50 ★ STATES

News from across the USA

ALABAMA Hayneville: Federal officials came to Lowndes County on Tuesday to announce a pilot program to help rural communities that face serious sewage problems.

ALASKA Anchorage: Deaths of unhoused people spiked in June, Alaska Public Media reports, after the closure of an indoor shelter at the city’s Sullivan Arena led many people to take up residence at a campground.

ARIZONA Phoenix: Pinal County officials are vowing to overhaul election procedures after a shortage of some ballots at about two dozen sites Tuesday led to some voters leaving without being able to cast ballots.

ARKANSAS Little Rock: The State Board of Election Commissioners on Wednesday blocked a proposal to legalize recreational marijuana from appearing on the ballot this fall.

CALIFORNIA Berkeley: A group of protesters broke through an 8-foot chain fence erected Wednesday around the city’s historic People’s Park and faced off with police as construction work began on a controversial student housing project.

COLORADO Aurora: Police say they’re looking for a man who doused two customers with gasoline after confronting them because they were speaking Spanish and “don’t belong here,” a department statement said.

CONNECTICUT Hartford: The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a murder case that police were justified in entering the defendant’s home without a warrant after observing an infestation of flies at a window.

DELAWARE Harrington: Attendance at last month’s Delaware State Fair dipped from last year’s all-time high but stayed strong. Two records were set, including for single-day visitors.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washington: A local sports landmark is being torn down, but fans will get a chance to buy a piece of history from inside RFK Stadium first, WUSA-TV reports.

FLORIDA Fort Lauderdale: Jurors in the trial of school shooter Nikolas Cruz toured the still blood-spattered rooms of a three-story building at a Parkland high school Thursday.

GEORGIA Savannah: Loggerhead sea turtles that spend summers laying eggs on Southern beaches have set a state record so far this year.

HAWAII Honolulu: A delayed rail project on Oahu has hit another roadblock, with Honolulu’s mayor saying engineers are looking into cracks in concrete, HawaiiNewsNow reports.

IDAHO Boise: Research at the Idaho National Laboratory is key to boosting nuclear energy to meet President Joe Biden’s goals of 100% clean electricity by 2035, Energy Department Secretary Jennifer Granholm said after touring facilities Wednesday.

ILLINOIS Springfield: With inflation way up, state leaders on Thursday offered a 10-day sales tax reduction on classroom needs, starting Friday.

INDIANA Indianapolis: Police have changed their description of the crash that killed Republican U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski, saying Thursday that it was the SUV in which she was a passenger that caused the collision.

IOWA Marion: A group of parents is suing the Linn-Mar Community School District to block its policy for transgender students, saying it violates free-speech rights.

KANSAS Manhattan: A summer agriculture research program is bringing students from historically Black colleges and universities around the U.S. to Kansas State.

KENTUCKY Frankfort: National Guard soldiers rushed Wednesday to distribute bottled water to floodravaged eastern Kentucky as forecasters warned of more rain.

LOUISIANA Plaquemine: The Coast Guard was monitoring an oil spill cleanup Thursday, four days after it poured into a swamp southwest of Baton Rouge. An estimated 4,000 gallons of oil spilled Sunday.

MAINE Eliot: With four marijuana businesses clustered along the Route 236 corridor in the small town that was an early adopter of medical cannabis, the site has been dubbed “The New Green Mile.”

MARYLAND Baltimore: The state is getting nearly $23 million in federal money for a training program for the offshore wind industry, the U.S. Commerce Department announced.

MASSACHUSETTS Boston: Transit officials are taking what they are describing as the “unprecedented” step of shuttering one of Boston’s four major subway lines for 30 days to allow for track and signal work.

MICHIGAN Detroit: A judge handling a trial over liability for lead contamination in Flint’s water sealed the transcript of a hearing held this week with lawyers.

MINNESOTA Burnsville: Secretary of State Steve Simon visited a suburban Minneapolis elections office Wednesday for a public display of tests on voting equipment as the state’s primary looms next Tuesday.

MISSISSIPPI Jackson: The state will soon stop accepting applications to a federal rental assistance program created during the pandemic to help stave off evictions, Gov. Tate Reeves announced Wednesday.

MISSOURI Springfield: Six years into her 10-year prison sentence in her mother’s murder, Gypsy Rose Blanchard is a married woman, Livingston County officials said.

MONTANA Missoula: The commission that oversees the Montana State Library decided Wednesday to consider a different color scheme for its new logo after one commissioner argued the original design brought to mind a rainbow LGBTQ pride flag.

NEBRASKA Laurel: Four people were found dead Thursday in two burning homes in a small community, authorities said.

NEVADA Reno: Commissioners in rural Nye County appointed a new top election official who has denied that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election and promises to have every ballot counted by hand.

NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: Student ID cards for sixth graders and up must now include the 988 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, under a law signed by Gov. Chris Sununu.

NEW JERSEY National Park: Researchers believe they have uncovered in a mass grave the remains of as many as 12 Hessian soldiers who fought during the Revolutionary War, officials announced Tuesday.

NEW YORK New York: The city’s bus terminal could be transformed into a state-of-the-art facility by 2031 under plans detailed Thursday. It could cost as much as $10 billion.

NORTH CAROLINA Raleigh: State Attorney General Josh Stein repudiated Republican Assembly leaders’ allegations Wednesday that he neglected his duty to defend state law by refusing to seek enforcement of a blocked 20-week abortion ban.

NORTH DAKOTA Mapleton: A man was fatally shot by law enforcement after an hourslong standoff Monday, Cass County sheriff’s officials said.

OHIO Cincinnati: The city’s zoo is celebrating the birth of a full-term hippopotamus that is a sibling to Fiona, who became a global celebrity when born prematurely in 2017.

OKLAHOMA Tulsa: A judge said six descendants of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre cannot sue for reparations, while allowing three known survivors of the attack to move forward with the lawsuit.

OREGON Portland: Former gubernatorial hopeful Nick Kristof said Monday that he is getting back into journalism and handing off nearly $1 million in unspent campaign cash to a new political action committee called Oregon Strong.

PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia: The remains of two children killed in the 1985 bombing by police of a home used as the headquarters of a Black radical group have been returned to their brother, he said Wednesday.

RHODE ISLAND Providence: A federal magistrate judge this week ordered a former VFW commander accused of posing as an ex-Marine battling cancer to swindle from veterans’ charity groups not to hold herself out as a therapist after disclosures she used her married name to set up shop.

SOUTH CAROLINA Columbia: Police from Holly Hill and Santee illegally detained a man and woman when they raided the sleeping couple’s home outside their jurisdiction in the middle of the night, questioning them about a puppy and their interracial relationship, a lawsuit alleges.

SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls: The Oglala Sioux Tribe is requiring churches and missionaries to register before entering the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation after an evangelist was banned for distributing a pamphlet that disparaged Lakota spirituality.

TENNESSEE Nashville: A transgender child and her parents sued the state Department of Education on Thursday over a law that prohibits transgender students and staff from using school bathrooms or locker rooms that match their gender identities.

TEXAS Austin: The top executive at ice cream maker Blue Bell delayed plans to alert the public about a 2015 listeria outbreak that involved some of their products, current CEO Ricky Dickson testified this week.

UTAH St. George: Rising food prices this year have driven more people to ask for help from the Utah Food Bank, but managers say fewer people are donating goods to the cause.

VERMONT Burlington: A local bakery is renaming one of its bagels from the “Conquistador” to the “Ian & Eddie Deluxe” amid colonialism concerns.

VIRGINIA Richmond: A judge dismissed state gun charges Wednesday against two men who police said planned a Fourth of July mass shooting after charges were filed against the men in federal court.

WASHINGTON Lind: An entire town was being evacuated Thursday because of a growing wildfire several miles south of town, officials said.

WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: Health officials said they are investigating after several people developed a flulike illness after working closely with pigs at a county fair.

WISCONSIN Madison: A former police chief was able to move between postings at U.S. Army bases despite allegations that he sexually harassed women at one base and that his poor behavior may have played a role in a co-worker’s suicide, the Wisconsin State Journal reports.

WYOMING Jackson: A lightning strike at an outdoors educator course in the Bridger-Teton National Forest killed one student and injured another, officials said Thursday.