News from across the USA
ALABAMA Homewood: Police released jail surveillance footage of Kindra Chapman, an 18-yearold found dead in her cell after hanging herself with a bed sheet, AL.com reported.
ALASKA Fairbanks: Benny Lin, owner of Pagoda Chinese Restaurant, a favorite of newsminer.com readers, plans to build a 1,000square-foot addition onto the building. It will replace a wall that includes a glass atrium — a remnant of the restaurant’s past as an ’80s-era Arby’s.
ARIZONA Tempe: Mike Ness and Social Distortion will launch the U.S. leg of a tour marking the 25th anniversary of the band’s major-label breakthrough by playing the self-titled album live in its entirety Tuesday at the Marquee Theatre, The Arizona
Republic reported.
ARKANSAS Mountain Home: Deputies investigated a possible murder-suicide after Terry Mills, 57, and Sandra Douglas, 47, were found dead from gunshot wounds, ArkansasOnline reported.
CALIFORNIA Los Angeles: City Attorney Mike Feuer announced a $270,000 program to wipe homeless people’s records clean of minor citations if they accept job training, drug and alcohol treatment or other social services and perform community service, the Times reported.
COLORADO Fort Collins: Investigators say a mishandled hookah caused a devastating apartment fire that displaced 24 people earlier this year, The Colo
radoan reported.
CONNECTICUT Bridgeport: Two men were killed in separate weekend shootings here, the
Connecticut Post reported.
DELAWARE Milton: A new clock in downtown has been installed after the former digital clock on the corner of Union and Magnolia streets stopped working more than a year ago, the Daily Times reported.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Carl Bernstein, who covered Watergate for The Washington Post, critiqued two new books examining the life and presidency of Richard Nixon: Tim Weiner’s One
Man Against the World and Evan Thomas’ Being Nixon. Bernstein said the books fall short of the greatness Nixon’s complexities warrant.
FLORIDA Melbourne: TripAdvisor users say the Brevard Zoo’s friendly volunteers and unique exhibits earn it inclusion in TripAdvisor’s 2015 Travelers’ Choice Awards as the 14th-best zoo in the USA, WKMG-TV reported.
GEORGIA Atlanta: An off-duty police officer was injured while trying to break up a fight at a pizza lounge, the Journal-Consti
tution reported.
HAWAII Wailuku: Scientists hope the pygmy sperm whale that washed up dead on a beach can help them learn more about the elusive creatures, the Maui News reported.
IDAHO Twin Falls: One man has been arrested while sheriff ’s deputies continue to search for another suspect connected to a shooting that left a man dead and another man injured, KTVB-TV reported.
ILLINOIS Hammond: Rapper Chief Keef appeared via hologram at a music festival, but his performance was shut down by police within minutes, the Tri
bune reported. The rapper opted not to return to the Midwest, citing several outstanding warrants.
INDIANA Lafayette: A woman committed suicide after police say she walked into a local gun store and shooting range, rented a handgun and shot herself in the head, the Lafayette Journal &
Courier reported.
IOWA Des Moines: Area consumers, already paying egg prices that have tripled in some grocery stores, are beginning to see prices push higher at some area restaurants, too, The Register reported. Avian influenza wiped out millions of laying hens and turkeys in Iowa this spring.
KANSAS Ogallah: A train struck a vehicle here, injuring the two people, the Salina Journal reported.
KENTUCKY Frankfort: A pro-Confederacy group rallied on the steps of the Kentucky Capitol last week, The Courier-Journal reported. About 100 attended the demonstration.
LOUISIANA New Orleans: Chef Kelly Fields calls Willa Jean, her new bakery and cafe in partnership with baker Lisa White and John Besh, a tribute to the South. It’s named after Fields’ grandmother, she told The
Times-Picayune.
MAINE Hebron: The Redneck Games begin here on Thursday with such competitions as toilet seat horse shoes and bobbing for pigs feet.
MARYLAND Wicomico Coun
ty: After winning her way through state, tristate and regional oratorical contests, Wicomico High School student Junia Harmon, 16, is headed to Las Vegas to compete in an international recital with a scholarship prize of $10,000, the Daily Times reported.
MASSACHUSETTS Boston: University of Massachusetts President Marty Meehan is lobbying state lawmakers to restore money vetoed from the university budget, The Boston Globe reported.
MICHIGAN Lansing: The west lane of the street in front of the state Capitol will be turned into temporary mini-parks this week, the Lansing State Journal reported.
MINNESOTA St. Cloud: A makeshift memorial of flowers, cards and stuffed animals has been set up to remember a 6-year-old boy whose body was pulled from the Mississippi River last week, the
St. Cloud Times reported.
MISSISSIPPI Brandon: Rankin County schools will have a new leader for the first time since 1999 after voters choose one of three candidates in the Aug. 4 election. The Clarion-Ledger reported that Superintendent Lynn Weathersby is not running for re-election.
MISSOURI Springfield: Recent flooding here in has been a boon for anglers, the Springfield News-Leader reported. Roaring River trout hatchery manager Paul Spurgeon says when the flood hit, some of the big trout at the hatchery pool, which is off limits to anglers, were washed out of the pool into the river, where fishing is permitted.
MONTANA West Glacier: Fire crews used explosives to help build a line around the Reynolds Creek Fire in Glacier National Park, the Great Falls Tribune reported.
NEBRASKA York: Workers are repainting the balloon-shaped water tower here, the York News-Times reported.
NEVADA Las Vegas: Construction at the Bellagio fountains on the Las Vegas Strip is going to slow traffic through Thursday.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: The Executive Council voted 3-2 not to use solar power for the Manchester city government. The project on the old city landfill would cost $3.9 million, but the city would have saved around $100,000 annually, the New
Hampshire Union Leader report
ed.
NEW JERSEY Stafford: A man who authorities said employed five juveniles in a drug ring was sentenced to 30 years in prison last week, the Asbury Park Press reported.
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: The Ventana Ranch Neighborhood Association asked a homeowner to remove two hives from his backyard after neighbors have complained of feeling like they are under siege, KOB-TV reported.
NEW YORK Rochester: The first social media celebrity to be recognized with a wax figure in Madame Tussauds New York will be 28-year-old Jenna Mourey, known as Jenna Marbles on YouTube, the Democrat and
Chronicle reported. The graduate of Brighton High School in Western New York has more than 15 million subscribers, the most for any channel operated by a woman.
NORTH CAROLINA Roberson
ville: Retired from the competitive gluttony circuit at age 66, Mort Hurst carries the scars of a professional eater, the sport he pioneered. “What a lot of people don’t know is this: Competitive eaters are athletes,” he told The
News & Observer. “You have to train to do these things. You don’t just go out and sit at a table and eat. That’s a sure way to die.” Hurst had a stroke in 1991 after eating 38 soft-boiled eggs in 29 seconds.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: A new study shows that $243 million in road improvement projects is needed to alleviate traffic on the Interstate 94 corridor here through 2040, the Bismarck Tri
bune reported.
OHIO Chillicothe: Investigators are looking into any possible connection between an Oregon man killed by an escort in West Virginia and six women missing and dead in this area, the Chilli
cothe Gazette reported.
OKLAHOMA Tulsa: A man was beaten with a baseball bat and robbed outside a local bar early Monday, the Tulsa World reported.
OREGON Nyssa: The City Council will vote Tuesday on an ordinance prohibiting commercial marijuana operations, the Argus
Observer reported.
PENNSYLVANIA Hanover: Wildlife Authorities are trying to determine if there are any longterm effects to a creek from runoff contamination from a chemical plant fire last month, The
Evening Sun reported.
RHODE ISLAND New Shore
ham: After waiting for the seas to calm, Deepwater Wind installed the first foundation for the fiveturbine wind farm under construction off Block Island.
SOUTH CAROLINA Pickens
County: Thieves broke into the house of state Sen. Larry Martin and made off with a flat-screen television, The Greenville News reported.
SOUTH DAKOTA Rosebud Indian Reservation: Authorities recovered the body of a man who drowned here, KRRC-AM reported.
TENNESSEE Tiptonville: Eight prisoners were injured in stabbings last week at Northwest Correctional Complex amid a severe shortage of guards, The
Tennessean reported. The staterun prison has been put on lockdown, and officials said the stabbings were a result of tensions between rival gang members.
TEXAS Harlingen: A local woman won a remodeled Austin home, a 2015 Mercedes-Benz C-Class and a $100,000 cash prize thanks to a giveaway sponsored by mortgage lender Quicken Loans and HGTV, San Antonio
Express-News reported. Isabel Villarreal, an elementary school principal and mom of three, was selected out of 40 million entries.
UTAH Dammeron Valley: The excavated site of a recently discovered ancestral Puebloan pit house with artifacts dating back 1,500 years was reburied last week, closing the book on efforts to solve its mysteries but giving future researchers a chance to open it up again. The excavation was part of a coordinated conservation effort among archeologists, state officials and a private developer, The Spectrum reported.
VERMONT Burlington: Neighborhood activists staged a mock wedding ceremony Saturday on Decatur Street, vowing to unify their community and keep it “colorful and weird.” Amid laughter and dancing was a serious message about “community resistance and unity to the forces of gentrification,” Lindsey Gillies told the Burlington Free Press.
VIRGINIA Richmond: Some medical centers have turned to the wireless Tru-D Smart UVC disinfection system, which uses UV light to eliminate 99.99% of bacteria, the Times-Dispatch reported.
WASHINGTON Verlot: The U.S. Forest Service says it hopes to install a land-line telephone closer to the Big Four Ice Caves in order to cut emergency response times. The Daily Herald reported that right now cellphones are mostly useless up in Big Four Mountain and it is a 1.1-mile run to the parking lot and then a 14.5-mile drive to the Forest Service ranger station.
WEST VIRGINIA Fayetteville: High school students ages 14 to 17 took part in the Rangers in Training program, which offers students a free chance to explore the New River Gorge and experience some of the recreational activities in the 70,000-acre National Park Service preserve, the Charleston
Gazette-Mail reported.
WISCONSIN Wausau: According to the new Kids Count report from the Baltimore-based Anne E. Casey Foundation, Wisconsin ranks 10th in economic wellbeing, based on how many children are in poverty, parents’ employment, households with a high housing cost burden and how many teens are not in school and not working, Wausau Daily
Herald reported.
WYOMING Laramie: A mini golf course here is again for business after aggressive hawks caused a temporary closure, the
Casper Star-Tribune reported. Lisa Poledna put a sign reading “closed due to angry hawk” outside her business, Oasis Golf, when parents of at least two nesting baby hawks became aggressively protective.