News from across the USA
ALABAMA Birmingham: Corey Zito, 26, is the second person charged in the death of a man whose burned body was found in Leeds seven months ago, AL.com reported. Zito’s cousin, Candie Zito, was also charged with murder.
ALASKA Fairbanks: Mayor Karl Kassel asked the Borough Assembly to spend $150,000 on new bleachers at Growden Memorial Park, hoping to have them installed before the Midnight Sun Baseball Game in June, newsminer.com reported.
ARIZONA Phoenix: The case of Tracy Elise, leader of the Phoenix Goddess Temple, may be near its end in Maricopa County Superior Court more than four years after she was charged, The Arizona
Republic reported. The prosecution argued the temple was a brothel disguised as a church.
ARKANSAS Hot Springs: Daniel Gene Armstrong, 38, was sentenced to five years in prison after he fired his crossbow at his then-wife last year during a fight, according to the Sentinel-Record.
CALIFORNIA Los Angeles: Escalating their battle to stamp out the spread of street encampments, authorities began seizing tiny houses from homeless people living on freeway overpasses, the Los Angeles Times reported.
COLORADO Durango: The state highway department is putting up a concrete barrier on U.S. Highway 550 south of here where a large slab of rock broke away from the mountainside and landed on the road this month, the Durango Herald reported. The concrete barrier will block off what remains of an estimated 700 tons of rock that has been pushed against the hillside to reinforce it.
CONNECTICUT Hartford: G and T Barber manager Joctan Hernandez, 42, is facing charges after police say they discovered heroin and cocaine were being sold out of the business, the Hartford Courant reported. Police say they found 46 bags of heroin, 17 bags of cocaine and four bags of marijuana.
DELAWARE Wilmington: Eighteen inmates at the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution here have the flu.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Metro Transit Police will increase patrols across the transit system after a shooting on a Green Line train last week and a spate of recent assaults, The Washington Post reported.
FLORIDA West Palm Beach: State officials counted nearly 44,000 wading bird nests in the 2015 nesting season — an average season that showed how several key measures have stalled along with Everglades restoration delays.
GEORGIA Atlanta: The JournalConstitution reported that year-to-year growth in the number of hate groups in the state outpaced the growth of hate groups nationwide, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
HAWAII Wailuku: Maui County has agreed to pay $7,500 to settle a lawsuit brought by a man who served more than 20 years in prison for a sexual assault conviction that was dismissed, The Maui News reported. Alvin Jardine III, 46, was asking for a $1 million settlement.
IDAHO Hollister: Police say a man refused to open his bedroom door for an officer, then climbed out his window and stole the deputy’s SUV, the Times-News reported.
ILLINOIS Chicago: Tommy Haire, a former religious services worker at the federal jail in the Loop, was sentenced to two years of probation for violating a host of security measures, including letting inmates use his cellphone to make calls to outsiders, the
Chicago Tribune reported.
INDIANA South Bend: A group of students and alumni from the University of Notre Dame are leading an effort to raise $1.5 million for a hospital in Ecuador, the South Bend Tribune reported.
IOWA Davenport: State authorities say a Walcott man died after debris on Interstate 80 in Davenport crashed through his windshield and struck him. KWQC-TV reported that Richard Allen Miedema, 65, was killed in the accident
KANSAS Salina: The Saline County Sheriff ’s Office says an alleged sexual assault of a Great Bend High School swim team member didn’t happen in Saline County, as originally reported, but in Barton County.
KENTUCKY Somerset: After a $600 million repair of the Wolf Creek Dam that impounds Lake Cumberland, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says cities and businesses that have long drawn the water for free will have to start paying. And they will have to contribute toward any future repairs, the Lexington Herald
Leader reported.
LOUISIANA Baton Rouge: Todd Graves, founder of the Raising Cane’s chicken chain and an “avid collector” of dinosaur fossils, recently purchased a 65-millionyear-old triceratops skull, which will be on display at the Art and Science Museum for two years,
The Times-Picayune reported.
MAINE Augusta: Somebody illegally hauled 200 lobster traps from the Gulf of Maine and stole the lobsters, authorities say. The traps were returned empty to the ocean bottom.
MARYLAND Baltimore: Officials say severe storms caused two sanitary manholes to overflow and release about 150,000 gallons of wastewater into the Chesapeake Bay.
MASSACHUSETTS Mashpee: A school superintendent who was acquitted of a misdemeanor trespassing charge for entering a teenage student’s home during a residency check is out of a job. The Mashpee School Committee and superintendent Brian Hyde announced that they had “amicably agreed to end their employment relationship,” the Cape Cod Times reported.
MICHIGAN Kalamazoo: The wife of Jason Dalton, charged in a Feb. 20 shooting spree that killed six and injured two, filed for divorce late last week, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported. Carole Dalton also is seeking sole custody of their children, ages 15 and 10, and child support from her husband’s 401(k) plan.
MINNESOTA St. Paul: The state department of public safety will review all vanity license plates after the discovery of one that was offensive to Muslims, Minnesota Public Radio News reported.
MISSISSIPPI Port Gibson: A female student is accused of stabbing a Port Gibson High School male student in the back with a pair of scissors while on a school bus, The Vicksburg Post reported. The male student was reported in stable condition.
MISSOURI Springfield: A former junior high school art teacher was accused of receiving online child pornography while at work.
The Springfield News-Leader reported that a federal grand jury here indicted Evert Henry, 41. MONTANA Helena: A Missoula County woman has the state’s first diagnosed case of the Zika virus.
NEBRASKA Columbus: Ruby Baeta, 42, who was accused of using a stun gun to shock her then 13-year-old daughter has pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of negligent child abuse, The Columbus Telegram reported.
NEVADA Las Vegas: The number of travelers flying into and out of Las Vegas grew by more than 7% to nearly 3.6 million people in January.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Ossipee: Former Police Chief Timothy Connifey, 54, was indicted on felony counts of perjury and witness tampering.
NEW JERSEY Trenton: Two men admitted to targeting luxury vehicles from New Jersey and New York and shipping them overseas. The charges stem from “Operation Jacked,” a 10-month state investigation that recovered 160 stolen cars worth more than $8 million.
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: The federal government will provide $2.5 million for projects to improve community irrigation ditch systems in the state.
NEW YORK Albany: Regis- tration is open for a 400-mile bike tour from Buffalo to Albany along the old Erie Canal. This year’s Cycle the Erie Canal tour along the historic corridor runs from July 10-17. The $725 registration fee includes camping accommodations, breakfasts and dinners.
NORTH CAROLINA Cary: The independent film Unbridled, being filmed this month in Wake County, is inspired by the Corral Riding Academy, a program that pairs girls who have experienced trauma and abuse with rescue horses, The News & Observer reported.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: The U.S. Department of Agriculture designated 21 North Dakota counties as primary natural disaster areas because of recent damages and losses.
OHIO Bowling Green: A teen driver was sentenced to spend a week in jail after a February 2015 crash that killed four members of one family, The Blade reported.
OKLAHOMA Tulsa: Water and sewer department director Clayton Edwards says water-meter readings for about 155 households were fabricated. The meter reader was caught and fired in December, the Tulsa World reported.
OREGON Salem: The city’s pilot project employing goats to remove invasive species cost nearly five times what they would have spent using conventional methods, the Statesman Journal reported. Salem contracted with Yoder Goat Rentals in October to unleash 75 rented goats at MintoBrown Island Park, hoping they would eat up vegetation like Armenian blackberry and English ivy.
PENNSYLVANIA Pittsburgh: Steven Wetzel, a former high school baseball coach, will spend 18 months in federal prison for stealing more than $90,000 from a charity for terminally ill children.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: Because of unseasonably warm temperatures, the outdoor ice skating rink in downtown Providence has closed for the season. The rink typically closes in the first half of March.
SOUTH CAROLINA Lexington: A group of citizens is calling on 11th Circuit Solicitor Donnie Myers to remove himself from office following his arrest on DUI charges, WLTX-TV reported.
SOUTH DAKOTA Orient: The cause of a fire that destroyed The Steeple Bar here cannot be determined, KCCR-AM reported.
TENNESSEE Pioneer: A rock slide on Interstate 75 near here could keep the major north-south artery closed in both directions for weeks, forcing a 33-mile detour, WBIR-TV reported. While the slide primarily affected northbound lanes, officials closed the road in both directions because debris traveled into the median and they need to evaluate the stability of the hillside.
TEXAS Dallas: The Dallas Zoo broke ground on the Simmons Hippo Outpost, set to open in spring 2017. The last hippo at the zoo died of old age 15 years ago, The Dallas Morning News reported.
UTAH Salt Lake City: A proposal to charge shoppers a 10-cent fee for single-use plastic and paper bags is headed to the Utah Senate.
VERMONT Windsor: A secondgrader’s story about helping a farmer grow “special medicine” plants in his house led to a big marijuana bust, The Times-Argus reported. Windsor Detective Jennifer Frank stated in an affidavit that the 8-year-old told school officials and police that he got to help his mother’s boyfriend grow “special medicine that can cure anything at all.” Steven Mann, 54, pleaded not guilty to a felony count of cultivating more than 25 marijuana plants.
VIRGINIA Richmond: Michael Robinson, an analyst for the NFL Network, will bring back his “Celebrity Waiter Experience” for a second year. Proceeds will benefit his “Excel to Excellence” foundation, which works with schools in the area. Richard Sherman and Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks are confirmed as guests for the event May 20, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
WASHINGTON Port Orchard: The Kitsap County fire marshal says a propane leak caused the home explosion that killed two people here, the Kitsap Sun reported.
WEST VIRGINIA Huntington: Huntington native Beau Smith’s Wynonna Earp, a long-running comic about a descendant of lawman Wyatt Earp who takes up a mystical six-shooter to do battle against the forces of evil, will start its first season on the Syfy channel April 1, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
WISCONSIN Appleton: A number of churches in the Fox Cities have offered their space for the Boy and Cub Scout groups soon to be displaced from Faith Lutheran Church in Appleton. The Lutheran congregation, affiliated with the Missouri Synod, is cutting ties with the groups over the national Boy Scouts of America’s decision last summer to drop its ban on openly gay leaders, The Post-Crescent reported.
WYOMING Laramie: The university’s Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center will host a drone aircraft symposium May 17-18. Jeff Hamerlink with the center says one focus will be using drones out on Wyoming’s open spaces. Possibilities include using drones to keep an eye on wildfires and ranching operations.