State by state:

News from around the nation

ALABAMA

Gulf Shores: Another Alabama city is forming its own school system. The Gulf Shores City Council voted Monday to break away from Baldwin County’s system, one of the state’s largest with more than 31,000 students.

ALASKA

Juneau: The city is considering giving a former Tlingit village site on Auke Bay to a nonprofit dedicated to Aak’w Kwáan heritage, KTOO-FM reports. The land is commonly known as Indian Point.

ARIZONA

Prescott: A contractor demolishing a garage discovered that the walls were built out of discarded ammunition boxes from World War II, The Daily Courier reports. The house was built in 1926, and the garage was a later addition.

ARKANSAS

Little Rock: The Little Rock Police Department is revamping its recruitment and hiring efforts amid dozen of officer vacancies, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. The department had 77 vacancies as of mid-September. CALIFORNIA

Sacramento: Gov. Jerry Brown has signed bills aimed at putting more zeroemission vehicles on state roads. The bills require the state to buy more zero- and low-emission vehicles and create a pilot program for EV charging stations at state parks and beaches.

COLORADO

Telluride: San Miguel County and three environmental groups have sued the federal government to invalidate nine oil and gas leases on public land. The suit says the drilling could harm the threatened Gunnison sage grouse.

CONNECTICUT

Hartford: Former Gov. John Rowland is set to be released early from federal prison. Officials say Rowland will be released next May, 19 months into a 30-month sentence in cases of corruption and campaign fraud.

DELAWARE

Wilmington: A gun offender registry that was put on hold is now moving forward. It would require all Wilmington residents convicted of gun crimes in Delaware to register with the city police department within 10 days of their release.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA:

The city has sent $2.6 million to its 115 public schools in a campaign to help struggling students and bridge achievement gaps, The Washington Post reports.

FLORIDA

St. Johns: A thirdgrader at a school near Jacksonville was sent home on picture day because he broke the dress code by sporting blue hair, News4-TV reports. The principal pointed to a handbook that bans “extreme hairstyles.”

GEORGIA

Atlanta: A contractor was sentenced to five years in prison in an ongoing federal investigation into bribes paid for city contracts. Elvin Mitchell Jr. also was ordered to pay more than $1.12 million in restitution.

HAWAII Honolulu:

A government report says Pearl Harbor is the Navy’s most backlogged shipyard, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports. The GAO finding says the poor conditions have robbed the Navy of ship and submarine time at sea.

IDAHO

Blackfoot: Police say a man whose dogs mauled a woman and killed her pet is charged with harboring vicious animals and other dog-related misdemeanors. The woman suffered multiple bite wounds.

ILLINOIS

Chicago: Police filed attempted murder charges against a man accused of pushing another man off a subway platform and onto the train tracks. Authorities say there’s no indication that the suspect, Chad Estep, knew the man who was pushed.

INDIANA Kokomo:

Officials say a sewage overflow killed fish in Wildcat Creek over the weekend, the Kokomo Tribune reports. Authorities say heavy rain overwhelmed Kokomo’s wastewater treatment plant.

IOWA

Des Moines: Animal rights and free speech groups are challenging a 2012 Iowa law that made it illegal to get a job at a livestock farm through misrepresentation to conduct animal cruelty undercover investigations. Federal courts have struck down similar laws in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming.

KANSAS

Manhattan: Kansas State University officials say an anti-gay slur was found outside the student union, The Wichita Eagle reports. The vandalism occurred the same week that someone vandalized a temporary dwelling erected outside a residential complex for the Jewish harvest festival, Sukkot.

KENTUCKY

Louisville: The University of Louisville will hold an economic development forum Nov. 2 that focuses on strategies and available resources to help rebuild and sustain communities.

LOUISIANA

Clinton: A Boy Scout camp employee was shot and killed Monday at his home outside the camp where he worked. The Avondale Scout Reservation website lists Brad DeFranceschi as a ranger.

MAINE

Augusta: Game wardens are investigating a partridge hunting accident in which a hunter was hit by 20 or more pellets while pursuing the same bird as another hunter. Wardens say Robert Cyr of Penobscot was treated and released.

MARYLAND

Brooklyn: Officials say more than 200 people have shown up at Anne Arundel County fire and police stations seeking treatment for drug addiction since the county’s “Safe Stations” program started six months ago, The Baltimore Sun reports.

MASSACHUSETTS Worcester: A

man charged with stealing 16 guns from the local Army Reserve center and other crimes has reached a plea deal that could put him behind bars for 15 years, The Telegram & Gazette reports. James Morales is scheduled for a change-of-plea hearing on Nov. 13.

MICHIGAN

Pontiac: A judge reduced the custody rights of a woman who was jailed for five days for not following through on an agreement to vaccinate her 9-year-old son. Rebecca Bredow will no longer have primary custody but will have joint custody with her ex-husband, who wanted the boy vaccinated.

MINNESOTA

Duluth: Clear lakes can be among the most polluted. A University of Minnesota Duluth and Minnesota Sea Grant study finds that when lakes have extremely high nutrient concentrations, the water can become clear because the nutrients kill algae that cloud it, Minnesota Public Radio reports.

MISSISSIPPI

Madison: Neighbors in this Mississippi suburb want to shut down a family’s elaborate Christmas lights display, The Madison County Journal reports. The Board of Aldermen is considering the request to declare Carol and Mike Richardson’s display a public nuisance.

MISSOURI

Clayton: St. Louis County is getting a $1 million federal grant to help fund community policing efforts in the Castle Point neighborhood. In addition to community policing, the money will fund new streetlights and sidewalks.

MONTANA Helena:

A funding change for the state wildlife agency means game wardens must do more management work and less conservation law enforcement. The change results from a decision by state lawmakers to apply for more federal funding rather than increase hunting license fees.

NEBRASKA

Bellevue: The City Council has taken possession of World Baseball Village, The Omaha World-Herald reports. The

$6.5 million Champions Village baseball complex that opened in

2010 was built with public funds.

NEVADA

Reno: Union workers for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Nevada are protesting staff shortages that they say hurts care for veterans. American Federation of Government Employees members demonstrated Tuesday on the edge of Reno’s downtown casino district.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Concord:

The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation has received a $3 million gift from an anonymous donor to improve outcomes for women and their babies affected by substance use disorders.

NEW JERSEY

Hasbrouck

Heights: One of New Jersey’s highest paid school superintendents is resigning after the state

found that she transferred her daughter to another office without approval and covered security cameras to conceal her daughter’s whereabouts.

NEW MEXICO

Santa Fe: Dozens of scientists and engineers at New Mexico’s national nuclear weapons laboratory say proposed public school science standards would undermine the study of climate change, evolution and earth sciences.

NEW YORK

Saratoga Springs: The Adirondack Creamery is dedicating a new ice cream flavor to Syrian refugees and donating part of the profits to help them. Officials say the flavor is inspired by a Syrian pastry called ma’amoul that combines dates and walnuts, The New York Times reports.

NORTH CAROLINA

Leland: This Brunswick County town is dealing with repeated sewage spills, The StarNews reports. The latest came last month when more than 33,000 gallons of untreated wastewater bubbled up through a manhole.

NORTH DAKOTA

Bismarck: Fired Fargo police officer Dave Boelke is appealing his termination, KFGO reports. Chief Dave Todd fired the 15-year veteran in August, saying he made “intentional and willful decisions” not to respond to calls and lacked patience with the public. Boelke denies the allegations.

OHIO

Cleveland: A woman accused of pulling a gun on a barber because he was taking too long to cut her 7-year-old son’s hair was sentenced to six months behind bars. Andrea Smith apologized in court Tuesday.

OKLAHOMA McAlester:

Pittsburg County officials have rejected a man’s request to build a Ten Commandments statue outside the county courthouse, The McAlester News-Capital reports. Contractor Tim Mitchell says he “was told by God” to create the statue.

OREGON

Sumpter: A woman who forgot to latch her front door woke up to find a 160-pound bear in her living room, The Baker City Herald reports. The bear knocked over a bookshelf but didn’t hurt the woman.

PENNSYLVANIA

Allentown: State regulators yanked the license of the Woodland Terrace at the Oaks nursing home following the death of a 77-year-old Alzheimer’s patient who wandered off. Audrey Penn’s body was found in a roadside ditch nearly a month after being reported missing, LehighValleyLive.com reports.

RHODE ISLAND

Providence: The city council is considering changing the name of Magee Street to Bannister Street. The current name that dates to 1805 is for a slave trader. The change would honor a prominent abolitionist black couple.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Charleston: Customs officers at the Port of Charleston seized nearly 346,000 counterfeit stainless steel water bottles shipped from China. Officials say the bottles mimicked a popular design trademarked by S’Well Bottle Co. and were headed for California.

SOUTH DAKOTA

Rapid City: Former British Prime Minister David Cameron drew a crowd in a visit to the Black Hills this week. Cameron indulged a 51st birthday wish by horseback riding and later spoke to about 1,800 people at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, The Rapid City Journal reports.

TENNESSEE

Nashville: The new Tennessee State Museum project has yielded more than $25 million in donations. The museum is set to open in late 2018.

TEXAS

Dallas: The city’s police chief plans to demote a significant number of assistant and deputy chiefs and detectives to expand the ranks of officers working the streets. The department has lost nearly 500 officers in the past 12 months, many over pension concerns.

UTAH West

Jordan: Police say a 3-year-old boy spent the night in child welfare custody after getting lost at the Crazy Corn Maze. Authorities couldn’t locate any members of his family until the next morning when his mother called police.

VERMONT

Derby Line: Border Patrol agents apprehended 16 people from Mexico and two Central American countries after some of them illegally entered the United States from Canada.

VIRGINIA

Gloucester Point: Researchers say the amount of oxygen-deprived dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay this summer was the worst since 2014.

WASHINGTON Mount

Vernon: A rule that would make it illegal for boats to dump sewage into Puget Sound is open for public comment until Nov. 30, The Skagit-Valley Herald reports.

WEST VIRGINIA Morgantown:

The West Virginia University Foundation plans a 24-hour fundraising effort on Nov. 8. Inaugural “Day of Giving ” donations will go toward the “State of Minds” campaign that ends this year.

WISCONSIN

Delafield: When St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy opens its next summer session, it will have female cadets for the first time in nearly 130 years. Currently, 218 boys are enrolled, The Journal Sentinel reports.

WYOMING

Cheyenne: Two horses at Laramie County Community College were euthanized because of an unidentified illness. Officials say the horses were privately owned, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports.