STATE-BY-STATE
News from across the USA
ALABAMA Montgomery: The attorney general’s office made it clear, AL.com reported, to cities big and small, to housing authorities and libraries and parks and shelters across the state: The law allows guns in public places, and the AG’s office will sue those who do not willingly and quickly comply. ALASKA Juneau: Since 1884, fish processors and biologists have kept intimate track of the number of salmon caught in Bristol Bay. On July 6, that figure passed 2 billion. Sharon Thompson of Naknek personally delivered a ceremonial salmon to Gov. Walker in commemoration of the landmark, the Juneau Empire reported.
ARIZONA Phoenix: Investigators suspect driver fatigue was a factor in a rollover crash on Interstate 10 in the West Valley that killed a 31-year-old Glendale woman and a 4-year-old boy and injured seven, according to The Arizona Republic. ARKANSAS Little Rock: The zoo will cut its admission price to $1 Saturday as part of an annual sponsorship by Hiland Dairy,
ArkansasOnline reported. CALIFORNIA Sacramento: Habitat for waterbirds is drying up, so conservation groups and rice farmers are collaborating to flood fields and enhance waterbird habitat on roughly 550,000 acres of rice fields, The Sacra
mento Bee reported. COLORADO Nederland: A damage assessment team found three additional homes destroyed by the Cold Springs Fire, bringing the total to eight. Four additional outbuildings were destroyed, KUSA-TV reported. CONNECTICUT Bolton: Authorities are warning residents to be on the lookout for a fox that bit one person and a cat, The Journal
Inquirer reported. DELAWARE Long Neck: State Police arrested two people after they found them walking along the road with suitcases full of methamphetamine, The News
Journal reported. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Metro transit police arrested a teenager who allegedly assaulted a man on a Green Line train, The Washing
ton Post reported. FLORIDA Titusville: Artist Keith Goodson has spent several weeks painting a 91-foot by 13foot mural titled “Reflections of Our Past,” which depicts the city’s history from about the mid-1800s to present, Florida Today reported. GEORGIA DeKalb County: School board member Stan Jester questioned the procedure for naming a school after Rep. John Lewis, D- Ga. From there, allegations of racism flowed, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. HAWAII Hilo: The flow of lava from Kilauea is less than a mile from the coastline and slowing its pace. Breakouts appeared to have diverted the lava flow’s supply, The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported. IDAHO Boise: State officials are requiring well users pumping water from a large aquifer to install measuring devices to better monitor their water usage.
The Capital Press reported that the Idaho Department of Water Resources says the devices must be installed by 2018 on wells drawing from the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer. ILLINOIS Chicago: In more than four years behind bars, former governor Rod Blagojevich has become known simply as “The Gov,” the Chicago Tribune reported. INDIANA Indianapolis: The Aerospace Industries Association has chosen Indianapolis for its supplier management council conference in spring 2018, The
Indianapolis Star reported. IOWA Des Moines: The City Council has approved late-night hours for many food truck vendors, The Des Moines Register reported. KANSAS Kansas City: Authorities are investigating a deadly shooting here. Police said that officers found Mark Payne, 26, dead in a street while responding to reports of a shooting. KENTUCKY Frankfort: Dr. Hiram C. Polk Jr., a renowned Louisville surgeon, has been named commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Public Health, The Courier-Journal reported. LOUISIANA New Orleans: Raushawn Ford, 27, was arrested on a charge of shoplifting about $861 worth of nail polish from a CVS Pharmacy, The Times-Pica
yune reported.
MAINE Halfway Rock: A 62year-old Cumberland man is attempting to renovate long abandoned Halfway Rock Lighthouse after buying it at auction, the Portland Press Herald reported. The Coast Guard abandoned the remote Casco Bay lighthouse in 1975. Ford Reiche bought it for $283,000 at auction in 2014 in a record sale price for a Maine lighthouse. MARYLAND Salisbury: Police say a 32-year-old woman struck her fiance with a frying pan after an argument and now faces charges, The Daily Times. Kiesha Lee was arrested on charges including first-degree assault, reckless endangerment and use of a dangerous weapon with intent to injure. MASSACHUSETTS Boston: Language in the state budget made it immediately legal for 75,938 licensed barbers, cosmetologists, hairdressers and manicurists overseen by the state Board of Registration of Cosmetology and Barbering to make house calls,
The Boston Globe reported. MICHIGAN Detroit: Waterfront Terminal Holdings’ request to store piles of metallurgical coke — a by-product of coal burning — near the Detroit River was denied after city health officials said the piles could cause health problems, Detroit Free Press reported. MINNESOTA Minneapolis: Park commissioners have OK’d racial and economic equity criteria to guide hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investments into the city’s neighborhood parks system over the next two decades,
The Journal reported. MISSISSIPPI Jackson: Jackson State University continued to pay a fired vice president for nine months after his termination in payments that added up to more than $157,000, The Clarion-Led
ger reported. MISSOURI Jefferson City: A state health committee approved a proposal for a new psychiatric hospital here, The Columbia Daily
Tribune reported. MONTANA Bozeman: The University of Montana offered a $70,000 signing bonus to a vice president recently hired to increase the school’s lagging enrollment. The bonus for Tom Crady, UM’s new vice president of enrollment and student affairs, and salaries for a handful of administrators will be considered at a July 19 telephone conference of the Board of Regents, the Boze
man Daily Chronicle reported. NEBRASKA Omaha: The city has temporarily stopped grinding some neighborhood streets into dirt roads as officials decide whether to pay for repairing those streets instead, the Omaha
World-Herald reported. NEVADA Reno: Nevada will receive a $1.8 million settlement from test-maker Smart Balanced Assessment Consortium for the screw-up that resulted in only a third of public school students completing standardized exams in 2015, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. The settlements come in a combination of cash and discounted products and services. NEW HAMPSHIRE Conway: Rocky, a 17-year-old dog with cancer, who ran away after being spooked by fireworks during the Fourth of July weekend, is back home after loggers, an animal shelter and others came to his aid, WMUR-TV reported. NEW JERSEY Penns Grove: A gunman fatally shot a man here and then stole his car with the victim’s year-old son inside, The
Daily Journal reported. The child was later found unharmed after the suspect abandoned the vehicle in Philadelphia. NEW MEXICO Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico’s Center for Regional Studies says it is providing more than $34,000 to purchase books published by UNM Press for distribution to 65 libraries.
NEW YORK Chenango County: A rural road bisecting Chobani’s yogurt plant here allowed the company to collect a pair of state tax breaks that often aren’t allowed to be combined, the Pough
keepsie Journal reported. The plant is split by County Road 25 with an overhead walkway connecting two parts of the plant. NORTH CAROLINA Raleigh: Wild hogs can be culled by aircraft — provided they are shot by federal or state wildlife control officers — under the 2016 North Carolina Farm Act, The News & Observer reported. NORTH DAKOTA Minot: Some residents are concerned about the loss of the city’s sole intercity bus service. The Minot Daily
News reported that Jefferson Lines stopped serving Minot in the last week of June. OHIO Hillsboro: A Highland County grand jury indicted Hillsboro Mayor Drew Hastings on four felony counts related to election falsification, theft, theft in office and tampering with records, The Times-Gazette reported. OKLAHOMA Norman: A former Oklahoman has become the first adult in the U.S. to receive a newly modified stem cell transplant to treat acute myeloid leukemia, or AML. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center announced that the cancer of Chuck Dandridge, 64 — former longtime CEO of the Cleveland County YMCA in Norman — is in remission, thanks to a donation last July of genetically engineered blood cells from his 31-year-old son, The Oklahoman reported. OREGON Bend: A plan to sell Troy Field to a Portland-based hotel developer has fallen through, The Bulletin reported. PENNSYLVANIA Harrisburg: The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office has accused a 62year-old lobbyist of illegally charging expenses to a state grant program meant to help welfare recipients land jobs. The Philadel
phia Inquirer reported that Melonease Shaw has been charged with theft, deceptive business practices and tampering with public records.
RHODE ISLAND Warwick: Officials broke ground on a $90 million project to extend the runway at the T.F. Green Airport here. SOUTH CAROLINA Columbia: State health officials said the number of cases of Zika virus in the state have risen to 11, The
State reported. Of those, 10 were infected while traveling abroad to Zika-affected areas and one acquired the virus through sexual contact while traveling abroad. SOUTH DAKOTA Mitchell: The
Daily Republic reported that visitors bought about 172,000 state park entrance licenses by the end of June, compared to 155,000 during the same period last year. Bob Schneider, assistant director of the Division of Parks and Recreation, says camping in particular is growing in popularity, with increased numbers every year for a decade. South Dakota’s park system includes a historic prairie, five nature areas, 13 state parks, 43 recreation areas, 69 lakeside use areas and 240 public water access areas. TENNESSEE Nashville: Police are looking for a man who they say robbed a Nashville gas station while covering his face with toilet paper, WSMV-TV reported. TEXAS El Paso: Authorities said local police arrested 11 people accused of vandalizing the public lights display known as Star On The Mountain. The display on the Franklin Mountains is illuminated throughout the year. UTAH Provo: The manager of a local campground says two boys are in stable condition after a tree fell on their family tent. The Daily
Herald reported that Lakeside RV Campground manager Dale Krafton says one of the boys has a broken leg and the other a cracked skull, but their father says neither boy is in critical condition. VERMONT South Burlington: A program where suspects appear for initial hearings by video conference rather than being transported to the courthouse is being expanded in Chittenden County, and the practice has some public defenders worried about potential violations to suspects’ privacy, Burlington Free Press reported. VIRGINIA Chesterfield: Police searched for a suspect after he robbed the driver of an ice cream truck at gunpoint, the Richmond
Times-Dispatch reported. WASHINGTON Walla Walla: Authorities say the 21-year-old victim of a shooting here last weekend has died. The Union
Bulletin reported that Arturo Hernandez died at a Seattle hospital. WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: The Kanawha City Foodland and two other Foodland locations switched franchise affiliations to Piggly Wiggly, the Charleston
Gazette-Mail reported. WISCONSIN Madison: Gov. Walker declared a state of emergency in eight northern Wisconsin counties after torrential overnight rains — as much as 11 inches in one town — flooded parts of the area, closing roads, swamping harbors and washing out at least one bridge, the Mil
waukee Journal Sentinel reported.
WYOMING Jackson: Snow fell in some mountain areas of northwest Wyoming, but the Jackson
Hole News & Guide reported that normal summer weather soon returned. A blast of cold air left behind a coat of snow above about 9,500 feet elevation. Brenton Reagan of Exum Mountain Guides says a number of climbing parties hoping to summit the Grand Teton and other surrounding peaks were stymied by the conditions.