STATE-BY-STATE
News from across the USA
ALABAMA Birmingham: About 10,000 senior athletes are headed to Birmingham for the National Senior Games that begin June 2. Organizers are trying to recruit 3,000 volunteers to help stage the two weeks of competitions.
ALASKA Nome: Eleven villages in Alaska’s northwest arctic borough will soon get yearly multimillion-dollar payments from the operator of Red Dog Mine, KNOM radio reports.
ARIZONA Phoenix: The federal government has released a critical report on the poor condition of roads on tribal lands. The General Accounting Office report says children can’t get to school in bad weather.
ARKANSAS Little Rock: The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has hired a vice chancellor of student affairs. Mark Allen Poisel will begin the job July 31.
CALIFORNIA Sacramento: California lawmakers are considering a prohibition on employers asking applicants what they were paid at previous jobs. Supporters say the measure would strengthen equal pay protections.
COLORADO Boulder: The University of Colorado Boulder has been granted a one-year exemption to the city’s new soda tax,
The Daily Camera reports.
CONNECTICUT Hartford: A proposed agreement between Connecticut’s governor and state employee union leaders offers a pledge of no layoffs for at least four years in exchange for a twoyear wage freeze and other concessions.
DELAWARE Pike Creek: An off-duty Delaware state trooper was “severely battered” in a domestic altercation that also left her boyfriend shot.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Washington’s more than 8,000 taxis are getting digital meters, The
Washington Post reports. Cab drivers in the city have until Aug. 31 to get rid of their traditional meters.
FLORIDA Fort Lauderdale: Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue officials say a 31-foot catamaran rode up over the back of a 23-foot console boat near Bokampers Sports Bar & Grill last weekend, The Sun
Sentinel reports. Four people were injured.
GEORGIA Savannah: The chief executive of the Georgia Ports Authority is predicting record growth for the current fiscal year that ends June 30. Total cargo moving through the seaports at Savannah and Brunswick is expected to top nearly 32 million tons.
HAWAII Honolulu: Scientists are warning people that serious coastal flooding could be coming to Hawaii in the next few months with a convergence of “king tides” and rising sea levels, The
Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports.
IDAHO Boise: Boise State University researchers have been awarded a $1.7 million Defense Department grant to monitor the effects of climate change on bird migration.
ILLINOIS Chicago: Police say three people stole a rare, diamond-encrusted clock worth $425,000 from an antique show at the Merchandise Mart. A surveillance video shows the theft.
INDIANA Evansville: An evaluation is planned on Evansville’s 102-year-old Bosse Field baseball stadium after state lawmakers approved a special tax for needed repairs. The tax could raise about $300,000, The Evansville Courier
& Press reports.
IOWA Waterloo: The former
Waterloo Greyhound Park that shut down 20 years ago has fallen into disrepair while two groups with claims on it battle in court. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports that city officials have stopped issuing citations for broken windows and overgrown weeds until the legal dispute is resolved.
KANSAS Lawrence: Local residents report more armadillo sightings, something that nature officials say could result from recent mild winters, the Law
rence Journal-World reports.
KENTUCKY Frankfort: The Kentucky Book Fair is moving to Lexington because of the pending demolition of the Frankfort Convention Center, The State Journal reports.
LOUISIANA Jennings: The Jefferson Davis Parish School Board has approved a dress code — for school employees. The
American Press reports that visible face piercings and distracting tattoos are barred, as well as frayed jeans, flip-flops and low necklines.
MAINE Freedom: The oldest eagle ever documented in Maine needs a new nickname. The 34year-old bird was dubbed “The Old Man.” But rehabilitators are now almost certain it’s female, not male.
MARYLAND Boonsboro: A Maryland high school senior is barred from the school’s graduation ceremony because she’s pregnant. The teen attends Heritage Academy, a private Christian school in Hagerstown.
MASSACHUSETTS Malden: A Massachusetts school that came under fire for banning hair braid extensions has suspended the rule. The policy raised questions about whether students of color were being singled out.
MICHIGAN Detroit: Hundreds of women showed up for a daylong event offering free lessons on gun safety and personal protection, The Detroit Free Press reports. The weekend event was conducted by Legally Armed in Detroit, a gun rights advocacy group.
MINNESOTA St. Paul: Officials are set to unveil a $30 million makeover of the Minnesota Children’s Museum in St. Paul with a grand reopening June 7. The renovations include 10 new exhibits.
MISSISSIPPI Oxford: The annual Renaissance Classic Euro Fest Car and Motorcycle Show is coming to Oxford this weekend,
The Oxford Eagle reports. The event has attracted more than 100,000 spectators and more than 1,000 cars from six countries since it began eight years ago in Ridgeland and expanded to Natchez in 2016.
MISSOURI St. Louis: An endangered black rhino is the newest addition to the St. Louis Zoo. It’s just the second black rhino born at the zoo in the past 26 years.
MONTANA Kalispell: Blackfeet tribal leaders have reopened four lakes to motorized boats after approving new regulations in response to the threat of aquatic invasive mussels, The Flathead
Beacon reports.
NEBRASKA Raymond: A blind man whose only income is a Social Security disability check is struggling to get state aid. The
Lincoln Journal Star reports that Mark Scheel was rejected for a homestead exemption because blindness isn’t a disability condition that allows a nonveteran in Nebraska to get property tax relief.
NEVADA Carson City: Members of the military who are deployed or moved to a different base can get out of service contracts without penalty under a new Nevada law.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: An investigation into sexual misconduct at an elite New Hampshire prep school found substantiated claims of abuse involving 13 former faculty and staff. St. Paul’s School in Concord released a report detailing allegations against a dozen men and one woman who worked at the school between 1952 and 1999.
NEW JERSEY Trenton: New Jersey has sued gun manufacturer Sig Sauer, saying it sold defective handguns to the state police. The lawsuit says that when the weapons were delivered in 2014, many of them malfunctioned by
not ejecting shell casings when fired.
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: The police chief of Albuquerque has instructed officers to issue citations, instead of making arrests, for certain misdemeanor crimes. The change is part of a settlement in a longstanding lawsuit over jail conditions and arrest procedures in Bernalillo County, The Albuquerque Journal reports.
NEW YORK Albany: Some New York lawmakers want to withhold millions of dollars from Penn Station until Amtrak resolves chronic commuter train delays. Amtrak says withholding funds is “not the answer” to Penn Station’s problems.
NORTH CAROLINA Jackson
ville: Authorities seized 45 animals — 31 dogs, 13 cats and a pig — and found two dead kittens in a freezer at a home in Jacksonville last week, The Daily News reports. The couple who live there face multiple animal cruelty charges.
NORTH DAKOTA Minot: A water balloon fight landed three Minot high school students in hot water.
The Minot Daily News reports that three teen boys were charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct after the lunchroom battle at Magic City Campus.
OHIO Lebanon: Ohio officials say a fourth attempt to bring down an old Interstate 71 bridge didn’t go quite as planned but may have been enough to finish the job. Three previous implosions failed to take down the Warren County span over the Little Miami River.
OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: A gambling website created by the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma is seeing more setbacks because of a federal probe of the venture’s backer,
The Oklahoman reports. Two other tribes paid Universal Entertainment Group $9.5 million to develop a gambling website in 2012 that never launched.
OREGON Grants Pass: The annual Fourth of July fireworks show at the Josephine County Fairgrounds in Grants Pass has been canceled. Officials say the installation of highly flammable artificial turf on the infield of the horse track makes the event too dangerous. No other suitable venue has been found, The Daily
Courier reports.
PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia: Police say 11 people were taken to hospitals after a deck collapsed at a Philadelphia apartment building. Officials from the city department of licenses and inspections were looking into the cause.
RHODE ISLAND Warwick: A multimillion-dollar renovation of a nearly 200-year-old building, once the Rhode Island state fair centerpiece, has been completed to provide housing for the homeless, The Providence Journal reports.
SOUTH CAROLINA Congaree
National Park: A boa constrictor may be on the loose at South Carolina’s Congaree National Park. Rangers posted on Facebook that a visitor reported releasing the snake Sunday night. Boa constrictors aren’t native to the park, and releasing them there is illegal.
SOUTH DAKOTA Pierre: The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department will conduct a study of Lake Sharpe walleye, The
Pierre Capitol Journal reports. The study will seek a better idea of how big of an impact anglers have on them.
TENNESSEE Gray: A new species of an ancient snake has been discovered at the Gray Fossil Site in Tennessee. The Johnson City
Press reports that the 5-millionyear-old snake, Zilantophis schuberti, is named for site Executive Director Blaine Schubert. TEXAS Arlington: Six Flags Over Texas says stormy weather that included high winds triggered a safety sensor that shut down a new roller coaster Saturday. Eight stranded riders were helped down during a three-hour process. The ride resumed operations Sunday.
UTAH Salt Lake City: The Utah Transit Authority says about one motorist a day drives into railroad crossing gates, The Salt Lake
Tribune reports. State drivers crashed into 329 crossing gates last year. It costs about $1,000 to replace or repair a gate.
VERMONT Pittsford: Officials plan to build a new burn house to train Vermont firefighters, The
Rutland Herald reports. The $800,000, three-story building will be located at the Vermont Fire Academy, with completion expected for use by early winter.
VIRGINIA Short Pump: A woman accused of having a fake explosive device that set off a bomb scare in a grocery store parking lot says it was a novelty alarm clock she bought at a garage sale. The Richmond-Times Dispatch reports that the woman says she paid $1 for the clock designed to look like a dynamite bundle.
WASHINGTON Spokane: Lane restrictions on Interstate 90 through Spokane will be removed this weekend to help Memorial Day traffic. Work to fix concrete panels and bridge expansion joints has been causing major traffic backups, The Spokesman
Review reports.
WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: A celebration of U.S. working women during World War II is set for Thursday at the Women’s Club of Charleston. Surviving “Rosie the Riveters” from throughout West Virginia are expected to attend.
WISCONSIN Baraboo: Circus World in Wisconsin has opened for the summer season with a bigger tent. This year’s show has a ’70s theme, the Baraboo News
Republic reports. One of the new acts features Big Apple Circus veteran Jenny Vidbel and her troupe of performing horses, ponies, canines — and Velma, a mini pig.
WYOMING Jackson: A couple of horses that escaped from an electric-fence enclosure in Wyoming have been found safe, The Jackson Hole News and Guide reports. The geldings, “Salt” and “Boots,” were found last weekend by a man searching for horns. They had gone missing May 14.