Around the nation
News from every state.
ALABAMA Huntsville: A company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will break ground in the state this week on a plant to build a new rocket engine. Al.com reports Blue Origin’s groundbreaking is set for Friday in Huntsville.
ALASKA Anchorage: City officials and business groups are planning to designate a section of downtown to honor the sport of dog mushing.
ARIZONA Phoenix: The Arizona Department of Corrections has picked a new company, Centurion of Arizona, to provide health care at its 10 staterun prisons.
ARKANSAS Bentonville: Court officials are looking for Marshallese language interpreters and have been turning to out-of-state help over the phone or video.
CALIFORNIA Salton City: Authorities say thousands of migrating birds have died at the Salton Sea this month from avian cholera.
COLORADO Fort Collins: Colorado State University fans can now purchase and consume beer and wine at basketball games at Moby Arena.
CONNECTICUT Hartford: Rodent-related calls logged with the city’s 311 information system increased in 2018, the Hartford Courant reports.
DELAWARE Wilmington: Acting icon Ed Asner will appear in a one-night-only show Thursday at Delaware Theatre Company. The Emmy winner plays a passionate survivor of the Holocaust determined to find justice for his people in “The Soap Myth.”
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washing
ton: Mayor Muriel Bowser says she is introducing emergency legislation to allow federal employees working without pay from the district to file for unemployment benefits.
FLORIDA St. Petersburg: The University of South Florida St. Petersburg says it mistakenly sent out more than 400 acceptance letters for applications still under review.
GEORGIA Jekyll Island: The Jekyll Island Authority’s board held a ribbon cutting to open the new $1.2 million Corsair Beach Park, on the southern end of the island, whose centerpiece beach village includes two picnic pavilions, new restrooms and outdoor showers.
HAWAII Honolulu: A Sweden-based beverage company has opposed the trademark application filed by a Hawaii company for the product Kaholo Coffee. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports attorneys for The Absolut Co. filed an opposition notice against the application last year, arguing that Kaholo Coffee is “confusingly similar” to the company’s product, Kahlua Coffee Liqueur.
IDAHO Boise: The Idaho Department of Education says that the state’s high school graduation rate has reached an all-time high of just over 80 percent.
ILLINOIS Chicago: A stage musical about Michael Jackson will premiere in the city later this year before heading to Broadway in 2020. Officials say “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” will begin pre-Broadway performances at the Nederlander Theatre on Oct. 29 and run through Dec. 1.
INDIANA Porter: A new effort is being made in Congress to designate the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore along Lake Michigan as a national park.
IOWA Orange City: A trial has been scheduled for a religious activist who’s accused of burning four LGBTQ children’s books he’d checked out of a local library.
KANSAS Topeka: Anti-abortion leaders are promising to pursue a change in the Kansas Constitution if the state’s highest court rules that the document protects abortion rights.
KENTUCKY Louisville: The state’s agriculture commissioner says his department has approved 1,035 applications to produce up to 42,086 acres of hemp in 2019, a massive increase over 6,700 acres produced last year.
LOUISIANA Baton Rouge: The state’s top school board is spending $700,000 on seven pilot projects aimed at improving access to early childhood education.
MAINE Augusta: The Legislature includes the state’s first recorded instance of a father and daughter serving side-by-side in the same chamber. Republican Reps. Amy Arata and Richard Bradstreet have both begun two-year terms in the Maine House.
MARYLAND Annapolis: A state board has approved a contract to put bronze statues of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass in the historic Maryland State House.
MICHIGAN Alpena: A largemouth bass virus has been found in two additional lakes in the state’s northern Lower Peninsula.
MINNESOTA Zimmerman: A St. Bernard dog that ran away from a foster home has been found alive after surviving 17 days in freezing temperatures.
MISSISSIPPI Jackson: Health advocates are asking state lawmakers to ban people younger than 18 from using tanning beds.
MISSOURI Fulton: The Missouri museum honoring Winston Churchill will mark its 50th anniversary in May with events that include relatives of the famed British prime minister.
MONTANA Billings: Frontier Air- lines is returning to Billings Logan International Airport with a nonstop flight three days a week to Denver.
NEBRASKA Norfolk: Early childhood educators who want to incorporate insects into a classroom or after-school program are invited to a free workshop in town Tuesday.
NEVADA Las Vegas: Cardi B will have her first Las Vegas residency this spring. Palms Casino Resort announced the singer’s appearance as part of its debut of KAOS, set to open in April.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Durham: The University of New Hampshire is celebrating J.D. Salinger’s centennial year by exhibiting never-beforeseen photos of the famously reclusive author.
NEW JERSEY Newark: Flight arrivals at Newark Airport were briefly suspended Tuesday evening after a drone was spotted over another nearby airport, officials said.
NEW MEXICO Farmington: The New Mexico Department of Transportation’s new bike plan highlights ways in which the state can improve safety along state-maintained roads.
NEW YORK Albany: Immigrants brought into the country illegally as children will soon be eligible for college tuition aid if they attended high school in the state. NORTH CAROLINA Nags Head: Highway engineers are planning to open the new bridge linking the Outer Banks by March.
NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: Lateseason mountain lion hunting has been closed in western North Dakota’s Zone 1.
OHIO Cincinnati: Music you’ve almost certainly never heard from female composers will be featured in the Clermont Chorale concert presentation of “Music She Wrote – But You Didn’t Hear.”
OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: The Oklahoma Department of Corrections is seeking increased funding from lawmakers to treat prisoners with hepatitis C.
OREGON Medford: A rancher who has had gray wolves eat his livestock is now using a lime-green inflatable dancing man to keep the predators at bay.
PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia: The Independence Visitor Center is reducing operations because of the ongoing partial federal government shutdown. Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell are closed.
RHODE ISLAND Middletown: According to a joint study by Columbia University and the First Street Foundation, home values in Rhode Island lost $44.7 million in appreciation between 2005 and 2017 because of rising seas.
SOUTH CAROLINA Columbia: The state’s top lawman and prosecutor, joined by a number of sheriffs and police chiefs and a few doctors at a news conference Wednesday, said they will fight a medical marijuana bill, the Compassionate Care Act.
SOUTH DAKOTA Pierre: A state Senate panel has rejected a bill that sought to block state officials from hiring relatives.
TENNESSEE Nashville: A lawmaker from the city is backing a resolution denouncing neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Democratic state Rep. John Ray Clemmons, who is also running for mayor, filed the resolution Wednesday.
TEXAS Galveston: Police in coastal Texas have captured a pair of runaway emus that had been on the lam for a day after escaping from their owner’s backyard.
UTAH St. George: A local family has dedicated a park bench to a teenager who disappeared in 2015. The bench at Crimson Ridge Park was donated to the family by a local metal working company in honor of 17-year-old Macin Smith.
VERMONT Poultney: Green Mountain College is closing its doors after graduation in May due to declining enrollment.
VIRGINIA Fairfax: A fleet of hightech robots has deployed at George Mason University for the noble purpose of delivering pizza, doughnuts and coffee on demand to students.
WASHINGTON Richland: The federal government’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will build a new $90 million energy sciences research building on its Richland campus.
WEST VIRGINIA Wheeling: Two bobcat kittens found abandoned have been given a permanent home at the Oglebay Good Zoo.
WISCONSIN Red Cliff: The worldfamous ice caves in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore are not accessible yet this year, but you can get a look at similar red-brown cliffs and ice formations near Red Cliff on a tour with Rustic Makwa Den beginning Jan. 31. The Red Cliff caves on the Chequamegon Bay side of the Bayfield peninsula are only accessible on a tour, as they are on the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation.
WYOMING Cheyenne: A legislative committee made up entirely of Republicans has defeated a voter registration measure the state GOP identified as its top-priority bill this year. It would’ve prevented voters from changing party affiliation in the months just before a primary.