News from across the USA
ALABAMA Birmingham: The Walk of Fame outside the Alabama Theatre, a historic movie palace, honors homegrown filmmakers, authors and musicians. AL.com asked readers which celebrities they would like to see added to the walk.
ALASKA Juneau: Storefronts downtown are peppered with illegal advertising signs, Senior City Planner Laura Boyce told the city Assembly, which is considering an ordinance to tighten the rules, according to the Empire.
ARIZONA Window Rock: Quinton Kien, 11, of Steamboat will play the lead fish in the Navajo-dubbed version of Finding Nemo. Kien told the Navajo Times he looked forward to bringing Nemo to life in an important film that will help keep the Navajo language alive.
ARKANSAS Morrilton: Farmers in the flood-soaked Arkansas River Valley are waiting to see whether their fields will dry out enough for them to plant or replant crops, according to ArkansasOnline.
CALIFORNIA Los Angeles: The Times passed along an invitation for the famished to subscribe to the Carnivore Club, which sends boxes of cured meat from around the world to its members every month.
COLORADO Fort Collins: Commercial airline service is expected to return to Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport this summer, the Coloradoan reported. Local officials confirmed that Elite Airways plans to offer scheduled service from Fort Collins-Loveland to Rockford, Ill., and Chicago Rockford International Airport.
CONNECTICUT Hamden: House Speaker Brendan Sharkey says Quinnipiac University needs new leadership to address underage drinking, WVIT-TV reported.
DELAWARE Wilmington: Money remaining in Beau Biden’s political accounts will help fund the new Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children, which was created last week by his widow, Hallie, and the Delaware Community Foundation, The News Journal reported. Biden’s political committees reported balances of about $660,000 as of Dec. 31.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Forever the King. For more than 20 years, the U.S. Postal Service has been trying to re-create the blockbuster success of the Elvis Presley stamp issued in January 1993. This summer, The Washington Post reported, postal officials will dedicate a second stamp in the hope that Elvis can still generate multimillion-dollar sales.
FLORIDA Daytona Beach: An 11-year-old boy is in the hospital in serious condition after a bolt of lightning struck him at the beach, WTSP-TV reported.
GEORGIA Athens: Always dreamed of your own backyard chicken farm? Elder Tree Farm Backyard Chicken Rental can help out, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. A “basic” four-week rental package for $160 includes two hens, a predator-proof mobile coop, a watering container, a feeder and a 40-pound bag of feed.
HAWAII Honolulu: Gov. Ige signed four bills aimed at advancing Hawaii’s renewable energy goals, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.
IDAHO Caldwell: Ducks and geese may be missing from county fairs with a ban on waterfowl recommended to fight the spread of bird flu, The Idaho Press-Tribune reported.
ILLINOIS Chicago: Social media posts from the area spoke of a “weird-looking sun,” the Tribune reported. According to the National Weather Service, the haze and unusual hue of the sun was due to smoke from forest fires in Canada.
INDIANA Indianapolis: A woman who police say posted a classified ad online soliciting adult services has been charged with the murder of a man found dead last month. Ashley Daker, 24, is accused of shooting 37-year-old Chaz Bennington in his apartment, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by The Indianapolis Star.
IOWA Des Moines: A Roosevelt High School coach and teacher has resigned amid an investigation into financial practices involving the school’s athletic program, The Des Moines Register reported.
KANSAS Hutchinson: Ninetynine tornadoes were reported in May in the state. The Hutchinson News reported that a breakdown on the tornadoes severity wasn’t immediately available but most were reported in rural areas and did little major damage.
KENTUCKY Frankfort: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has opened an investigation into potential violations of one of the nation’s oldest environmental laws after a man was seen removing an indigo bunting from Iroquois Park, The Courier-Journal reported.
LOUISIANA Mandeville: Iron workers re-erected a refurbished lakefront fence that had been mistakenly cut down by contractors after standing for almost 160 years, The Times-Picayune reported.
MAINE Rockland: The loan time has expired, but Coast Guard officials want to keep as many items as possible at the Maine Lighthouse Museum. Some 700 items have been on loan to the museum for the past 20 years, WABI-TV reported.
MARYLAND Salisbury: A police officer and a suspect in a domestic incident were hospitalized after their two vehicles collided early Tuesday morning, the Daily Times reported.
MASSACHUSETTS Boston: The Boston Redevelopment Authority was expected to recommend that a skyscraper on the site of the Boston Harbor Garage be allowed to reach up to 600 feet, The Boston Globe reported.
MICHIGAN Ada Township: A 50-pound pet tortoise named Frank was found 7 miles from home after a two-day search, the Grand Rapids Press reported.
MINNESOTA St. Cloud: City leaders are rethinking options for a downtown parking ramp after rejecting all bids for the project, part of the second phase of the convention center expansion, the St. Cloud Times reported. Bids came in about 50% higher than expected.
MISSISSIPPI Jackson: Former Mississippi Department of Corrections commissioner Chris Epps’ sentencing has been delayed indefinitely. Epps pleaded guilty in February to money laundering conspiracy and filing a false tax return.
MISSOURI St. Louis: The proposed riverfront football stadium already has cost taxpayers $3 million, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. That figure is based on the latest invoices released this week from financing advisers, railroad track engineers, contract attorneys and management.
MONTANA Missoula: Montananative Caitlin Borgmann will be the new director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, replacing Scott Crichton, who is retiring after 27 years leading the organization, the Missoulian reported.
NEBRASKA Lincoln: More rain has again delayed the planting of the state’s soybean crop, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that 83% of the expected Nebraska soybean crop had been planted, trailing the five-year average of 95%.
NEVADA Reno: Police said they think a Siberian Husky puppy stolen and held for ransom may have been taken out of state. The Reno Gazette-Journal reported a 17-year-old girl reported that the 3-month-old Husky named Keoni stolen last week.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Keene: The state Supreme Court ruled that a local group can continue feeding parking meters before officers can write tickets, WMUR-TV reported.
NEW JERSEY Piscataway: Former Rutgers football player Eric LeGrand will host a show called Mission Possible, telling the stories of people overcoming paralyzing injuries, the Courier-News reported. LeGrand, paralyzed while making a tackle during a 2010 football game, hopes the show is picked up by the Derek Jeter-founded website The Players’ Tribune.
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: Funds have been established to help pay for funeral and hospitalization costs for the families involved in a cherry picker accident that left a man and two children dead, and three other children injured, The Albuquerque Journal reported.
NEW YORK Rochester: Two years after asking to more than double the number of patrol officers equipped with Tasers, the Rochester Police Department saw a dramatic spike in their use. Police went from 66 deployments in 2013, to 155 last year, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.
NORTH CAROLINA Morrisville: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce named the Triangle Rock Club, a rock-climbing facility, its DREAM BIG Small Business of the Year, the News & Observer reported.
NORTH DAKOTA Devils Lake: Mayor Dick Johnson told KZZY radio that a development agreement has been reached with a company planning an oil refinery on the western edge of the city.
OHIO Canal Winchester: Significant numbers of honey bee colonies are continuing to die off, The Columbus Dispatch reported. From April 2014 to April 2015, Ohio beekeepers reported losing almost 50% of their colonies, according to Bee Informed, a federally backed research effort.
OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: The state Department of Corrections will use a $14 million budget hike to hire more staff, add more beds for a growing inmate population, make repairs and pay for expected increases in utility bills, The Oklahoman reported.
OREGON Salem: The Salem City Council has banned smoking in city parks, the Statesman Journal reported. The ordinance was watered down from one that also would have prohibited it on trails and in the Civic Center.
PENNSYLVANIA Harrisburg: The state Senate Education Committee approved legislation that allows the state to take over schools that consistently do poorly, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
RHODE ISLAND Warwick: The Warwick School Committee voted to close Aldrich and Gorton junior high schools and turn Veterans High School into a new middle school, the Providence Journal reported.
SOUTH CAROLINA Greenwood: Eight cases of E. coli infection have been linked to a day care center, now closed to limit the spread of illness, The Greenville News reported.
SOUTH DAKOTA Vermillion: The University of South Dakota has asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to review its response to complaints about mold in a 70-year-old building, the Argus Leader reported. A 2013 analysis of the university found that several buildings need to be replaced.
TENNESSEE Halls: A tree branch impaled a 20-year-old woman earlier this week during a storm, WBIR-TV reported. Megan LaRue was sitting in a car outside her rental home with her 12week-old son, Pierson, in the back seat when the tree came crashing through her windshield. She is now out of intensive care.
TEXAS San Marcos: An elderly couple was found dead in the Central Texas Medical Center. Police said they believe it is a murder-suicide, WOAI-TV reported.
UTAH St. George: An unusually wet spring has doused any major fire concerns in the southwest part of the state, but public-safety officials are warning that the additional rain also has brought more vegetation — and more quick-burning grasses. Ultimately, the outcome of the fire season will depend heavily on a large El Nino pattern created by aboveaverage temperatures in the Pacific, The Spectrum reported.
VERMONT Burlington: Drug manufacturer Allergan has appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals a $6.75 million verdict against it arising from a lawsuit brought by New York parents Lori and Kevin Drake who said Botox treatments that Allergan makes almost killed their son Joshua, who has cerebral palsy, Burlington Free Press reported.
VIRGINIA Richmond: The Times-Dispatch delved into the world of beer trading in which craft brew obsessives swap rare and obscure bottles of savory suds. Trader Ben Steelman compared the practice to the Pokémon card craze, “but the difference between Pokémon cards and beer is that the beers are only available in certain areas.”
WASHINGTON Seattle: Six activists protesting Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean were arrested, the Seattle Times reported.
WEST VIRGINIA Huntington: After winning his second Tony for his role in the musical Fun Home, Michael Cerveris will co-host the state Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony this fall, according to wvpublic.org.
WISCONSIN Marshfield: An unidentified passenger whose pants caught fire on a Marshfield Public Transit bus Sunday is being treated for severe burns at a Madison hospital, The News Herald reported.
WYOMING Gillette: Officials are looking for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for almost 400 fish dumped near here, The Casper Star-Tribune reported. A pile of fish, including at least 368 crappies, was found in a field.