A woman who uses a wheelchair due to a spinal injury has accused the county that includes Las Vegas of unfairly targeting people with disabilities under its new ban on standing or stopping while crossing pedestrian bridges on the Strip, according to a lawsuit.

NEW HAMPSHIRE Greenland: Verizon wants to install a 100-foot-tall cell tower on Route 33 in an effort to improve coverage in several key areas around town.

NEW JERSEY Winslow Township:

A school district will pay $6 million to settle a lawsuit brought by two students who claim they were sexually assaulted for years by a former high school teacher. The male students had filed separate lawsuits weeks apart alleging they were assaulted by a social studies and history teacher at Edgewood High School, which is now known as Winslow Township High School, between 1998 and 2003.

NEW MEXICO Santa Fe: A butterfly known to dwell along New Mexico’s eastern plains and the mountains to the north was deemed “threatened” by the federal government, affording the species protections to prevent its extinction. A threatened status means that without improvement, its condition could soon warrant endangered status, the highest federal protection afforded to imperiled plants and animals when their extinction is believed imminent.

NEW YORK New York: Former U.S. Rep. George Santos alleged in a lawsuit that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel deceived him into making videos on the Cameo app that were used to ridicule the disgraced New York Republican on the show.

NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: The state’s top regulator said oil production dipped in December, but natural gas production hit another record, the Bismarck Tribune reported.

OHIO Columbus: Magic mushrooms being studied by researchers at Ohio State University could unlock new treatments for mental illnesses within the next few years. Both psilocybin, the naturally occurring psychedelic component of magic mushrooms, and a synthetic version of it have been coupled with intensive therapy and are in clinical trials at Ohio State, said the director of the school’s Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education.

OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: Some Oklahoma lawmakers want to bring the state off the sidelines of sports betting and into the game. They’re facing long odds, however. Gov. Kevin Stitt wants to open Oklahoma’s betting market to outside competitors. Tribal officials say doing so would violate their gaming agreement with the state. Without a consensus, efforts to legalize sports betting appear unlikely to gain traction during the legislative session this spring.

OREGON Portland: Years of management issues involving facility upkeep and staff at Oregon’s Crater Lake have prompted the federal government to consider terminating its contract with the national park’s concessionaire.

PENNSYLVANIA State College: Hundreds of Penn State students have raised more than $16.9 million for pediatric cancer patients in the annual 46-hour dance marathon known as Thon.

RHODE ISLAND Providence: A cheetah which had lived at the Roger Williams Park Zoo for nearly a decade has died after her health “declined significantly” in recent months, the zoo announced.

SOUTH CAROLINA Greer: A new automation facility is bringing more than 150 jobs and creating a $9.2 million investment at the Inland Port in Greer. Omron Automation Americas is moving its facility from Renton, Washington, to Atlas at Inland Port Greer.

SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: Sioux Falls School District officials won’t be releasing the list of possible school names they’ve received from community members just yet for the new elementary school to be built on the northwest side of the city by George McGovern Middle School.

TENNESSEE Knoxville: Dollywood is undergoing some big changes for a big year. Although the newest attraction still has gray walls and cement floors right now, soon it will be a colorful display of butterflies and Dolly Parton’s legacy for Dollywood regulars and first-timers to enjoy. Dollywood’s 2024-25 season will be the park’s longest ever, staying open for 280 days. That’s 23 more days than the previous season.

TEXAS Austin: Protests and petitions could put an end to foie gras, the liver delicacy served chilled or seared at a variety of Austin’s high-end dining establishments, in a growing trend across the country.

UTAH Salt Lake City: Officials said Great Salt Lake’s salinity levels have improved after changes were made to the causeway berm that separates the northern and southern areas, Utah Public Radio reported.

VERMONT Burlington: A Ukrainian man pleaded guilty to involvement in two separate malware schemes including a cyberattack at the University of Vermont Medical Center in 2020 that temporarily shut down some of its vital services and cost it tens of millions of dollars, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

VIRGINIA Waynesboro: A woman who tossed a deceased puppy into a drainage ditch after it starved to death pleaded guilty to a charge of felony animal cruelty.

WASHINGTON Bremerton: Kitsap Transit will resume its Sunday bus service in Port Orchard, Silverdale and Poulsbo on March 10, rolling out the second phase of its Sunday Service plan.

WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: Cleveland-Cliffs announced that it is shutting down a northern West Virginia tin production facility indefinitely and plans to lay off 900 workers after the International Trade Commission voted against imposing tariffs on tin imports.

WISCONSIN Milwaukee: A collection of Milwaukee elected officials are again calling on the state Legislature to allow the city to use automatic traffic enforcement cameras to cite drivers who run red lights in another effort to reduce reckless driving. Milwaukee officials didn’t offer many details of what kind of automatic traffic camera program they want.

WYOMING Jackson: Officials said a man has died after colliding with a snowplow, Jackson Hole News and Guide reported.