STATE-BY-STATE
News from across the USA
ALABAMA Mobile: Federal prosecutors, the FBI and the police department are teaming up to teach teens how to prevent contact with cops from turning tragic, AL.com reported. Successful Tips for Youth on Law Enforcement Encounters, or STYLE, includes mock scenarios instructing teens on how to respond when an officer questions them or pulls them over.
ALASKA Denali National Park: Shuttle bus service is set to begin in the park and preserve this month: to the Toklat River on May 20; Eielson Visitor Center on June 1; Wonder Lake and Kantishna on June 8.
ARIZONA Saguaro National Park: A tilting giant cactus, known affectionately by hikers as “the leaning tower of saguaro,” has fallen to the ground along the Mica View Trail, the Arizona Daily Star reported. The fallen cactus will become a habitat for insects, wood rats, lizards, snakes and other animals as it decays.
ARKANSAS Little Rock: The state Department of Finance and Administration reported that April’s general revenue totaled $624 million, $53.8 million or 9.4% above last year, and $82.4 million, or 15.2% above forecast, KATV reported.
CALIFORNIA Los Angeles: The city filed suit against Wells Fargo Bank, saying it encouraged its employees to open unauthorized accounts for customers, sticking them with bogus fees and damaging their credit, the Times reported.
COLORADO Boulder County: The 21-year-old man who fell to his death 200 feet after losing his balance while hiking on Flagstaff Mountain Sunday afternoon has been identified by the Boulder County coroner as Justin Bondi of Boulder, KUSA-TV reported.
CONNECTICUT Greenwich: Work has begun on what is expected to be a 3-year project to replace two railroad bridges here, The Greenwich Time reported. The $14.87 million project will replace the railroad bridges at Tomac and Sound View avenues.
DELAWARE Middletown: A new indoor-outdoor sports complex here would be a natural complement to the hotels and eateries blossoming on the town’s rapidly growing west side, The News Journal reported. The 170-acre Delaware Sports Complex would contain 15 full-size fields for soccer, lacrosse or field hockey.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Venerable charity Martha’s Table, a 14th Street fixture, is preparing to break ground on a $20 million headquarters and will move many of its programs to one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods by early 2018, The Washington Post reported.
FLORIDA Cocoa Beach: Organizers expect the USA Beach Running Championships to draw more than 1,200 runners from 22 states and four countries to Alan Shepard Park on Sunday, Florida Today reported.
GEORGIA Atlanta: The state will give up to $1 million in tax credits next year to companies that help their adult employees obtain high school diplomas, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
HAWAII Honolulu: Officials are looking for a new person to head Oahu’s paratransit service, Hawaii News Now reported.
IDAHO Boise: As wildfire season approaches, the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and Idaho Department of Lands have launched Idaho Fire Info, a website to keep track of wildfire activities, the Idaho Statesman reported.
ILLINOIS Springfield: The College Illinois! prepaid savings plan has extended its enrollment period through the end of the month.
INDIANA Indianapolis: A motocyclist was shot and killed by another driver Sunday after road rage led to a confrontation in a parking lot, The Indianapolis Star reported.
IOWA Des Moines: School officials are considering a move to outsource substitute teachers to a temp agency. Administrators said the same substitute standards would be upheld but others argue the switch could shrink the number of subs who complete a preparation program, The Des Moines Register reported.
KANSAS Topeka: The Kansas Department of Revenue said it has yet to process from 70,000 to 80,000 state income tax returns, The Wichita Eagle reported.
KENTUCKY Lexington: The state’s second hemp crop in decades is expected to surpass 1,700 acres, up from about three dozen acres a year ago, state agriculture officials said.
LOUISIANA New Orleans: The Audubon Commission approved a $7.1 million contract to rebuild its Louisiana Nature Center in Joe Brown Park, the Times-Picayune reported. The center, which has been closed to the public since Hurricane Katrina floods destroyed it in 2005, will open in fall 2016.
MAINE Machias: Former Washington County Sheriff Donnie Smith has been indicted, WABI-TV reported.
MARYLAND Salisbury: Phi Beta Sigma was kicked off Salisbury University’s campus for hazing, the Daily Times reported.
MASSACHUSETTS Dalton: Voters here rejected a bylaw that would have ended the annual visits by the Kelly Miller Circus, The Berkshire Eagle reported.
MICHIGAN Detroit: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will offer free college courses and degrees at Strayer University to employees who work at its network of franchised auto dealerships — a move the automaker said is designed to attract and retain the best employees, the Detroit Free Press reported.
MINNESOTA New Brighton: A new chemical that can potentially cause cancer has been found in the city’s water supply, KARE-TV reported. The Minnesota Department of Health recently detected the presence of 1, 4-Dioxane in the water supply here.
MISSISSIPPI Pascagoula: Officials said the new $30 million Jackson County jail will be ready by Sept. 18, The Sun Herald reported.
MISSOURI Carthage: Robert Copeland, the president of Mercy Hospital Carthage, has resigned, The Joplin Globe reported. His resignation will be effective May 31.
MONTANA Helena: Declining wheat prices are driving Montana farmers to use hundreds of thousands of farmable acres from what used to be designated wildlife and erosion-control land, the Billings Gazette reported.
NEBRASKA Kearney: A 25-year-old Tennessee man has been sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison for trying to kill a friend, The Kearney Hub reported.
NEVADA Reno: A popular pasture used by residents to run their dogs off-leash will soon close for the summer as the area’s latest casualty to the four-year drought, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. Closure of the pasture at Rancho San Rafael Regional Park comes as a drought-diminished Truckee River lowers to the point flow into the Highland Ditch, the pasture’s only source of irrigation water, is cut off.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Asheville: A TV series remake of the 1987 drama Dirty Dancing will film in the western part of the state, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported.
NEW JERSEY Ocean City: Parents are challenging a $400 bill they received from Ocean City Board of Education for a year’s worth of lunches their son was charging without their knowledge, according to the Press of Atlantic City. Suzanne and Mark Hornick said they sent their son to school with a lunch and had no idea he charged one and sometimes two meals a day.
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: A woman filed a motion alleging that Rio Rancho is violating the First Amendment rights of drivers by pulling them over for flashing their lights or honking their horns, The Albuquerque Journal reported.
NEW YORK Albany: Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Republican from Nassau County, will keep his leadership post after his arrest on federal charges that he used his influence to help his son land jobs and steered public money to aid his career, Gannett Albany Bureau reported.
NORTH CAROLINA Charlotte: Mecklenburg County has saved $2.4 million by putting homeless people into apartments, the Charlotte Observer reported.
NORTH DAKOTA Niagara: A 45-year-old Fargo man died after the semitrailer he was driving rolled into a highway median near here, WDAY-TV reported.
OHIO Bellefontaine: A 77-year-old woman who let her 100-year-old mother die under the care of an untrained and mentally handicapped caretaker has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, the Bellefontaine Examiner reported.
OKLAHOMA Tulsa: A blaze that consumed a midtown vacuum store was intentionally set, the Tulsa World reported. No injuries were reported.
OREGON Salem: The state has launched an online system for the public to report mass bee deaths after several highly publicized pesticide-related incidents that killed tens of thousands of bees, the Statesman Journal reported.
PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia: Road rage at a congested intersection may have led to a shooting that wounded a 7-year-old girl, KYW-TV reported.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: A solar-powered home designed in part by students from the Rhode Island School of Design is now located at an art academy in France, Rhode Island Public Radio reported. The Techstyle Haus now houses artists year-round at Domaine de Boisbuchet.
SOUTH CAROLINA Myrtle Beach: There has been a delay in construction on a new oceanfront hotel tower here, The Sun News reported. Construction is now set to begin this fall on the Homewood Suites Oceanfront Resort & Conference Center.
SOUTH DAKOTA Huron: Two of four juveniles accused of vandalizing more than 100 vehicles here have owned up to their crimes, KOKK-AM reported. All four are facing charges of third-degree burglary, intentional damage to property and ingesting a substance for the purpose of becoming intoxicated.
TENNESSEE Jonesborough: A daughter and her mother are on trial for murder this week in a January 2012 double homicide that prosecutors said happened because the daughter was unfriended on Facebook, the Johnson City Press reported. Jenelle Potter, 35, and Barbara Potter, 64, both of Mountain City, face life in prison in the deaths of Billy Payne, 36, and Billie Jean Hayworth, 23, of Mountain City; the couple’s 7-month-old son, unscathed, was found in his dead mother’s arms.
TEXAS Donna: Classes resumed throughout the Donna Independent School District after a ruptured water line. But parents were told to send bottled water to school with their children.
UTAH St. George: Justin Osmond, son of Merrill Osmond and nephew of Donny and Marie of the famous singing family, is running 250 miles from Ephraim, Utah, to St. George to raise funds for children with hearing loss. Osmond, who is among a number of family members with significant hearing loss, is expected to arrive in St. George by May 9 in time for a fundraising fun run, The Spectrum reported.
VERMONT Waterbury: Kayla Yalicki, an 11-year-old hunter from here, got her allotted two turkeys with one shot on Saturday, her father, Mike, told the Burlington Free Press. Kayla waited until the two turkeys’ heads came together and squeezed the trigger, Mike Yalicki said.
VIRGINIA Richmond: Attorney General Mark Herring issued a legal opinion that seeks to free abortion clinics from strict, hospital-style building standards, The Washington Post reported.
WASHINGTON Everett: Authorities are investigating after a live explosive device was found here, The Everett Daily Herald reported.
WEST VIRGINIA Clarksburg: Kelsey Lantz of Robert C. Byrd High School in Clarksburg and Josef Heller of Shady Spring High School in Shady Spring, both seniors, will receive a Presidential Scholar Medallion at a ceremony on June 21 as part of the 51st class of U.S. Presidential Scholarships.
WISCONSIN Oshkosh: A new four-wolf pack is roaming the 1-acre wolf exhibit at the Menominee Park Zoo, the Oshkosh Northwestern reported. The gray wolves — Sienna, Rebel, Echo and Thunder — came to the Menominee Park Zoo from the Wildlife Science Center near Minneapolis.
WYOMING Yellowstone National Park: Bear Aware is making its pepper power spray available for purchase or rent here starting May 23, The Billings Gazette reported. The pepper spray-like product is being sold in 9.2-oz cans for $49.99, but can be rented for a day at $9.25.