STATE-BY-STATE
News from across the USA
ALABAMA Decatur: Coyote sightings have increased during the breeding season. Cats are a main food source for the predators, especially at this time of year, the Decatur Daily reported.
ALASKA Fairbanks: Residents have shown support for a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal that would ban some bear, wolf and coyote hunts on federal wildlife refuges, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
ARIZONA Phoenix: Honor-Health John C. Lincoln Medical Center offered free hepatitis and HIV testing to patients after discovering a former employee was accused of stealing pain medication at a Colorado facility, The Arizona Republic reported.
ARKANSAS Fayetteville: State Rep. Micah Neal wants to levy property taxes on public colleges and universities for property they rent to commercial businesses or use for a “non-public purpose,” the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
CALIFORNIA San Diego: Witnesses rescued three men after a car plunged into Mission Bay, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
COLORADO Denver: The police officer memorial at Denver police headquarters was vandalized, authorities said. The memorial was previously vandalized a year ago, KUSA-TV reported.
CONNECTICUT Sprague: Federal officials will inspect wastewater lagoons at a former cardboard recycling plant here, The Day reported. The Environmental Protection Agency will assess the former site of Fusion Paperboard this spring.
DELAWARE Wilmington: Delaware gun purchases surged in December and January — an increase fueled by non-traditional gun owners seeking protection, firearm sellers and advocates say. A total of 12,556 federal background checks were conducted for people buying guns in the state during the previous two months, according to data from the FBI — a 26% jump over December 2014 to January 2015, The News Journal reported.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Charles Young, a former assistant track coach at Dunbar Senior High School, pleaded guilty to sexually abusing seven male students.
FLORIDA Palm Bay: The Space Coast Country music festival, planned for Feb. 19-21 to replace the Runaway Country Music Festival, has been canceled, Florida Today reported.
GEORGIA College Park: A man died after being ejected from his truck during a police pursuit. Deputies with the Fulton County Sheriff ’s Office attempted to pull Jonathan Fowler, 32, over for speeding.
HAWAII Pearl Harbor: Hawaiian monk seals are doing better than researchers had previously thought, HawaiiNewsNow reported. Thanks to increased efforts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers, the estimated population of monk seals in the main Hawaiian Islands is 1,272. It was previously thought to be around 1,100.
IDAHO Pocatello: Bones from three types of meat-eating dinosaurs are coming to the Idaho State University Museum of Natural History, the Idaho State Journal reported.
ILLINOIS Chicago: Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration resurrected the idea of an express train to whisk business travelers and tourists between downtown and O’Hare International Airport, the Chicago Tribune reported. Fares would range from $25 to $35 for the roughly 20-minute journey, which is half the time it takes for the city’s Blue Line “L’’ trains.
INDIANA West Lafayette: A staffer at Purdue University submitted his resignation after coming under fire for social media comments that groups that oppose abortion took as rape threats, the Journal and Courier reported. Students, parents and alumni had been pressing the university to sanction Jamie Newman, an accompanist at Purdue’s Division of Dance, for his comments.
IOWA Iowa City: City staff is nearing completion of a draft ordinance intended to shape future growth and create more affordable housing stock in the growing Riverfront Crossings District, the Iowa City PressCitizen reported.
KANSAS Bonner Springs: Two Oklahoma men died in a singlevehicle crash here, The Kansas City Star reported.
KENTUCKY Louisville: The “International Honor Quilt,” a collaborative feminist art project initiated by artist Judy Chicago, is on display at the University of Louisville through March 19, The Courier-Journal reported.
LOUISIANA Norco: A train trestle fire west of New Orleans disrupted Amtrak passenger train service.
MAINE Augusta: State officials are offering scholarship grants to students pursuing an education in farming. The deadline for applications is March 1.
MARYLAND Edgewater: Anne Arundel County police say a husband and wife are dead following a three-vehicle crash on Valentine’s Day south of here.
MASSACHUSETTS Lowell: A 15-year-old bicyclist was sent to the hospital with serious injuries after being hit by a vehicle that then fled the scene, authorities say.
MICHIGAN Portland: Portland United Methodist Church will have services Sunday after its 102-year-old building was dam- aged in a June tornado, the Lansing State Journal reported.
MINNESOTA St. Paul: Chris Lollie, 30, settled his lawsuit that he filed after police used a stun gun while arresting him in St. Paul’s skyway system in 2014, the Star Tribune reported.
MISSISSIPPI Moss Point: Authorities say a wildfire has burned more than 3,000 acres in a national wildlife refuge in south Mississippi, The Sun Herald reported. The fire began near a few homes in a remote area of south Jackson County, then moved into the Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
MISSOURI Kansas City: Anna Kurzweil, who died at the age of 100, donated $2 million to the Society of Jesus, a Catholic order known as Jesuits upon her death in September 2012, The Kansas City Star reported. She worked as a teacher and lived on a pension.
MONTANA Columbia Falls: Shareholders approved the merger of timber companies Weyerhaeuser and Plum Creek, the Flathead Beacon reported. The Plum Creek company is based here.
NEBRASKA Lincoln: A couple received a $641 water bill from the city because of the 100,000 gallons used by a running toilet.
NEVADA Las Vegas: Police dog Nicky was hospitalized with stab wounds after she helped end a 12-hour standoff between authorities and a potentially armed man, KLAS-TV reported.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: The state House killed a bill that would’ve legalized marijuana to those at least 21 years old and imposed a $15-per-ounce tax, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported.
NEW JERSEY Rumson: Shannon Corsi’s song, the sprite and tuneful piano ballad Trailblazer, was awarded third place in the MusiCares and Grammy Foundation’s Teens Make Music songwriting competition, the Asbury Park Press reported. The competition called for musicians between 14 and 18 to submit a song that celebrates life “above the influence,” or brings attention to the real-life consequences of substance abuse. Shannon is 17.
NEW MEXICO Ohkay Owingeh: U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich will tour area heroin treatment centers on Wednesday.
NEW YORK Putnam County: A county legislator wants the former first lady of the state to resign her tourism board post, The Journal News reported. Lawmakers in the county were un- aware Libby Pataki was working for the taxpayer-financed nonprofit Putnam County Visitors’ Bureau and the private nonprofit Putnam Tourism Corp.
NORTH CAROLINA Raleigh: A North Carolina State University student spent 30 straight hours at a Waffle House after losing a bet. WTVD-TV reported that Mike Fuller spent 30 hours inside the restaurant after he came in last in his fantasy football league.
NORTH DAKOTA Minot: A mental evaluation was ordered for Timothy Blowers, 21, who was accused of stealing an ambulance and crashing it near Carrington, KXMC-TV reported.
OHIO Dayton: The driver who drove the wrong way on Interstate 75 downtown and killed five, including himself, was jailed just over a day earlier on suspicion of drunken driving, the Dayton Daily News reported. Driver James Pohlabeln slammed into an SUV, and three members of local hard-rock band CounterFlux were among the deaths.
OKLAHOMA Chickasha: Grady County voters overwhelmingly approved a new quarter-cent sales tax that will go toward the construction of a new surgery center at Grady Memorial Hospital, The Oklahoman reported.
OREGON Pendleton: Local health officials say a virus spread by rodents has been diagnosed for the first time in a Umatilla County resident, the East Oregonian reported.
PENNSYLVANIA Collegeville: Officials say the number of students at Ursinus College reporting symptoms of a stomach illness has now topped 200, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: State municipalities were awarded about $12.9 million in federal funding for the upkeep and preservation of public housing.
SOUTH CAROLINA Camden: The Kershaw County Sheriff ’s Department charged Jimmy Joe Methe, 49, with voluntary man- slaughter after killing Brandon Spencer, 17, on his property. Methe claimed the teen was stealing items from his truck, WLTX-TV reported. Officials said another person who fled the scene has not been identified. Investigators recovered items from the truck and found a gas can and hose they believe was used to siphon gas from Methe’s truck.
SOUTH DAKOTA Rapid City: A new long-range plan for the local school district calls for the closure of some schools, the Rapid City Journal reported. District officials cautioned that the facilities improvement report commissioned by the school board, which includes an estimated $333 million cost over 10 years, is not a firm blueprint for the district’s future.
TENNESSEE Lebanon: Cumberland University launched a major online project Monday — in time for Presidents Day — on the papers of Martin Van Buren at VanBurenPapers.org, university officials said. Van Buren, whose handwriting was notoriously illegible, was the eighth U.S. president, serving from 1837 to 1841.
TEXAS Austin: University of Texas researchers Lucy Hunt and Paul Eastwick say speed dating or video interaction is much more effective than posting a photo to an online profile when looking for love, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
UTAH Salt Lake City: Utah’s public schools need more teachers to fill their classrooms, but state colleges say young students are showing hardly any interest in the profession. Though undergraduate degrees from Utah colleges have grown 25% in the past decade, teaching diplomas have shown only a 5% increase in the same period, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
VERMONT Swanton: William Fournier, 23, was found dead on an iced-over Lake Champlain about 100 to 150 yards from his truck, which had sunk through the ice, Burlington Free Press reported. Police believe Fournier, who had been ice fishing with friends in the Campbell’s Bay area Saturday, may have succumbed to hypothermia, but an autopsy will determine cause and manner of death, Swanton Sgt. Eugene Rich said.
VIRGINIA Richmond: A man rescued a driver from a burning car after a serious wreck on Interstate 64 in Henrico County, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
WASHINGTON Spokane: The Spokesman-Review reported that Avista is asking state regulators to approve a pilot program that would see 265 charging stations for electric cars in eastern Washington state. The company in a request filed last month with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission cites environmental benefits, fuel cost savings and vehicle performance as benefits of the plan.
WEST VIRGINIA Fayetteville: Two people were killed in a house fire, The Register-Herald reported.
WISCONSIN Madison: Poor water clarity led to a slow start for the 2016 sturgeon spearing season, as spearers harvested less than 350 fish on the Winnebago system over the weekend, the state Department of Natural Resources said.
WYOMING Cheyenne: A House committee advanced a bill that would require legislative approval before Wyoming could set up a refugee resettlement program, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported. The bill blocks the governor from unilaterally setting up a state program that would help refugees who arrive directly or indirectly in Wyoming.