HIGHLIGHT: VIRGINIA
Fredericksburg: A genealogist has determined the families on which she will focus for a research project identifying the oldest Black families in the city. Paula Royster’s “Reclaiming Our Time” project will involve extensive DNA testing to determine if their ancestors hail from one of the 12 African nations that had slave ships arrive at the Fredericksburg dock centuries ago. “I’m extremely proud that this forward-thinking research project is happening right here in America’s most historic city,” Royster said. She observed census records from 1810 to 1860 and made a list of every Black family, then determined who had been there the longest by who appeared first. Only free Black people were counted, Royster noted.
ALABAMA Gardendale: Tuesday’s GOP runoff for secretary of state features two candidates who’ve voiced concerns about election and voter roll integrity while opposing the expansion of early or absentee voting. ALASKA Anchorage: One of the state’s largest private COVID-19 testing providers plans to close its public testing sites by the end of the month. ARIZONA Tucson: A lightning-caused wildfire that led to an evacuation of the Kitt Peak National Observatory is 40% contained, authorities said. The blaze was about 30 square miles by Sunday.
ARKANSAS Fort Smith: The city’s Board of Directors will vote Tuesday on whether to impose a halt on construction of residential buildings near the airport while conducting a sound study ahead of the possible addition of a major pilot-training program at Ebbing Air National Guard Base. CALIFORNIA Newport Beach: A dozen of the hundreds of brown pelicans who were recently found starving on the coast were released Friday after rehabilitation at a wildlife center. COLORADO Denver: The Street Enforcement Team tasked with imposing the city’s controversial camping ban is working to build relationships with unhoused people but has yet to issue tickets, the Denver Post reports. CONNECTICUT Hartford: The state has filed a lawsuit accusing Reynolds Consumer Products of illegally marketing Hefty trash bags for recycling, even though the bags themselves can’t be recycled, meaning anything in them ends up “on the trash heap.” DELAWARE Bethany Beach: The diminutive but bright Bethany Beach firefly must wait till 2024 to get a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on whether it will get protection under the Endangered Species Act, but state and federal researchers warn it’s unclear whether the insect can hold on that long amid overdevelopment and sea level rise.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washington: Mayor Muriel Bowser, who cruised to reelection four years ago without major opposition, is facing a Democratic primary battle Tuesday, with progressive rivals criticizing her handling of public safety issues. FLORIDA Pensacola: Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday asked that a statewide grand jury be set up to examine networks that illegally smuggle people into Florida as part of an investigation that also would focus on local governments he said violate state law by adopting “sanctuary” policies. GEORGIA Kennesaw: A city councilman has resigned to protest the reopening of a Confederate souvenir shop selling images with racial slurs and dolls and statues that caricature Black people, news outlets report. HAWAII Honolulu: Gov. David Ige on Thursday signed three bills supporting the LGBTQ community by barring health insurers from excluding medically necessary gender-affirming treatments from coverage, prohibiting people from being excluded from juries because of their gender identity or expression, and establishing a state commission on the status of LGBTQ people in Hawaii. IDAHO Orofino: U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, during a visit to northern Idaho on Thursday, announced $9 million for 40 projects in Idaho and seven other states for sagebrush ecosystems to combat invasive species and wildfire, reduce spread of juniper trees, and promote community and economic stability. ILLINOIS Chicago: Residents seeking relief from a recent heat wave won’t be able to cool off in the city’s pools until after the Fourth of July weekend because of a lifeguard shortage, park officials said.
INDIANA Indianapolis: Indiana’s incumbent secretary of state failed to get the Republican nomination to run in the fall election, losing to a challenger Saturday who has called for more voting restrictions, embraced ex-President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen and been criticized for poor performance. IOWA Des Moines: The state Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for lawmakers to severely limit or ban abortion, reversing a decision by the court just four years ago that guaranteed the right to abortion under the Iowa Constitution.
KANSAS Topeka: More than 2,000 cattle in the state recently died in the span of just a few days amid high temperatures and humidity, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. KENTUCKY Louisville: The state Supreme Court has agreed to consider a lawsuit that seeks to re-erect a statue of a local civic and military leader who fought for the Confederacy before later renouncing it. The statue of John B. Castleman was vandalized several times over a few years before it was removed from its pedestal in June 2020. LOUISIANA Donaldsonville: A former Episcopal church built in 1873 on land donated by a slave owner and governor is now home to a new, permanent exhibit – a campus of the River Road African American Museum – that pays tribute to enslaved people who worked in the state’s sugarcane fields.
MAINE Limestone: The state is launching a new push to revitalize Loring Air Force Base, which closed in the 1990s and was redeveloped into Loring Commerce Centre. Gov. Janet Mills said the Department of Economic and Community Development is undertaking a two-year business development and marketing campaign to draw more business to the center.
MARYLAND Towson: Apple store employees in a Baltimore suburb voted to unionize by a nearly 2-to-1 margin Saturday, a union said. MASSACHUSETTS Beverly: An enslaved Black man, the tall tale he inspired and the beach that now bears his name are the focus of new efforts to recognize the role of slavery along the state’s picturesque North Shore. As the story goes, Robin Mingo was promised freedom by his white master if the tide ever receded enough for him to walk out onto a rocky outcropping off what is now known as Mingo Beach. MICHIGAN West Bloomfield: About 20 students at a high school where four students were killed in a mass shooting say their constitutional rights to safety and education have been violated, and they want changes to ensure security at Oxford High School, a law firm representing them said Friday.
MINNESOTA St. Paul: It appears chances are dead for a special legislative session that could have brought billions of dollars in tax cuts and new spending in the state. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz told reporters late Thursday that talks with Republican leaders had “reached an impasse.” MISSISSIPPI Jackson: A federal appeals court has found that the NAACP has no standing to sue a longtime prosecutor accused of routinely rejecting Black jurors in criminal cases.
MISSOURI Jefferson City: The state Supreme Court said Friday that judges were “disappointed” that a mailer sent in support of Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s U.S. Senate campaign used a photo of Schmitt and three judges.
MONTANA Fromberg: As officials scramble to reopen Yellowstone National Park after record floods pounded southern Montana, some of those hit hardest in the disaster live far from the famous park’s limelight and are leaning heavily on one another to pull their lives out of the mud. Elected officials who showed up to tour the damage in key tourist towns haven’t made it to Fromberg to see its devastation. NEBRASKA Omaha: About 6,000 bees were recently removed from inside the walls of a 100-year-old home and safely relocated. “If you put your ears to the wall, you could hear the buzzing,” said Thomas Gouttierre, a retired dean at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. NEVADA Las Vegas: At least 10 downtown buildings were damaged or destroyed and more than two dozen vehicles burned in a fouralarm fire overnight, authorities said Sunday. They said only one minor injury was reported – a person treated for smoke inhalation at the scene – and about 100 people went to an evacuation center.
NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: Gov. Chris Sununu on Friday signed a bill that creates a new type of “affidavit ballot” for first-time voters who don’t have required documents. NEW JERSEY Newark: New Jersey Transit suspended rail service into and out of New York City on Friday evening after a day in which dozens of trains were canceled because of a lack of available engineers that the agency blamed on a union.
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: A standoff over voting-machine security between Republican-leaning Otero County and Democratic state officials that threatened to erupt into a wider crisis was defused Friday after commissioners voted to certify June 7 primary results.
NEW YORK New York: The city is making a push to give workers fired earlier this year for not getting COVID-19 vaccines a shot at their old jobs – if they get fully vaccinated. NORTH CAROLINA Hillsborough: Legendary civil rights leader Bayard Rustin and three others sentenced to work on a chain gang after they launched the first “freedom rides” to challenge Jim Crow laws had their convictions posthumously vacated Friday, over seven decades later. NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: The drought that a year ago had enveloped all of North Dakota has dissipated, according to last week’s monitoring report.
OHIO Groveport: A Black assistant principal who lost his job after complaining that dress code enforcement discriminated against African American students would get $200,000 in back pay and damages under a proposed settlement with the district, which denies his claim. OKLAHOMA Norman: A high school teacher has been fired for leaking to a parent images of a school shooting threat that included a hit list of students’ names and vulgar graffiti. The teacher said he believed officials would hide the threat.
OREGON Portland: The state Department of Environmental Quality has increased the Port of Morrow’s groundwater contamination fine to $2.1 million after additional wastewater violations. The agency added $800,000 to the original $1.3 million fine Friday for overapplying nitrogenrich wastewater on agricultural fields in the Lower Umatilla Basin, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports. PENNSYLVANIA Harrisburg: A bill that would allow incarcerated people to request public records only about themselves or their own cases is making its way through the Legislature. Supporters say it would help stem a tide of frivolous requests that can tie up state resources; opponents say it’s unlikely to cure the problem and probably unconstitutional. RHODE ISLAND Providence: A $13.6 billion state budget passed the state House late Thursday, sending the Senate legislation that would end a car tax sooner and offer child tax credits, among other priorities. SOUTH CAROLINA Port Royal: A tiny church where pastor and former state Sen. Clementa Pinckney – killed in a racist massacre at a Charleston church in 2015 – once preached has been restored and reopened as a public interpretive center that highlights the town’s role in the nation’s history and Pinckney’s story as well. SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: State senators have been staying silent on how they will vote in the state’s firstever impeachment trial, to begin Tuesday, as they weigh whether to remove Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg for his conduct surrounding a fatal 2020 car crash. TENNESSEE Nashville: Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett was arrested Friday night for allegedly driving under the influence after leaving Bonnaroo Music Festival. Hargett, a Republican, was booked into the Coffee County Jail shortly after midnight Saturday and released a few hours later, jail records show. TEXAS Odessa: Residents may again safely drink tap water without having to first boil it, the city announced Saturday. Amid scorching weather, taps in 165,000 West Texas homes and businesses lost pressure or went completely dry after a 24-inch main broke last Monday.
UTAH Menton: A local couple is turning heads by training water buffaloes. Mary and Art Heers said they hope to get one of their three males well trained enough to walk in the Mendon Pioneer Day parade next month. VERMONT Burlington: Nurses at the state’s largest hospital are calling on the University of Vermont Medical Center to do more to address increasing violence in the emergency department. According to the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, 98% of UVM Medical Center nurses reported being verbally assaulted, and 78% said they have been physically assaulted in the past year, WCAX-TV reports.
WASHINGTON Olympia: Gov. Jay Inslee is now among a growing number of people saying elected Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler should resign, after an employee who had complained that Kreidler was “antagonizing staff ” was fired the day he returned from medical leave. WEST VIRGINIA Huntington: A statewide program designed to teach law enforcement officers how to have safe interactions with those who have an autism spectrum disorder is being launched. The Safe Interactions for Law Enforcement and Persons with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities training was offered this month in Berkeley and Marion counties, through a partnership with the Department of Health and Human Resources, West Virginia University and the West Virginia State Police. WISCONSIN Madison: The Wisconsin Department of Justice is creating 12 regional teams to support schools around the state in dealing with critical incidents such as shootings. WYOMING Casper: Inflation is taking a toll on infrastructure projects. The low bid to rebuild a major intersection and construct a new bridge over the North Platte River came in at $35 million this spring – 55% over a state engineer’s estimate. The bid was rejected and the project delayed as state officials reevaluate options.