News from across the USA STATE-BY-STATE

ALABAMA Dothan: Manufacturing jobs are on the rise, The Dothan Eagle reports, Houston County saw a 21% increase in manufacturing jobs in the past year, topping all other Alabama counties by a substantial margin.

ALASKA Wasilla: The Wasilla Police Department has raised more than $56,000 to get another police dog, KTUU-TV reports. The department’s previous police dog, Marshal, died in April.

ARIZONA Nogales: Border Patrol agents in Arizona arrested four men previously convicted of felonies in the United States and their native Mexico. The cases ranged from murder to exposing a child to harmful materials.

ARKANSAS Little Rock: The Federal Aviation Administration is checking on whether any laws or regulations were broken when a low-flying pilot dropped live turkeys on a weekend Arkansas festival. The annual Yellville Turkey Trot included a turkey drop for years, but officials distanced themselves from the practice in recent years.

CALIFORNIA Santa Rosa: The city’s Sutter Hospital re-opened Tuesday after evacuating nearly 80 patients a week earlier within a frantic six hours as a wildfire crept closer to the facility.

COLORADO Denver: Twenty five people are accused of stealing over $35,000 in goods from Denver area home improvement stores and returning the items to get merchandise credit cards. Prosecutors say the credit cards were sold for cash used in some cases to buy drugs.

CONNECTICUT New London: A man is heading to trial next year on charges of killing a good Samaritan who police say intervened in an assault on a woman outside a bar. The Day reports that Dante Hughes declined an offer from prosecutors to plead guilty in exchange for a 40-year prison sentence.

DELAWARE Lewes: State police say two men are charged in a vandalism spree that included racist graffiti painted on the side of a school bus.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: A federal judge has ruled that a suburban Washington sheriff was within his rights to fire a high-ranking deputy who supported an opposing candidate. The fired deputy, Mark McCaffrey, has appealed the ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

FLORIDA Pompano Beach: Two people whose car became stuck on railroad tracks were killed when a Tri-Rail commuter train hit the vehicle last weekend near Pompano Beach. Officials say none of the 80 passengers on the train were injured.

GEORGIA Columbus: Green means go for cyclists and pedestrians in Columbus. The city is experimenting with crosswalks painted green for greater visibility, the Ledger-Enquirer reports.

HAWAII Lihue: Hawaii’s plan to eradicate Lehua Island’s rat infestation via air drops of poison has worked. A conservation official says there’s no signs of negative impact on marine life, the Garden Island reports.

IDAHO Idaho Falls: Music and physical education have returned this fall to all elementary schools in Bonneville Joint District 93, The Post Register reports. The district cut funding for the two programs in 2011.

ILLINOIS Springfield: A century-old

bell that went missing from Bissell United Methodist Church earlier this month has been returned, The (Springfield) State Journal-Register reports. The pastor says a local antique dealer returned the bell after buying it, not knowing until later that it was stolen.

INDIANA Mishawaka: Authorities are investigating how a loaded handgun issued by the South Bend Police Department ended up along a busy road, The South Bend Tribune reports. A reporter for WNDU-TV found the gun Sept. 17.

IOWA Des Moines: Chicken owners are pushing back against a proposal to limit the size of flocks in the city to 15 and ban roosters. Officials say the restrictions are in response to neighborhood complaints, The Des Moines Register reports.

KANSAS Topeka: The federal government has given Kansas permission to operate KanCare for another year. KanCare is the state’s private Medicaid system that had been set to expire at the end of this year.

KENTUCKY Frankfort: State revenue officials say an examination is set for Nov. 17 for people interested in getting on next year’s ballot in hopes of serving as a property valuation administrator.

LOUISIANA New Orleans: The Bayou Country Superfest will stay in New Orleans for a second year. Organizers say the 2018 version of the event, to be held over Memorial Day weekend, will return to to the MercedesBenz Superdome. The event was held in Baton Rouge its first seven years.

MAINE Portland: Federal ocean managers say Northwestern Atlantic witch flouder are overfished, and conservation measures are needed. Fishermen typically brought more than 5 million pounds of witch flounder to land in the early 2000s, but the catch fell to about 1 million pounds by 2015.

MARYLAND Baltimore: City councilman Brandon Scott has proposed requiring restaurants to prominently post their health inspection reports for customers to see. But restaurant owners have resisted similar proposals in the past.

MASSACHUSETTS Springfield: A stepdaughter of Dr. Seuss wants a mural deemed offensive

for its depiction of a Chinese character from one of the author’s books to remain at the Dr. Seuss Museum in Springfield. Leagrey Dimond says, “there is no better place to begin the conversation.”

MICHIGAN Trenton: Construction is finished for a school ship dock and fishing pier at the gateway to the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge. The gateway serves as an ecological buffer to the Humbug Marsh wetland.

MINNESOTA Rochester: A physician facing deportation to her native Malaysia was granted a 30-day reprieve this week by federal immigration officials. Dr. Guan Lee, 41, built a medical practice in Rochester.

MISSISSIPPI Jackson: Health officials confirm two new cases of West Nile virus in Mississippi. That brings the total so far this year to 60 cases of the mosquitoborne illness.

MISSOURI Fulton: Westminster College has chosen Fletcher Lamkin to take over as president. The selection marks Lamkin’s return to the Missouri school, where his 2000-2007 administration included record fundraising and campus improvements.

MONTANA Missoula: Efforts to stabilize the remains of a historic Montana dormitory that was severely damaged by an Aug. 31 wildfire are finished, The Missoulian reports.

NEBRASKA Lincoln: The State Patrol’s new superintendent, Col. John A. Bolduc, was sworn in this week. Bolduc was appointed by Gov. Pete Ricketts to replace Superintendent Brad Rice.

NEVADA Las Vegas: Police say a 14-year-old girl is under arrest after a stabbing that injured a classmate at Clark High School. The 16-year-old victim was hospitalized but is expected to survive.

NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: A state commission studying the potential impact of legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana for recreational use started its work this week.

NEW JERSEY Trenton: A woman who acknowledged killing her exboyfriend and then getting a tattoo of his name and date

of death was sentenced to 17 years in prison, NJ.com reports.

NEW MEXICO Hobbs: School enrollment in this New Mexico oil city has hit another record high, The Hobbs News-Sun reports. The district reports that it’s serving 10,070 students.

NEW YORK Albany: The state is taking steps to adopt new standards for prisoners held in solitary confinement in local jails. Under the proposed regulations, inmates held in solitary must get at least four hours outside their cell daily.

NORTH CAROLINA New Bern:

Authorities say a Craven Community College student is in custody after being seen carrying a gun on campus. The school was placed on lockdown for about 45 minutes.

NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck:

State agriculture officials say nearly all of the 215 North Dakota farmers who responded to a survey on the herbicide dicamba reported damage. But most of the damage responses lacked plant tissue analysis to back up the claims.

OHIO Berea: Officials plan a new system of travel alert information for part of the Ohio Turnpike near Cleveland. The move to roadside sensors for traffic and weather alerts is geared toward a day when autonomous vehicles regularly cruise the turnpike, The Plain Dealer reports.

OKLAHOMA Norman: University of Oklahoma students are pushing to rename a local street honoring a former professor who also was a Ku Klux Klan grand dragon, The Oklahoman reports. DeBarr Avenue is named for Edwin DeBarr, who was forced out in 1923 because of his Klan involvement.

OREGON Salem: Voters in Oregon will go the polls Jan. 23 to decide the fate of multimilliondollar health care tax. Proponents say the tax on hospitals and insurers keeps premiums low. Critics say it’ll ultimately be shifted to consumers.

PENNSYLVANIA Gettysburg: A

former cemetery owner was sentenced to two to seven years in prison and ordered to pay $2.2 million in restitution to customers, WPMT-TV reports. James Delaney was the subject of hundreds of customer complaints alleging payment for services that weren’t fulfilled.

RHODE ISLAND

Cranston: A wild turkey crashed through the window of an orthodontics office in this Rhode Island city. Workers thought at first that the office had been robbed, but then they saw the turkey in a waiting room chair, WFXT-TV reports.

SOUTH CAROLINA Charleston:

Authorities say a man sprayed a foul-smelling brown liquid on produce at a Harris Teeter grocery store, telling police that the store owed him money. The man, a former contractor, was arrested. SOUTH DAKOTA Rapid City: Two bear cubs that escaped from the Bear Country USA wildlife park didn’t get far, The Rapid

City Journal reports. Pennington County Sheriff’s Deputy Kylie Kintigh says the bears were more interested in following her around than making a getaway. They were sedated and taken back to the park.

TENNESSEE Nashville: Tennesseans turned in more than 40 tons of pills and pill waste over the past year, a rise in volume even as the death toll from drug overdoses climbs. Nearly 220,000 pounds of pill waste have been collected since 2012,

The Tennessean reports.

TEXAS San Antonio: Immigration officials plan to open another detention center in South Texas for people caught entering the country illegally, The Austin American-Statesman reports. The agency is seeking proposals for a facility along the Interstate 35 corridor.

UTAH Salt Lake City: A movie theater says its fight against a state law that banned serving alcohol during the film “Deadpool” cost more than $500,000. And Brewvies says the state should pay the bill after a judge found that the law violated freespeech protections.

VERMONT Montpelier: The state is commemorating its firstin-the-nation civil union law and subsequent marriage equality legislation with a historic site marker unveiled this week on the Statehouse lawn. Vermont’s recognition of same-sex couples came with its civil union legislation in 2000.

VIRGINIA Charlottesville: The University of Virginia has awarded $100,000 to eight projects designed to improve culture, with a preference for those that address unconscious bias and racial tension, The Daily Progress reports.

WASHINGTON Seattle: A King County judge has voided a ballot measure that proposed banning safe injection sites for drug users. Judge Veronica Alicea ruled that courts have given public health officials broad authority to protect public health and that Initiative 27 extends beyond the scope of the initiative power.

WEST VIRGINIA Charleston:

Twelve agriculture projects in the state will receive federal specialty crop block grants. The $230,000 in grants will go to projects aimed at enhancing such crops as shiitake mushrooms, tree nuts, maple syrup and Christmas trees, among others.

WISCONSIN Strum: A nursing home owner says he’s closing his last state facility because Medicaid payments don’t cover care costs, The Leader-Telegram reports. The Strum Area Health & Rehabilitation nursing home and its attached assisted-living housing will close in coming months.

WYOMING Jackson: State wildlife managers are hosting a circuit of meetings about grizzly bear management, The Jackson

Hole News & Guide reports. The meetings aren’t designed to set policy, such as hunting regulations. There is no grizzly hunting season in Wyoming.