Goat mayor, teen vaccines, a female Sherlock Holmes: News from around our 50 states

The hidden voice of Freddie Mercury in parts of Oscar-winning film “Bohemian Rhapsody” is coming to town this weekend in a show paying tribute to legendary rock band Queen. Marc Martel, who can be heard in the movie bridging the gap between star Rami Malek and actual recordings of Mercury, sings with the Black Jacket Symphony, which calls itself “a collective of veteran musicians, who specialize in re-creating classic rock albums.” On Saturday, Martel will help bring Queen’s 1975 album “A Night at the Opera” to life with his spot-on renditions. The Black Jacket Symphony will recreate all 12 songs, note-for-note, in the first half of the show. The second half will bring a collection of Queen’s other greatest hits. Tickets for the 8 p.m. show at the Montgomery Performing Arts Centre are $25-$30.

Backyard wood burners will need a new bedtime this summer. The City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved a 10 p.m. curfew and 25-foot setback from neighboring properties in an effort to combat nuisance smoke from residential outdoor wood burning, most frequently associated with fire pits. The ordinance also brings a heavy education component, retains the ability to issue citations and includes data collection for potential future action. The new rules still need to pass on a second council reading, which is generally a formality. Council member Ross Cunniff, who has been a driving force for the regulation, cited concerns about smoke prohibiting the opening of windows on hot summer nights, delaying bedtime for youngsters.

Rodney Square – the national historic district at the heart of the city – is getting a $6 million to $8 million facelift, officials announced Thursday. Mayor Mike Purzycki said the public square, originally constructed in 1921, has suffered in recent years from deferred maintenance and is in need of an overhaul. The multiple-year, two-phase project will include new masonry and paving, improved irrigation systems, upgraded lights and electrical system, lighted fountains, planters, benches and tables, trash and recycling collection bins, as well as new trees, shrubs and green areas. It will be publicly and privately funded. Purzycki credited the Rodney Square Conservancy, a partnership of Wilmington residents, local and state government, and businesses, for leading the charge to renovate.

A new bill in the district would give teens the power to vaccinate without parental consent, WUSA-TV reports. Debrah Dunner, whose mother was crippled by polio, says she thinks it’s an important step in the right direction. Dunner, along with council member Mary Cheh, who proposed the bill, are concerned about the declining rate of vaccinations in the district. Cheh’s bill would allow kids 12 years and older the ability to self-consent to vaccinate, as they can do with other medical procedures. They would need a medical professional to say that they are fully competent and aware of the risks and rewards of vaccines. “I’m just real keen that we shouldn’t go backwards. I mean we have some of these diseases under control, and we should keep them under control,” Cheh says.

The Sunshine State could help bring a little light to the rest of the U.S. – the push to make daylight saving time permanent in Florida is going national. Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Vern Buchanan have introduced the “Sunshine Protection Act” in Congress that would make daylight saving time a year-round phenomenon across the country. Rubio introduced a similar bill after the after the Florida Legislature passed a state law that calls for Florida to move to permanent daylight saving time, but that bill stalled. Florida’s law can’t go into effect unless the federal law is changed as well. Rubio re-filed the bill this year, saying he was “reflecting the will of the state of Florida,” and newly elected Scott joined as a co-sponsor. Buchanan, who represents Florida’s 16th Congressional District, is sponsoring the bill in the House.

A major event in the state’s high school basketball history is celebrating an anniversary, and you can get a piece of the fun. The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum and the Milan 54 Hoosiers Museum have teamed up to mark the 65th anniversary of Milan High School’s 1954 boys basketball state championship with bobbleheads of every member of that team. Bobby Plump made a late jump shot to lead Milan – with an enrollment of 161 – past one of the state’s largest schools, Muncie Central, for the championship. The story became the inspiration for the 1986 movie “Hoosiers.” Figures of Plump and the rest of the Indians roster are $25 each or $250 for the 12-piece set.

The state is considering new rules that would limit school districts’ use of padded seclusion rooms to discipline children following violent outbursts. The state Department of Education held a public hearing Tuesday on the proposed changes, which seek to limit when such rooms could be used and to implement a better system for notifying parents. The rules also seek new specifications for the wooden rooms, typically 6 feet by 6 feet. State law allows students to be secluded if it helps end a disturbance, prevent harm, lead to the confiscation of a weapon or protect the safety of others. The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and Disability Rights Iowa helped draft the proposed rule changes, citing concerns that the rooms are used too frequently, particularly with students with disabilities and black students.

Officials are trying to determine what caused a massive sinkhole discovered Wednesday morning at the Louisville Zoo. The zoo closed after the sinkhole – roughly 50 feet deep and almost the size of a football field – was discovered near the park’s southwest corner, far from any animal exhibits. No animals or people were injured. Officials had already closed the nearby Louisville Mega Cavern due to the 3.4 magnitude earthquake reported Tuesday about 33 miles northeast of Knoxville. It’s the cavern’s standard procedure to close if seismic activity is detected, said Charles Park, the cavern’s executive vice president. But an engineer inspecting the area doesn’t believe the sinkhole was caused by the quake because of the timing, says Louisville Metro Emergency Services Director Jody Meiman.

Tame Impala, the much-loved Australian psychedelic rock project led by newfound pop hitmaker Kevin Parker, will headline the 2019 edition of the city’s Mo Pop Festival, organizers announced this week. Vampire Weekend, the New York indie band that’s back in action after several years on hiatus, is also aboard as a headliner for the two-day boutique fest. Mo Pop will run July 27-28 at West Riverfront Park, its fifth year in downtown Detroit. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday. The fest’s 22-act mix of indie rock, hip-hop and alternative R&B will include young English singer Ella Mai, fresh off her first Grammy win, along with breakout neo-soul artist Kali Uchis, New York singer-songwriter King Princess and Detroit-born, Houston-raised rapper Lizzo (above).

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is “calling the 2019-2020 season the ‘Season of the Woman,’ ” says artistic and development associate Sara Clark. It’s the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in federal elections. “The more we started to develop the season, the more we discovered opportunities to explore that theme,” Clark says. There will be female directors and playwrights. And, in more than one instance, roles traditionally played by men will be played by women. The role of Hamlet, for instance, will be “regendered,” says Clark, who’ll star in the classic play. And “Miss Holmes” reimagines the famed detective duo as Miss Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Dorothy Watson. Subscriptions are on sale now.

Two artifacts – one a thinly sliced piece of metal that weighs a little more than a quarter of a pound, the other a craggy rock that weighs more than 2 pounds – have returned to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. They’re fragments from a meteorite that crashed into Earth more than 13,000 years ago – the largest ever found in the U.S., weighing 15.5 tons, and sixth-largest in the world. The American Museum of Natural History displays the bulk of the meteorite. Glacial ice carried it to the Willamette Valley, where the Clackamas people called it Tomanowos, meaning visitor from the sky, and revered the giant metallic rock for its cleansing and healing powers. The flat fragment was recently returned to the tribes by Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum.

A HempTrain is ready to roll into York County. Steve Groff, owner of Wyndrige Farm in Dallastown and a licensed physician, is purchasing a $1.5 million Canadian-made machine that can mass-process hemp. It will be installed in an 80,000-square-foot warehouse in Red Lion. The HempTrain can process up to 5,000 acres of hemp per year and will be the first of its kind in the country. It can be fed the entire hemp plant and separate the bast and hurd – the two components used to make fibers. It also separates the part of the plant used in CBD products. The traditional way of separating the plant is a century-old process of hammer milling, something Groff says is antiquated and not nearly as efficient as the HempTrain.

Ice fishermen have to get their shacks off public lakes this weekend. The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department says permanent ice house structures must be off lakes no later than 11:59 p.m. Sunday. The department had extended the previous deadline of Feb. 28 as heavy snow and drifting conditions made accessing lakes problematic. Though snow and drifting continue to make access difficult, it will be “even more difficult when it melts and pools on lakes,” a news release says. GF&P Regional Supervisor Emmett Keyser said the deadline does’t preclude daily use of lakes for ice fishing for the remainder of the ice season. Rather, it applies to “permies.” as some fishermen refer to permanent ice shacks and structures that sit on lakes for an extended period of time.

Justin Timberlake was back in his childhood stomping grounds this week, this time in front of the camera rather than holding a microphone. The Millington-born pop star was in Memphis to film a clothing commercial, according to a video posted to his Instagram account Wednesday. In a short video, Timberlake lamented the city’s recent cold snap, exhaling in front of the camera to show his breath and saying it was not the “average spring/summer collection shoot.” “Brought @Levis to my hometown to shoot some spring stuff in the winter,” he wrote in the video’s caption. The star launched his own line of clothing with the storied denim brand last year. The video showed camera equipment set up across the street from famed local eatery Pearl’s Oyster House.

Willie Nelson is bringing his Outlaw Music Festival back to Summerfest – and bringing along a whole lot of really talented friends. The Outlaw lineup includes Phil Lesh and Friends, the Avett Brothers, Counting Crows, Alison Krauss, Dawes and Milwaukee’s own Trapper Schoepp. Outlaw will again occupy the American Family Insurance Amphitheater for much of the day, on June 27. The festival within the festival will start at 1 p.m. and, according to Summerfest, will last 10 hours. Outlaw occupied the amphitheater for more than nine hours on Summerfest’s closing day in 2017, featuring Nelson, Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Jason Isbell, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Margo Price and more. Tickets are available beginning at 10 a.m. Friday.