STATE-BY-STATE

ARIZONA

Scottsville: A 94-year-old woman was able to free herself from a seven-hour ordeal in the trunk of her car after a man abducted her and left her in a mall parking lot.

ARKANSAS

Little Rock: The Earle School District has been taken over by the state after officials found close to $2 million in improper spending.

CALIFORNIA

Channel Islands Na

tional Park: Brown booby seabirds are nesting for the first time in Channel Islands National Park.

COLORADO

Rifle: The local police department is training its new police dogs Jax and Makai to sniff out drugs while ignoring the scent of marijuana, KUSA-TV reports.

CONNECTICUT

Hartford: A romance novel cover model pleaded guilty to robbing a bank and a convenience store, The Greenwich Times reports.

DELAWARE

Georgetown: What’s a 7-year-old beagle worth? That’s the question in a suit filed against a hospital where a female beagle’s anal gland surgery was allegedly botched.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA:

Four security guards at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration headquarters in suburban Washington are accused of selling weapons certifications to other guards who needed to pass weapons tests for their jobs.

FLORIDA

Tallahassee: State lawmakers are considering creating a state memorial to honor slaves and acknowledge the cruelty of slavery.

GEORGIA

Savannah: The Port of Savannah set a container record with 32% growth in October.

HAWAII

Hilo: Consultants in a proposed master plan for the Big Island bus system said ridership dropped by almost one-third in the past four years, West Hawaii Today reports.

IDAHO

Boise: Health insurance officials are warning Idaho lawmakers that switching public employees to a self-insurance plan poses a potentially greater risk to the state than buying coverage through a carrier.

ILLINOIS

Chicago: The Depressionera South Side Community Art Center was named a national treasure by the Trust for Historic Preservation.

INDIANA

Indianapolis: A state panel working on new graduation guidelines for high schools recommends getting rid of the qualifying exam. Instead, the panel recommends that students take the SAT, ACT or a similar college entrance exam.

IOWA

Iowa City: The school district has told parents it will stop using seclusion rooms for students who pose threats to themselves or others.

KANSAS

Mission: Voters elected three first-time candidates to the board of Shawnee Mission schools, rejecting the only incumbent in the race, The Kansas City Star reports.

KENTUCKY

Somerset: A man charged with the murder and robbery of a 70-year-old woman found in Denham Street Baptist Church pleaded guilty.

LOUISIANA

Mandeville: Authorities say an armed homeowner chased down high school students who were toilet-papering homes. Craig Scott is charged with aggravated assault with a firearm and obstruction of a road.

MAINE

Portland: Lewiston and Auburn voters overwhelmingly rejected a merger, The Sun Journal reports.

MARYLAND

Dundalk: Amazon has announced plans to build a distribution center that will create 1,500 fulltime jobs, The Baltimore Sun reports.

MASSACHUSETTS

Amesbury: Voters in Amesbury rejected a pot shop ban by a 2-1 margin. The state is expected to begin licensing the first recreational pot stores in mid-2018.

MICHIGAN

Lake Linden: Officials say emergency dredging in Keweenaw County restored the Grand Traverse Harbor channel for commercial and recreational boating.

MINNESOTA

Duluth: The board of St. Louis County has approved a disaster declaration from last month’s windstorm that caused damage along the Lake Superior shoreline. Initial damage assessments total more than $3.4 million.

MISSISSIPPI

Tupelo: Lee County officials are considering a scaleddown $8 million jail expansion and renovation after rejecting a $51 million plan, The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reports.

MISSOURI

St. Joseph: Voters rejected spending more on schools in the first bid for a revenue boost following a scathing 2015 audit, The St. Joseph News-Press reports.

MONTANA

Helena: Voters in Montana’s capital city have elected a Liberian refugee as mayor. Wilmot Collins ousted four-term Mayor Jim Smith in the mail-in election.

NEBRASKA

Bellevue: Bimbo Bakeries is accused of exposing workers to multiple hazards. An OSHA news release says the company faces $122,625 in proposed penalties.

NEVADA

Las

Vegas: A driverless shuttle bus

collided with a semi-truck less than two hours after it was launched Wednesday in Las Vegas. No injuries were reported.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Manchester: Police say a woman killed her roommates’ pet ferret, which was found dead in a smoke-filled oven.

NEW JERSEY

Tinton Falls: A 93-year-old World War II veteran upset the incumbent mayor. Vito Perillo defeated Gerald Turning in the nonpartisan race Tuesday, the Asbury Park Press reports. NEW MEXICO

Farmington: A group that erected a monument on a cityowned site honoring the Ten Commandments will move it to church land, the Daily Times reports.

NEW YORK

Buffalo: Administrators are moving in at the new $375 million Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Buffalo. Classes start in January.

NORTH CAROLINA

Raleigh: An appeals court says state lawmakers have the last word on confirming Gov. Roy Cooper’s top aides. The court rejected Cooper’s challenge of a law passed weeks after his election.

NORTH DAKOTA

Bismarck: A former Sanford Health Foundation executive is North Dakota’s new state land commissioner. Jodi Smith was selected from a pool of 32 candidates.

OHIO

Toledo: A former district school superintendent who quit amid allegations of misspent funds and was later banned from school property was elected to the school board.

OKLAHOMA

Oklahoma City: The state Transportation Commission has approved a plan that calls for repairing or replacing nearly 400 county bridges and improving hundreds of miles of county roads over the next five years, The Oklahoman reports.

OREGON

Newport: A woman who dropped a lit cigarette on her motel bed, starting a fire that killed four people, was sentenced to nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty to criminally negligent homicide.

PENNSYLVANIA

Harrisburg: A judge ordered the seizure Tuesday of raffle tickets offering a chance to win cash or an iPhoneX for voting in the city mayor’s race, PennLive.com reports.

RHODE ISLAND

Providence: The Penthouse nightclub is being allowed to reopen pending an appeal of its revoked business license, The Providence Journal reports.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Clemson: Authorities say an ex-city finance head spent nearly $125,000 of city funds on repairs to a Jaguar and a Porsche.

SOUTH DAKOTA

Aberdeen: Two Brown County Jail inmates were sentenced to prison for causing more than $1,100 in damage by plugging jail toilets with laundry bags, The Aberdeen American News reports.

TENNESSEE

Nashville: An environmental nonprofit removed more than an acre of invasive plants near Richland Creek, The Tennessean reports. Exotic vines took down trees along the creek’s banks, increasing the risk of erosion and flooding.

TEXAS

Austin: For the second year, the state Board of Education has rejected a Mexican-American studies textbook, The Austin AmericanStatesman reports.

UTAH

Salt Lake City: One of Utah’s last “dry” communities will keep its ban on alcohol sales, despite an influx of tourists. Restaurant and hotel owners in Blanding lost Tuesday’s vote to accommodate drinkers.

VERMONT

Berlin: Town officials are supporting Berlin Mall’s effort to get trees cut down on a strip of stateowned land to increase the mall’s visibility from a nearby road, The Times Argus reports.

VIRGINIA

Martinsville: The city has completed a years-long effort to restore a historic African-American cemetery, The Martinsville Bulletin reports. People’s Cemetery had become overgrown with damaged tombstones over the years.

WASHINGTON

Bremerton: An investigation found exposure of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard workers to poisons like cyanide and chlorine.

WEST VIRGINIA

Parkersburg: Wood County officials say the cost of their warehouse fire response last month already is more than $1 million and expected to rise, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel reports.

WISCONSIN

Madison: The legal drinking age would drop to 19 in Wisconsin under proposed legislation, but only if the state doesn’t have to give up any federal highway money.

WYOMING

Riverton: A federal appeals court has declined to reconsider a ruling that Riverton isn’t within the boundaries of the Wind River Indian Reservation, The Ranger reports.

Compiled from staff, wire reports.