50 ★ States

ALABAMA Harvest: Former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard is nearing the end of his prison sentence for his conviction on ethics charges. The Alabama Department of Corrections lists a Jan. 8 minimum release date for Hubbard. Hubbard was sentenced to 28 months in prison after a jury convicted him of violating state ethics law.

ALASKA Juneau: A state court judge allowed to move to trial a lawsuit alleging that a lawmaker’s ties to the far-right Oath Keepers group disqualifies him from holding office.

ARKANSAS Little Rock: New state standards on social studies have switched the order of some courses, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. Students will now take geography in fifth grade instead of seventh, and the first year of U.S. history will be a seventh-grade class instead of fifth, according to the news outlet.

CALIFORNIA Los Angeles: A City Council member embroiled in a scandal over racist remarks and an activist fought at a holiday event over the weekend. The activist and Kevin de León got into an altercation at a toy giveaway and holiday tree lighting at Lincoln Park, the Los Angeles Times reported.

COLORADO Fort Collins: Larimer County commissioners intend to allocate $1 million from federal American Rescue Plan Act money to a new medical clinic at the Murphy Center for Hope in Fort Collins for people experiencing homelessness.

CONNECTICUT Hartford: The state’s first retail recreational cannabis sales will begin as soon as Jan. 10, state regulators announced, with about half of the state’s medical marijuana operators expanding their businesses to include the new market for all adults 21 and over.

DELAWARE Lewes: A fatal two-vehicle crash sent five people to the hospital, according to Delaware State Police. Troopers said one of the passengers in the crash died.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washington: Congressman-elect Maxwell Frost, 25, tweeted that he was denied an apartment in D.C. due to bad credit, WUSA-TV reports.

FLORIDA Tallahassee: Lawmakers released a massive property insurance bill that would create a $1 billion reinsurance fund, seek to reduce insurance lawsuits and force more people out of the state-created insurer of last resort even if it means property owners end up paying more. The 123-page bill was filed Friday night, less than three days before lawmakers begin a special session on insurance, property tax relief for Hurricane Ian victims and reducing tolls for frequent commuters.

GEORGIA Savannah: City Council approved two agenda items that would invest a total of about $8.5 million in the Savannah Police Department. Approval on both items allows for the spending of $7.8 million to renovate the oldest operating police headquarters in the country.

HAWAII Honolulu: Scientists lowered the alert level for the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island from a warning to a watch on Saturday and said the mountain’s first eruption in nearly 40 years may soon end. The U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said in a bulletin that the eruption on the mountain’s northeast rift zone was continuing, but lava output and volcanic gas emissions were “greatly reduced.”

IDAHO Moscow: The University of Idaho will pay $90,000 to settle a lawsuit from members of a Christian law students’ organization who claimed their freedom of speech was violated when the school’s civil rights investigation office issued no-contact orders against them.

ILLINOIS Chicago: A judge denied bail for a man charged in a shootout that left a second suspect dead and wounded a police officer as he was responding to an armed robbery.

INDIANA Terre Haute: An Indiana State University graduate and his wife have donated $8 million to the school’s college of technology, making it the largest individual gift in ISU’s history.

IOWA Des Moines: Another teenager accused in a fatal shooting near East High School has admitted to the crime, marking the fifth guilty plea among the 10 people charged.

KANSAS Topeka: Several students have been disciplined for their behavior during a high school basketball game after a coach accused them of making offensive chants toward his team. Topeka High School Coach Geo Lyons said his team was subjected to “racial slurs, threats and disgusting taunts” by students from Valley Center High School at a game on Dec. 3.

KENTUCKY Frankfort: Kentucky is at the head of the pack nationally for its improvements in six-year college completion rates, state higher education officials said. The sixyear college completion rate in the state increased by 1.1 percentage points, making it one of only five states to record gains of 1 percentage point or more, the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education said in a news release.

LOUISIANA Shreveport: Voters in the state’s third-largest city have elected a Republican mayor for the first time in 28 years. Tom Arceneaux, 71, won a runoff election to become the next mayor of Shreveport. He defeated Louisiana state Sen. Greg Tarver, a Democrat.

MAINE Portland: Four people in the state have filed lawsuits with claims that they were sexually abused by Catholic priests as children. Three men sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland in Cumberland County Superior Court. Another lawsuit is from a woman who sued the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Eastern Province in U.S. District Court in Bangor.

MARYLAND Baltimore: A former prosecutor has formally acknowledged making false statements to obtain cell phone records for his ex-romantic partners to stalk them.

MASSACHUSETTS Boston: The city has experienced a significant decrease in youth homelessness in the three years since receiving $4.7 million in federal funds to combat homelessness among young adults.

MICHIGAN Elk Rapids: The village manager has resigned after an investigation of $32,000 in mistaken payroll payments to public workers. The error occurred in October 2021, but the public was in the dark for nearly a year until a resident began asking questions, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported.

MINNESOTA East Grand Forks: A 76-year-old man is facing criminal charges because he was shooting at a squirrel and a bullet went through a child’s bedroom window in a neighboring home, police said.

MISSISSIPPI Saltillo: The city is getting a new police chief next month. The City of Saltillo’s Board of Aldermen recently approved the appointment of veteran law enforcement officer Rusty Haynes to take over beginning Jan. 1.

MISSOURI St. Louis: A judge won’t sanction the city’s top prosecutor after Missouri’s attorney general accused her of concealing evidence in her effort to overturn the conviction of Lamar Johnson, who has spent nearly three decades in prison for a murder he contends he didn’t commit.

MONTANA Helena: A push for rural broadband grants of $309 million is heading to Gov. Greg Gianforte for his approval, Montana Free Press reports, amid some internet companies being concerned about the approximately $110 million slated for Charter Communications.

NEBRASKA Omaha: Four teens have been arrested in connection with the death of a 62-year-old man who was beaten with a baseball bat, police said.

NEVADA Clark County: The school district, the fifth-largest in the nation, will begin covering student fees for Advanced Placement exams. The money will come from federal grants.

NEW HAMPSHIRE Concord: The state’s judicial branch has launched a “Diversity and Inclusion” initiative to identify and eliminate cultural biases within the court system.

NEW JERSEY Mount Arlington: A pilot hired by a top-ranked executive to fly his wife and her friends to Miami in 2020 is suing the billionaire and his company over alleged negligence, saying he contracted COVID-19 from a last-minute passenger who knew she was sick but did not wear a face mask, despite being told to.

NEW MEXICO Santa Fe: A former state senator says he was threatened by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham through an emissary with “escalating consequences” if he did not withdraw a request by his law firm for public records concerning the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a lawsuit filed last week. Maddy Hayden, communications director at the governor’s office, called the allegations “wholly baseless and without merit,” in an email.

NEW YORK New York City: Days after Mayor Eric Adams appeared remotely at a city administrative hearing to contest a $300 fine for a rat infestation at a townhouse he owns, the fine was dismissed. Adams said that he had spent thousands of dollars on rat mitigation efforts. The hearing officer was satisfied, and the fine was dismissed.

NORTH CAROLINA Charlotte: Bill Diehl, a longtime high-profile attorney whose family and friends recalled his passion as a legal advocate and in life, has died at age 78. Diehl represented a number of well-known clients in criminal, civil or divorce proceedings.

NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck: The state Board of Medicine brought five formal disciplinary actions against North Dakota licensed doctors in 2022, including three sanctions that resulted in physicians losing their credentials to practice indefinitely in the state. The number of disciplinary actions in 2022 was six fewer than each of the previous two years, said Sandra DePountis, the board’s executive director.

OHIO Columbus: The director of Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency will leave her post on Dec. 31. In a letter sent to agency staff, Laurie Stevenson said she felt it was time to step down.

OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: A group of residents has withdrawn a petition that sought to put a state question on the ballot that would protect the right to an abortion.

OREGON Salem: The state is losing its second elections director in as many years with the current one announcing her resignation, saying the job is extremely challenging and citing uncertain funding.

PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia: The city must remove the plywood box it placed over a statue of Christopher Columbus after 2020 protests over racial injustice, a judge ruled. In her ruling, Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt said that if the city disagrees with the “message” the statue sends, it can add its own plaque with what it wants to convey.

RHODE ISLAND Providence: A tent village can remain at the front door of the Rhode Island State House until at least this week, a Superior Court judge said, postponing Gov. Dan McKee’s plans to clear a homeless encampment his administration considers a safety hazard.

SOUTH CAROLINA Greer: A man who disappeared on May 5 at Industrial Recovery & Recycling (IRR) has been declared legally dead by a Spartanburg County Probate Court judge.

SOUTH DAKOTA Rapid City: State Sen. Julie Frye-Mueller signaled during a Board of Regents meeting that she is going to bring a bill to attempt to outlaw drag shows after a student organization hosted one at South Dakota State University last month.

TENNESSEE Nashville: The state’s investigative agency is seeking $2 million in contracts with outside labs to process 1,000 rape kits it says need to be tested before the end of June.

TEXAS Houston: A multitude of security lapses such as inadequate strip searches, poorly applied restraints, a staffing shortage and an environment where correctional officers became complacent created the conditions that led to the May escape of an inmate, resulting in the deaths of five people, according to two reviews of the incident.

UTAH Salt Lake City: Gov. Spencer Cox’s recent budget proposal includes free public transit for a year, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

VERMONT Burlington: Three women are suing the University of Vermont, saying the school failed to adequately respond after they reported they had been sexually assaulted while students on the campus.

VIRGINIA Roanoke: Another significant stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway in western Virginia has been closed due to a weather-related rockslide. The National Park Service said boulders and soil tumbled across a section of the scenic byway north of Roanoke before Friday morning, The Roanoke Times reported. That means a roughly 15-mile stretch will be closed for all uses until further notice, the parkway said in a social media post.

WASHINGTON Kitsap County: County commissioners are reversing course on an ordinance that would have banned gun shows at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds. After proposing the ordinance and hosting an hourslong public hearing in which dozens of people testified, the commissioners’ office released a notice that said it had decided to take no action on it and that it would be withdrawn from consideration.

WEST VIRGINIA Beckley: A West Virginia University graduate and university administrator has been named the next campus president of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology.

WISCONSIN Manitowoc: A middle school was closed after a student and a teacher were bitten by spiders. Dozens of yellow sac spiders have been found at Wilson Middle School, according to a letter from Principal Cory Erlandson. Exterminators were called in and WLUK-TV reported that more than 30 spiders had been killed by Friday morning. Classes were expected to resume Monday.

WYOMING Cheyenne: The state’s newest court marked one year last week, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports. The chancery court handles business cases.