STATE-BY-STATE
News from across the USA
ALABAMA Birmingham: A former executive of Adams Produce Company has been sentenced to a year and one day in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to overcharge the federal government for fruits and vegetables. Al.com reported David Andrew Kirkland was was also ordered to pay, along with several co-defendants, $481,000 in restitution to the federal Defense Supply Center.
ALASKA Juneau: The Alaska Energy Authority will be building 14 biomass boiler projects this year, and six of those projects will be sharing $20 million from the state’s Renewable Energy Fund.
The Juneau Empire reported the six projects are located in Galena, Kake, Ketchikan, Haines, Minto, and Yakutat.
ARIZONA Phoenix: The University of Arizona Eller College of Management will be moving from its satellite location in north Scottsdale to downtown Phoenix in late August or September.
ARKANSAS Little Rock: The Board of Education says dozens of school districts that lost class time because of snow and brutal cold won’t have to extend their academic year into summer. The board granted waivers to 75 districts, requiring them to make up at least 10 of their missed days. Without the waivers, some districts faced holding classes into mid-June.
CALIFORNIA San Bernardino: The National Park Service says a proposed 6.5-square-mile Soda Mountain solar project about a half-mile from the Mojave National Preserve would harm wildlife and should be built elsewhere.
COLORADO Denver: The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that El Paso County church members had no right to have police remove their senior pastor during a dispute over spiritual leadership last year. The court said Willie Sutton was improperly dismissed by dissident members of the St. John’s Baptist Church.
CONNECTICUT New Haven: Three newspapers visited all 92 municipal police departments and 11 State Police troops to check compliance with Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act. They gave about a quarter of police departments grades in the A range and 59% of departments a B; six departments got an F.
DELAWARE Wilmington: The Red Clay School Board rejected a plan to move special-needs students from specialized schools to district feeder schools.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: The National Park Service is working to reopen the Washington Monument in May after a lengthy closure to repair damage from an earthquake in 2011. No specific date has been set.
FLORIDA Deland: Ibilola Badmus, 30, a Winn Dixie employee, is accused of using coupon codes to steal $23,000 from the store. She was arrested Tuesday on grand theft charges, according to the Volusia County Sheriff ’s Office.
GEORGIA Athens: Nancy Denson, the mayor of Athens-Clarke County who’s seeking re-election this year, says possession and use of small amounts of marijuana should be legal. The Athens Ban
ner-Herald reported that Denson revealed her pro-pot position during a debate Wednesday night.
HAWAII Honolulu: Lawmakers are proposing to move the state’s public safety facilities and 30 data centers to one central area on Oahu that is safer from flooding.
IDAHO Boise: Officials in Ada County are looking for a new phone alert company. The Ada County Sheriff ’s Office told the
Idaho Statesman that the system hasn’t worked as promised by My State USA and that two out of three alerts have failed this year.
ILLINOIS Chicago: An Illinois Supreme Court ruling may mean more than 100 inmates serving life sentences without parole may be released early. The Thursday ruling applies to inmates imprisoned for murders they committed when they were juveniles.
INDIANA Fort Wayne: The Shadarobah Horse Rescue, a stable for neglected horses, is scrambling to find homes for the animals as it faces being shut down because of an ownership dispute. The group has about 40 horses and a couple of other animals and is facing eviction today.
IOWA Burlington: Some teachers aren’t happy with a proposed dress code. Staff would be barred from wearing denim jeans, novelty T-shirts or sweatshirts with logos, cartoons or pictures or sayings inappropriate for school.
KANSAS Topeka: Smoking is banned in the Kansas Statehouse, but a cleanup project by volunteers shows plenty of people are lighting up outside and littering the grounds with cigarette butts.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reported a group of volunteers collected 650 discarded cigarettes outside the Statehouse in just 15 minutes Wednesday.
KENTUCKY Pineville: Forestry officials and Kentucky State Police are searching for suspects in eight fires in Bell County that were intentionally set.
LOUISIANA Shreveport: LSU Medical School here could add up to 32 new spots for potential doctors in the next five years.
MAINE Portland: A vote on whether to ban plastic foam and assess a dime fee on paper and plastic shopping bags here has been postponed because of heavy opposition from business owners and industry groups.
MARYLAND Pasadena: Anne Arundel County fire officials said a 21-year-old worker was killed when he fell from atop a 180-foot tall water tower. The man was working on communications equipment when he fell Wednesday afternoon.
MASSACHUSETTS Boston: The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is displaying for the first time comic artwork of the former president posing as Superman. The original 10 hand-drawn story boards were donated by the creator and legendary comic book artist Al Plastino decades ago, but fell into the hands of a private owner. Plastino discovered his black-and-white drawings at the New York Comic Con event in October and notified the library in Boston.
MICHIGAN Lansing: An Aramark Correctional Services food worker was arrested after he was caught trying to smuggle two large bags of marijuana into the Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson, a Department of Corrections spokesman told the Detroit Free Press.
MINNESOTA Rochester: Several schools are following the lead of the Hayfield School District that requires student-athletes to agree not to use social media to abuse classmates or sports rivals.
MISSISSIPPI Hattiesburg: Police are investigating an incident in which several shots were fired into the Islamic Center. Jerry Buti, vice president of the Islamic Center, said he found bullet holes in the building around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.
MISSOURI Sullivan: A fire crew that worked to douse an apartment fire wound up having one of its pickups stolen.
MONTANA Butte: The Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners has approved an ordinance allowing licensed pet stores in the city or county to sell rodents as pets or as food for pet snakes.
NEBRASKA Holbrook, 46, Lincoln: a woman Diane with nine children was given and 10 years three in stepchildren, prison for possessing methamphetamine.
NEVADA Sparks: Northern Nevada tourism officials are hoping off-road enthusiasts will to flock to the Reno-Sparks area for the first Silver State 4WD & UTV Jamboree to be held July 14-19.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Durham: The University of New Hampshire has released plans for its new $4.4 million outdoor swimming pool proposal, as some Durham residents still lobby to save the existing, 76-year-old pool that opened under the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt.
NEW JERSEY Voorhees:
An elder law attorney in Atlantic County and the owner of an in-home senior care company are accused of preying on elderly clients without immediate family members and stealing their life savings. State prosecutors say Barbara Lieberman and Jan Van Holt stole more than $2 million from at least 10 people.
NEW MEXICO Taos: The state Game and Fish Department is planning to stock almost 10,000 Rio Grande cutthroat trout near here. Wildlife managers said they’ll be putting the native fish in the Rio Grande Gorge on Monday.
NEW YORK Newburgh: Two former members of the street gang blamed for much of the drug-related violence here have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Anthony Boykin was sentenced to life plus 32 years in prison, while Justin Simmons was sentenced to 50 years.
NORTH CAROLINA Fayetteville: Officials have identified the skeletal remains found by Fort Bragg soldiers in Hoke County last week as those of Fashaad Montez Lee, 19. Lee had been missing more than three years. Two Maxton men have been charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and conspiracy.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: The state will pay for the cleanup of illegally dumped radioactive oil field waste found on the outskirts of Noonan. Authorities have no leads on who may have left the oil filter socks in an abandoned auto shop.
OHIO Marysville: Honda celebrated the completion of 10 million American-made Accords as a vehicle came off the assembly line Thursday at Marysville, which was Honda’s first auto plant in the U.S. The first Accord was made there in 1982.
OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: District Judge Glenn Jones ruled that Daniel Green, 40, accused in the shooting deaths of four family members in August, is not mentally competent to be tried in the slayings. Green is accused of killing his mother and sister, his sister’s daughter and her 7month-old son.
OREGON Portland: A transformer or a generator blew in the sub-basement of Legacy Health’s Good Samaritan Hospital, affecting power temporarily and causing black smoke to shoot out some vents.
PENNSYLVANIA York: Authorities say one person has been arrested in connection with a three-alarm fire that investigators believe was deliberately set. Officials in York County said the blaze in a three-story abandoned warehouse was reported at about 12:45 a.m. Thursday.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: A man whose home on the Providence-Pawtucket line has been taxed by both cities for years is trying to get back more than $24,000 he says he overpaid in property taxes. Donovan Wilcox’s house and backyard off Hillside Avenue are in Pawtucket, while his 1,200-square-foot front yard is in Providence.
SOUTH CAROLINA Pelion: Lexington County officials are investigating after it appears an elementary school student was left on a school bus for six hours. The child was found around 1:30 p.m. Monday when the bus driver returned to prepare for the afternoon route. The driver and an aide have been suspended while the incident is reviewed.
SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: The number of rabies cases dropped in 2013 after two consecutive years of increases.
TENNESSEE Nashville: The Internal Revenue Service says more than 16,000 Tennesseans who didn’t file their tax returns in 2010 are due refunds totaling more than $12.8 million. The agency said those who are owed refunds have a deadline of April 15 to file their 2010 tax return in order to collect the money.
TEXAS Dallas: Federal prosecutors are readying an application for the extradition of a former Mexican governor indicted in the USA for racketeering and money laundering. An indictment filed in May accuses Tomas Yarrington Ruvalcaba of taking bribes from the Gulf Cartel as it smuggled cocaine and marijuana into the USA.
UTAH West Valley City: A 31year-old Sandy man has been charged after his girlfriend’s baby died with an antidepressant in her system. Gene Richins was charged Wednesday with child abuse homicide after the 8month-old’s death in August.
VERMONT Waterbury Center: Eight schools in Vermont and New Hampshire are getting free books and literacy programs valued at $25,000 from the Children’s Literacy Foundation.
VIRGINIA Norfolk: Carnival Cruise Lines announced Thursday that the 3,006-passenger Carnival Splendor will begin operating from Norfolk in May 2015, including cruises to Bermuda and the Bahamas.
WASHINGTON Seattle: Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson broke a bottle on the hull of the Tokitae to christen the new ferry at the Vigor Industrial shipyard. Tokitae is a tribal greeting meaning “nice day.”
WEST VIRGINIA Clarksburg: The West Virginia Division of Highways plans to replace the decks on four bridges on U.S. 50 and two others here. The $5.8 million project is scheduled to begin May 1.
WISCONSIN Madison: Cheesemaker Gerard Sinnesberger took top honors at the 2014 World Championship Cheese Contest with his Original Schweizer Rohmilch Emmentaler, a large format, big wheel Swiss cheese.
WYOMING Cheyenne: Police are investigating three cases of “sexting ” involving about 20 teens from middle and high schools. Chief Brian Kozak said many sent explicit photos of themselves. It’s illegal to share sexually explicit images with minors.