STATE-BY-STATE
News from across the USA
ALABAMA Birmingham: Lt. Col. Christopher Wood, 46, was found guilty in the sexual abuse of a child during a court-martial at Fort Rucker, according to a statement from the Army cited by AL.com.
ALASKA Fairbanks: The high temperature recorded Saturday at Fairbanks International Airport was 82 degrees, or 2 degrees warmer than the previous record set on that date in 1915, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
ARIZONA Goodyear: Patrick Zane Thompson, 42, was arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty after being accused of breaking the family dog ’s neck and placing him in a smoker, The Arizona Republic reported.
ARKANSAS Little Rock: Judge Tim Fox said he was considering whether to cite the city for contempt of court after it failed to pay a $10,000 fine by the appointed deadline, ArkansasOnline reported.
CALIFORNIA Sacramento: A fire at a hip-hop musical festival at Discovery Park led to several injuries, and a man was killed during a fight, the Los Angeles Times reported.
COLORADO Denver: The first Sikh parade and celebration in Denver is expected to draw 1,000 people, the Denver Post reported. Jewish and Christian pastors will join Sikh groups from Colorado, New Mexico, California and Utah for the event Sunday.
CONNECTICUT Danbury: Aimee Toms, 22, said a woman told her “you’re disgusting ” and “you don’t belong here” in a Walmart bathroom because she thought she was transgender, the Connecticut Post reported. Toms said she thinks it’s because of her pixiestyle haircut and baseball cap.
DELAWARE Wilmington: A new data-driven crime center will change the way local police deploy officers and respond to crime, The News Journal reported. The Real Time Crime Center will use new computer software to show where officers are deployed throughout the city, share information between patrol units and relay status updates on major investigations.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Up to 500 feet of a brick outer wall of a vacant building collapsed in the Ivy City area, The Washington Post reported.
FLORIDA Fort Myers: Ron Perry says the veritable forest of Confederate flags he sells is not about a dark past of our history but rather an homage to a heritage. Perry and his fiance Jill Anderson have been selling all sorts of Rebel-influenced flags from a patch of weedy land for about 8 months now, The News-Press reported.
GEORGIA Atlanta: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra bassist Jane Little collapsed during a performance and was rushed to a hospital, where she died, according to symphony spokeswoman Tammy Hawk. Little, 87, held the Guinness World Record for having the longest tenure with a single orchestra, the Journal-Constitution reported.
HAWAII Hilo: From the beginning of 2014 until mid-April this year, the Hawaii Police Department issued 5,904 citations for the use of a mobile electronic device while driving, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported. Big Island police issued 2,904 citations in 2014, 2,297 in 2015, and 703 in this year’s count provided by the department.
IDAHO Coeur d’Alene: New state data shows that the number of homeless people in northern Idaho increased 5% from 2015, the Coeur d’Alene Press reported.
ILLINOIS Chicago: Marathon security lines stranded dozens of people at O’Hare International Airport because of missed flights as a Transportation Security Administration staffing shortage plagued travelers nationwide, the Chicago Tribune reported.
INDIANA Indianapolis: Cathedral High School administrators said they would hold cultural awareness sessions with the 15 students shown on social media raising their arms in a Nazi salute, The Indianapolis Star reported.
IOWA Muscatine: The Muscatine Police Department is collecting used bicycles with plans to restore them, the Muscatine Journal reported.
KANSAS Garden City: Authorities say two people were arrested in a fatal shooting here, The Hutchinson News reported.
KENTUCKY Lexington: A movie crew has been scouting locations in central Kentucky for a film based on the story of FBI agent Mark Putnam, who confessed to killing a pregnant informant with whom he had been having an affair, the Lexington HeraldLeader reported.
LOUISIANA New Orleans: WWL-TV meteorologist Laura Buchtel is leaving the news station and local airwaves after a decade on the air, The Times-Picayune reported.
MAINE Portland: The Spanish ship El Galeon is scheduled to tie up at Maine Wharf on May 31, staying through June 13. El Galeon is a replica of a Colonial-era Spanish galleon.
MARYLAND Mount Airy: The Town Council awarded a contract to create an engineering design for the Flat Iron Building, one of the town’s major development projects, to George Vaeth Associates of Columbia, Md., The Frederick News-Post reported.
MASSACHUSETTS Hyannis: A dozen fishermen were rescued off the coast of Cape Cod over the weekend after they became stranded on a jetty as the tide rose.
MICHIGAN Jackson: A driver who sped away from a routine traffic stop died after he crashed into a tree and the SUV caught on fire, the Jackson Citizen Patriot reported.
MINNESOTA Minneapolis: Irina Vorotinov, 49, admitted that she staged her husband’s death to collect $2 million in insurance money, the Star Tribune reported. Igor Vorotinov was last said to be alive in Ukraine and Moldova.
MISSISSIPPI Saltillo: Forty fourth-grade students at Saltillo Elementary have made 1,048 origami cranes to send to Japan. Teachers Denise McBrayer and Stephanie Byrd plan to send them to the Hiroshima Peace Day Memorial Ceremony in Japan in honor of the Aug. 6 anniversary of the atomic bombings, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported.
MISSOURI Kennett: Authorities arrested a suspected drunken driver in a head-on crash that killed a husband and wife, the Daily American Republic reported.
MONTANA Hot Springs: The Sanders County sheriff ’s office is searching for a man who assaulted a 12-year-old girl over the weekend.
NEBRASKA Central City: Benjamin Jackson, a “buffalo soldier” from Nebraska who served during the Indian Wars is getting a headstone and military service about 71 years after his death, The Grand Island Independent reported.
NEVADA Reno: Four people were rescued from the Truckee River after they fell off a floatation device. Fire Department Chief Dirk Minore says the three women and a man were using a float ring designed for a pool that was insufficient for Truckee River conditions.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Stark: New Hampshire Fish and Game officials say a 62-year-old man escaped without injury after surviving nearly 33 hours alone in Nash Stream State Forest, WMUR-TV reported.
NEW JERSEY Newark: Wendell Pierce dropped out as speaker at Wednesday’s Rutgers UniversityNewark commencement, The Daily Targum reported. The actor, most famous for his work on television series The Wire, was arrested last weekend in Atlanta and charged with simple battery.
NEW MEXICO Las Vegas: Luna Community College is cutting jobs amid major budget cuts, the Las Vegas Optic reported. President Leroy Sanchez issued letters to at least five employees last week.
NEW YORK Albany: Agricultural businesses in the Finger Lakes region can apply for loans through a $3 million program aimed to assist the industry, the Star-Gazette reported.
NORTH CAROLINA Wilmington: At least 60 nests filled with eggs by loggerhead sea turtles have been tallied on beaches in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina since the nesting season began May 1. The turtles posted nest numbers above or near record levels in 2015.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: The National Endowment of the Arts awarded grants for North Dakota arts programs. The North Dakota Council on the Arts will receive $727,100 for partnership activities throughout the state.
OHIO Richfield: Police officer Michael Simmons is accused of stealing more than $26,000 from a charity fund that provides money to buy Christmas gifts for financially disadvantaged children, spending it instead on personal sporting event tickets, electronics, clothing and tools, The Plain Dealer reported. The money was taken from 2010 to 2016.
OKLAHOMA El Reno: Four men pleaded guilty to lying about their holdings to obtain millions in loans that led to the collapse of the Bank of Union in January 2014, The Oklahoman reported.
OREGON Portland: Several small earthquakes were detected at Mount Hood. The strongest quake was a magnitude 2.4.
PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia: The basement of the Engine 5/Ladder 6 firehouse flooded after a water main break. Fire department officials say the flooded station remains open and the firefighters there are still on duty.
RHODE ISLAND Smithfield: A new indoor practice facility opened on Bryant University’s campus here, eight months after the structure collapsed during construction.
SOUTH CAROLINA Columbia: Gov. Haley vetoed $40 million that state legislators overwhelmingly agreed to send to farmers whose crops were damaged in October’s historic rainfall and flooding, The State reported. Haley said the aid would be an “unprecedented bailout for a single industry affected by last year’s flooding.”
SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: State transportation officials are preparing to fix a 23-mile stretch of I-29 north of here that’s only 20 years old but deteriorating faster than expected. Improvements are slated for 2017 in the northbound and southbound lanes between the Renner and Madison exits, the Argus Leader reported.
TENNESSEE Gatlinburg: Officials at Great Smoky Mountains National Park euthanized a 400pound male black bear believed to have bitten an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker last week at a shelter in the park, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. The large dominant male, which was darted 75 yards from where the attack occurred on the Appalachian Trail, fits the profile of bears most likely to attack people and had a canine tooth injury consistent with the bite wound on the victim’s leg.
TEXAS Houston: Police say a 26-year-old driver was arrested for allegedly causing a wreck that killed a girl hours after she attended prom.
UTAH Delta: A 64-year-old man died after he was crushed during an industrial accident.
VERMONT Burlington: Burlington College will close later this month, the school announced, citing the “crushing weight of debt,” Burlington Free Press reported.
VIRGINIA Lynchburg: In a surprise to Liberty University graduates, actors Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn and screenwriter Randall Wallace made an appearance at commencement, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. Gibson and Wallace spoke briefly to the crowd about their upcoming film, Hacksaw Ridge, which depicts the true story of Pfc. Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
WASHINGTON Longview: A squirrel will be the official city mascot, The Daily News reported. The proposal to have the squirrel as the city mascot had been in the works since the summer Squirrel Fest began in 2011.
WEST VIRGINIA Morgantown: Katherine Johnson, a pioneering mathematician who charted the trajectory of the first American in space, was awarded an honorary degree by West Virginia University, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
WISCONSIN Milwaukee: Three tech-minded middle-schoolers from Milwaukee Montessori School bested more than 50 middle-school teams in the U.S. Navy’s SeaPerch Robotic Submarine regional competition and will be the youngest of four Wisconsin teams to compete in the nationals Friday in Baton Rouge, La., Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
WYOMING Casper: Wyoming is among the most dangerous states for teenage drivers, the Casper Star-Tribune reported. According to a CarInsurance.com report, about half of Wyoming’s teen drivers text or email while driving and about 10% of high school students older than 16 reported drinking and driving.