HIGHLIGHT: OHIO
ALABAMA Montgomery: The state has begun a year of events leading up to its 200th birthday. Gov. Kay Ivey joined other leaders at the Capitol on Friday at an event introducing a yearlong countdown to Alabama’s bicentennial on Dec. 14, 2019.
ALASKA Fairbanks: Three Alaska groups sued Friday to demand the Environmental Protection Agency enforce the cleanup of some of the nation’s most polluted winter air. The lawsuit filed by environmental law firm Earthjustice says the state has failed to submit a legally compliant plan to address the problem of particulate pollution caused by wood-burning stoves and other sources in the Fairbanks area.
ARIZONA Tempe: Firefighters set Christmas trees aflame at their training facility Saturday to demonstrate how fast a dry tree can burn compared to one watered daily, affecting how long residents would have to get to safety. Two trees, decorated with ornaments and surrounded with mock presents, were set on fire at the same time by Tempe Fire Department – one had received a gallon of water each day, and the other was left dry for two weeks. The dry tree was engulfed in flames in a matter of seconds, while the watered-daily tree smoked for nearly five minutes before the presents caught fire, followed by the tree itself.
ARKANSAS Little Rock: A paper mill would pay a $600,000 fine and spend about $4.7 million on environmental projects and plant upgrades to reduce air pollution under terms of a proposed settlement. The proposal with Georgia-Pacific in Crossett was filed Friday in federal court.
CALIFORNIA San Francisco: The chief justice of the California Supreme Court says she has given up her Republican Party affiliation over concerns about increasing political polarization and incivility in the U.S.
COLORADO Durango: The restoration of the Animas River is underway, as Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials have poured 1,500 rainbow trout into the river.
CONNECTICUT Bethlehem: A group of residents in the town where the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School once worked is raising money for a statue to honor the victim of the massacre. But the Bethlehem residents don’t want a statue of Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung but rather of her dog, who played an important role in lives of the town’s children. Bella was a certified therapy dog who would visit schools to sit with children and be their reading buddy.
DELAWARE Rockland: A local car club and their friends from Pennsylvania motored to Nemours/A.I. duPont Hospital for Children in Rockland on Saturday afternoon to give sick kids a chance to check out their rides. Cars and Coffee of Wilmington and Lancaster brought hundreds of cars to the children’s hospital as a Christmas gift for the kids, many of whom will spend the holiday season in sick beds.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washing
ton: A 32-year tradition will be coming to an end after 2019. This next Memorial Day will be the last Rolling Thunder “Ride for Freedom” in the nation’s capital.
FLORIDA Parkland: A high schooler who survived a school shooting massacre and co-founded the March for Our Lives gun-reform movement has been accepted to Harvard. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School senior Jaclyn Corin posted a photo of her admissions notice on Instagram.
GEORGIA Atlanta: The National Park Service has bought the home where Martin Luther King Jr. was born.
HAWAII Honolulu: State officials have located a time capsule that was entombed in a wall of the state Capitol a half-century ago.
IDAHO Boise: A federal judge says Idaho must provide gender confirmation surgery to a transgender inmate who has been living as a woman for years but has continuously been housed in a men’s prison.
ILLINOIS Chicago: A 120-year-old church was saved from auction after a midnight call from a group of donors, which one church official said was “a Christmas miracle.” Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church had held what parishioners believed would be its final service Thursday.
OHIO Cincinnati: Can’t get enough of Fiona the hippo? Cincinnati Ballet has you covered. Its “Nutcracker” opened Thursday at Music Hall. And Fiona was there – rather, a 6-foot-4 dancer named Thomas Curran inside a hippo costume, marching with toy soldiers and bobbing about in the Land of the Sweets. The idea that a 1,000-pound hippo could find a home in a full-length ballet may sound absurd. But this is a “Nutcracker” that has a dancing bear cavorting with a life-sized Raggedy Ann doll. It has dancing poodles, too – renamed “Mirlipoos” – in shades of pink and green. So why not a hippo? The production runs through Dec. 24.
INDIANA Bloomington: John Mellencamp sang and told personal stories Friday at a 40th-anniversary fundraiser for the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center.
IOWA Des Moines: Students at Grinnell College are seeking to end their effort to expand a union representing student workers because of fear a federal board would reject their request and set back unions at colleges across the country.
KANSAS Lawrence: A $6.9 million gift from a late geologist and his wife will be used to help University of Kansas researchers better understand early human life in the Americas.
KENTUCKY Louisville: Kentucky Fried Chicken tweeted that it was offering an 11 Herbs and Spices Firelog. The 5-pound log was available on the company’s website for just hours before selling out.
LOUISIANA New Orleans: With just over two weeks left in 2018, New Orleans is on pace to see a significant drop in the number of murders for the year and could mark the lowest number of killings the city has seen in nearly half a century.
MAINE Hallowell: The Maine Public Utilities Commission says all 911 dispatch centers in the state now have the capability of accepting texts in addition to voice calls.
MARYLAND Salisbury: Government officials broke ground Friday at Square at Merritt Mill, a 75-unit housing development in which 12 units will be reserved for people with disabilities and 67 for workforce/affordable housing.
MASSACHUSETTS Framingham: A once-run-down historic home that stands where a woman accused of witchcraft during the 1692 Salem witch trials settled after she was spared the noose is on the market after an extensive renovation project. The Peter and Sarah Clayes House hit the market Thursday with an asking price of $975,000.
MICHIGAN Whitehall: Some experts have come up with a new identity for a shipwreck that has emerged along the Lake Michigan shore. They say it’s not long enough to be the LC Woodruff, a schooner that sank in 1878. They tell WZZMTV they believe it’s the Contest, which was lost in 1882.
MINNESOTA Duluth: An effort is underway to reintroduce elk to parts of northeast Minnesota, but it could be a long process.
MISSISSIPPI McComb: A southwest Mississippi group will be able to buy some land around a reservoir following Congress’ passage of the farm bill, which orders the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to sell 150 acres in the Homochitto National Forest in Franklin County to the Scenic Rivers Development Alliance.
MISSOURI Columbia: University of Missouri students were stunned when a towering dairy cow appeared on campus to make a cameo in a graduation photo shoot. The Columbia Missourian reports that senior animal sciences major Massimo Montalbano brought the 3-year- old cow, Amelia, to campus to join his commencement photo shoot. Montalbano worked with cattle throughout his undergraduate studies with the university’s Foremost Dairy Research Center.
MONTANA Helena: The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission has approved regulations clarifying the use of drones and motion-tracking devices by hunters. The commission says drones cannot be used to pursue or drive game animals or to locate animals on the same day as hunting. Drones are also prohibited from being used to film a hunt.
NEBRASKA Scottsbluff: Officials at Scotts Bluff National Monument have broken ground for a visitor center expansion and renovation project.
NEVADA Carson City: The state Department of Education reports that Nevada’s high school graduate rate is up. The department says the class of 2018’s graduation rate was just over 83 percent, an increase of more than 2 percentage points.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: Biologists will be out in the snow again this winter monitoring New Hampshire’s endangered New England cottontail population.
NEW JERSEY Trenton: Gov. Phil Murphy has signed into law a bill to bar circuses, carnivals and fairs from using wild and exotic animals such as elephants and tigers.
NEW MEXICO Carlsbad: The unique geology at the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository recently drew a researcher from across the Atlantic. Italian scientist Maurizo Tomasi journeyed to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad to conduct research due to the salt mines’ low levels of background radiation. Researchers used damp paper towels to germinate seeds. Germination rates for those exposed to radiation were different when seeds were pulled from the vault.
NEW YORK New York: That wild sockeye salmon in the refrigerated aisle may be straight from the fish farm, New York’s attorney general says. A report from Attorney General Barbara Underwood found that more than one-fourth of the seafood her office sampled in a statewide supermarket survey was mislabeled, typically as a more expensive or more sustainably fished species.
NORTH CAROLINA Hatteras: The numbers show that shorebirds and beach vehicles were able to thrive this summer on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The VirginianPilot reports 41,000 beach-driving permits were sold, the most since sales begin in 2012. Meanwhile, preliminary counts showed 25 pairs of oystercatchers produced 20 young birds that can fly.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: Regulators say the state’s oil production set a record in October.
OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: The city’s new streetcar system has opened to the public, and rides are free for now. Construction of the $135 million system took about two years. It covers about 7 miles through downtown and the Brick- town entertainment district.
OREGON Salem: Concerns about pesticide drift are nothing new in agriculture, but the issue has taken on new gravity for Oregon farmers with marijuana-growing neighbors. Due to the state’s pesticide testing regime for marijuana and its high value, growers of more conventional crops worry about getting blamed for contamination that renders the mind-altering flowers unsalable.
PENNSYLVANIA Allentown: Environmental officials are investigating the source of a strong odor that has irritated residents of the Lehigh Valley. The probe has focused on a landfill in Plainfield Township, but no violations were found.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: State officials have allocated $4.1 million in grants from a settlement Volkswagen reached with federal officials over its emissions scandal. Attorney General Peter Kilmartin announced funding for a variety of environmental projects. The largest grant, $850,000, will help East Providence reopen Sabin Point Beach to swimming. SOUTH CAROLINA Moncks Corner: The Francis Marion National Forest has grown by a few hundred acres. The Post and Courier reports the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently finalized its long-planned purchase of the 637-acre Honey Hill Tract for $1.61 million.
SOUTH DAKOTA Rapid City: The state fire meteorologist is part of a coalition using satellite technology to notify fire managers when fuels are abnormally dry. The Rapid City Journal reports Darren Clabo is collaborating with colleagues from NASA and other scientific agencies to create a tool called Fire Risk Estimation 2.0, or FiRE.
TENNESSEE Nashville: State parks are taking applications for grants for school field trips. Each trip includes a scheduled interpretive and educational program led by a ranger.
TEXAS Corpus Christi: Two artists are bringing more waves to this city along the Gulf of Mexico in the form of a large new mural. Corpus Christi artists John Olvey and Kaleigh Glover recently unveiled their mural “City by the Sea” along the side of the Corpus Christi Trade Center.
UTAH Salt Lake City: Fewer than half the residents of Salt Lake County belong to the Mormon church, according to new figures that illustrate how Utah’s largest county is becoming more religiously diverse. The number of people who are devoted Mormons is probably even lower, says independent Mormon researcher Matt Martinich. He estimates about 40 percent of Mormons are active.
VERMONT Colchester: A new study finds about half of Vermont’s native species of bumblebees are in serious decline or have disappeared. Vermont Public Radio reports the Vermont Center for Ecostudies and the University of Vermont point to factors including pesticide use and climate change.
VIRGINIA Charlottesville: A bill to name a Virginia post office for a U.S. Army captain whose Muslim father spoke out against candidate Donald Trump has been sent to the president’s desk. The bill renaming a Charlottesville branch after University of Virginia alumnus Humayun Khan passed the Senate by unanimous consent and now only needs Trump’s signature to take effect.
WASHINGTON Seattle: The Seattle Mariners have pledged $3 million for a new effort to prevent low-income renters facing eviction from falling into homelessness.
WEST VIRGINIA Morgantown: West Virginia University’s Board of Governors has given initial approval to a ban on using electronic cigarettes on campus.
WISCONSIN Milwaukee: Wisconsin nonprofits, including churches and schools, are getting $445,000 in solar-power grants for projects aimed at promoting clean energy and reducing electric costs. Altogether, the 36 grants from RENEW Wisconsin are expected to result in more than $4.5 million in new solar investments, according to the nonprofit. WYOMING Yellowstone National
Park: Select roads in Yellowstone National Park have opened to the public for motorized oversnow travel.