Turtle power, ditching Dixie, Ph.D. at age 89: News from around our 50 states

Alabama

Montgomery: Alabamians can now get limited quantities of beer, wine and spirits delivered to their homes after the first companies have gotten licensed. Lawmakers this year approved separate bills to allow alcohol deliveries from retailers to a person’s home and to allow wineries to ship directly to consumers in the state. Several companies have gotten licensed to deliver the alcoholic beverages or to ship wine, according to the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. The ABC Licensing Division has several other pending applications for both alcohol delivery and wine shipment, spokesman Daniel Dye wrote in an email. As of Monday, four companies have so far been licensed to deliver alcoholic beverages: Shipt, Dippi, Pick Up My Things and Deerfoot Spirits. Five companies have gotten licensed to ship wine directly to consumers in Alabama: Penrose Hill Winery, James Cole Winery, Winecub, Truth Teller and Robert Young. Alcohol delivery may not yet be available everywhere as companies ramp up operations. Shipt announced last week that it is doing same-day delivery of beer and wine from Target. The company said it is working to expand delivery from additional retailers.

Alaska

Anchorage: The state’s largest airport saw a big jump in summer passengers compared to the 2020 season, when the pandemic kept many people at home. More than 877,000 passengers traveled through the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport between May and September this year compared to the same time last year, Anchorage television station KTUU reports. “The terminal was very busy this summer, so we knew it was going to be a good summer,” said Jim Szczesniak, the airport manager. Airport officials said those passengers injected more than $1 billion into Alaska’s economy. The travel group Visit Anchorage said hotel demand was up 47% over the same time period in 2020. “So we made some really encouraging gains, but we’re not back to where we were pre-pandemic,” Visit Anchorage Community Engagement Director Jack Bonney said. Both are cautiously optimistic for 2022. “I think as long as we stay on a positive course, we have a lot of really encouraging indicators for next year, but so much of this is tied up in national and global developments around the pandemic,” Bonney said. Szczesniak said he is hopeful the increase in passenger numbers will continue to climb with expanded cruises and international travel expected next year.

Arizona

Tucson: A conservation group says an additional 1,850 acres of a cattle ranch that is part of an important wildlife corridor in western Cochise County are now protected as open space. With the additional acreage, a total of 3,800 acres of the Rain Valley Ranch are now protected through conservation easements, the Arizona Land and Water Trust announced Wednesday. The ranch along State Route 82 east of Sonoita includes part of a wildlife corridor that links the Whetstone, Mustang, and Huachuca mountains. “With large properties in the Sonoita/Elgin area continuing to be purchased for single-family homes or ‘ranchettes,’ the threat of development increases for locations like Rain Valley Ranch, making its conservation critical,” the trust said in a statement. The additional protected landscape also benefits nearby Fort Huachuca by ensuring that potential electromagnetic interference with military training activities associated with the Army base remains low, the trust said.

Arkansas

Little Rock: A man who died in prison more than two decades ago is now being investigated as a person of interest in the disappearance of a girl who went missing in 1995, according to the FBI. The agency is asking the public for more information about Billy Jack Lincks, 75, who died in prison in 2000 and had been arrested for attempting to abduct a girl months after 6-year-old Morgan Nick went missing. Lincks was serving a sentence for a 1996 conviction for sexual indecency with a child at the time of his death. “Today, law enforcement may be closer than ever to identifying” Nick’s abductor, the FBI said in a news release. FBI spokesman Connor Hagan said this is the first time the bureau has publicly identified someone as a person of interest in Morgan’s disappearance. Arkansas’ missing child-alert system is named for Morgan. Hagan declined to say if investigators have any evidence connecting him to Nicks’ disappearance. Lincks was raised in Crawford County and returned to Van Buren in the 1970s after serving in the Army during World War II and working at Braniff Airlines in Dallas from 1962 to 1974, the FBI said. Lincks attempted to abduct a young girl in Van Buren at a location 8 miles from the baseball field where Morgan was taken, the FBI said, asking anyone with any information about Lincks to contact 1-800-CALL-FBI.

California

Los Angeles: The state has begun positioning equipment and locking in contracts with temporary health care workers in preparation for another possible winter surge of coronavirus cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday. The most populous state in the country still is doing comparatively well with the rest of the U.S. in terms of cases and hospitalizations. But Newsom warned Californians should prepare for another harsh pandemic winter even though the state is among the nation’s leaders on COVID-19 shots, with about 74% of eligible people having received at least one dose of a vaccine. While statewide hospitalizations have fallen by about half since a summer peak at the end of August, they have started creeping up in some areas, particularly the Central Valley and portions of Southern California including Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. “We’ve seen some signs that suggest concerns,” Newsom said. California earlier this fall had the nation’s lowest case rate but is now 16th, he said, while the positivity rate for those tested for the virus is 2.3% after falling below 1% in June. Beyond the upward trend in certain parts of the state, state health officials said they are generally apprehensive because colder weather will keep people inside. There will be more holiday mingling as immunity acquired months ago begins to wane without booster shots.

Colorado

Denver: An appeals court panel on Wednesday reinstated a lawsuit filed by Republican lawmakers and a Colorado gun rights group challenging a “red flag” law that allows courts to order firearms taken away from people who pose a danger to themselves or others. The lawsuit, filed in 2019, argues that majority Democrats in the state House denied Republican lawmakers their constitutional right to have the red flag legislation be read in its entirety during debate. The bill was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and took effect in 2020. When one GOP lawmaker requested a reading, multiple clerks read sections of the bill simultaneously, the plaintiffs said. A second representative’s request that the bill be read was denied, they said. Democrats countered that the bill was being read on the floor at the subsequent request of a Republican lawmaker until he withdrew that request. Colorado Politics reports that a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals overturned a Denver district court judge’s ruling that the judiciary should not intrude on the prerogatives of the Legislature or other branches of government. The panel cited a Supreme Court ruling in an unrelated case that the courts can consider whether the Legislature has complied with the constitutional mandate for the reading of bills.

Connecticut

New Haven: Mayor Justin Elicker appointed Renee Dominguez as the city’s police chief Wednesday, which would make her the first woman to permanently lead the force. Dominguez has served as acting chief since March, after the retirement of Otoniel Reyes. Her appointment must be approved by the city’s Board of Alders. City and state officials believe Dominguez also would be the first female permanent police chief in any of the state’s largest cities. Several women have led police departments in smaller cities and towns in Connecticut. In the state’s largest city, Bridgeport, Rebeca Garcia is currently the acting police chief. “I am very excited,” Dominguez said at a news conference Wednesday. “My entire adult life has been dedicated to serving the community.” Dominguez became a police officer in Newtown in 2000 and moved to the New Haven police force in 2002. She is married with two daughters, ages 3 and 6. “To be the chief and have little girls is a challenge,” she said. “But what better role model than your mother. You can do whatever you want, and you can be whoever you want to be.”

Delaware

Dover: Mourners shared laughter, memories and tears Wednesday as they paid their last respects to former Gov. Ruth Ann Minner. Minner, a sharecropper’s daughter, high school dropout and widow, was the only woman to serve as Delaware’s governor, holding office from 2001 to 2009. She died Thursday at the age of 86. Friends, family and fellow politicians, including President Joe Biden, paid tribute to her during a funeral at Milford Church of the Nazarene. They recalled her as a woman who was driven by steely determination but never forgot her humble upbringing and maintained a sense of empathy for fellow citizens. “Each time she climbed up the political ladder, she always stayed grounded in the lives of everyday people,” said Biden, who represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate for decades. During her decades of public service as a state lawmaker, lieutenant governor and governor, Minner served as a mentor and role model for many of those who attended her funeral. “Like many of you in this church, I would not be here today as your governor were it not for Ruth Ann Minner. It’s just that simple,” said Gov. John Carney, who served two terms as Minner’s lieutenant governor. “She set the standard for all of us.”

District of Columbia

Washington: The district’s government has struck a deal with the U.S. Marshals Service to improve the situation at the city’s main jail after it came under criticism and the Justice Department announced that 400 federal prisoners would be transferred out because of substandard conditions. Conditions at the jail had long been a point of criticism for local activists. The issue took on a national political dimension in recent months because many defendants from the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection were being held there. Wednesday’s announcement said the city Department of Corrections and the federal Marshals Service “will collaboratively assess conditions at the (Central Detention Facility) and develop a plan to address concerns.” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement that she welcomed the attention and resources to “address any deficiencies” at D.C. facilities. “We all agree: everyone who is in our jail or under our supervised care should be treated humanely and have safe conditions,” Bowser said. Supporters of several Jan. 6 defendants filed suit, alleging the defendants’ civil rights were being abused at the jail. One of those cases led to a surprise Marshals Service inspection last month, which found unsanitary and abusive conditions, according to a damning report by Lamont J. Ruffin, the acting marshal for U.S. District Court in Washington.

Florida

Fort Lauderdale: Biologists were taken by surprise by a record number of leatherback turtle nests found along some South Florida beaches this year. The 79 nests laid by endangered turtles along beaches in Broward County in the 2021 season is nearly double the previous record, the South Florida SunSentinel reports. The previous record was 46 in 2012, and the record low for leatherback nests was 12 in 2017. “It’s difficult to say why Broward County saw such an increase in leatherback nesting this season,” Stephanie Kedzuf, a biologist for Broward County who specializes in sea turtles, told the newspaper. Kedzuf said she will be curious to see whether other areas in the state saw a similar increase. Leatherbacks, named for their tough, rubbery skin, typically crawl onto beaches at night and dig holes to deposit their eggs in the sand. They are among the largest of sea turtles. The nesting season runs from March 1 to Oct. 31. During that time, coastal buildings must shield or lower their lights to prevent them from disturbing the hatchlings. When the turtles hatch, they race toward the sea to avoid crabs, birds and other predators. The lights can draw them inland, where they could be run over or trapped in storm drains. The leatherback population has declined by 40% worldwide, the National Marine Fisheries Service said.

Georgia

Atlanta: Gun maker Remington Firearms will move its headquarters from the Empire State to the Peach State. The company announced Monday that it would invest $100 million in the factory and research operation in LaGrange, southwest of Atlanta, hiring 856 people over five years. It wasn’t clear what effect the transfer would have on Remington’s operations in New York and Tennessee. The company owns the parts of the former Remington Outdoor Co. that make rifles, shotguns and some handguns after the former parent auctioned its assets in pieces last year in a bankruptcy proceeding. Remington, the country’s oldest gun maker, began making flintlock rifles in 1816. It swelled into a firearms conglomerate but faced slumping sales, complaints about quality, and legal pressure over the Sandy Hook school massacre. The current company no longer makes the Bushmaster AR-15 rifles used to kill 20 first graders and six educators in the shooting in Connecticut in 2012. “We are very excited to come to Georgia, a state that not only welcomes business but enthusiastically supports and welcomes companies in the firearms industry,” Remington CEO Ken D’Arcy said in a statement. Gov. Brian Kemp famously pointed a shotgun at another person in a campaign commercial when the Republican was seeking his current office in 2018.

Hawaii

Honolulu: Nearly 2,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers in the state plan to strike later this month over wages and staffing concerns. UNITE HERE Local 5 said the strike due to begin Nov. 22 would affect 20 facilities across Hawaii. Thousands of Kaiser health care workers in California have already said they will strike starting Monday. Local 5 spokesperson Bryant de Venecia said Wednesday that negotiations were continuing. Kaiser and the Alliance of Health Care Unions began national bargaining in April. Local 5 has been negotiating some Hawaii-specific issues with Kaiser as well. Local 5 said in a news release that Kaiser’s latest proposal was for an “insulting” 2% wage increase contingent on the union’s agreement to a two-tier wage system under which new hires would receive lower pay. The union said Kaiser also failed to address concerns about short staffing, while workers report being stressed and overworked during the coronavirus pandemic. Arlene Peasnall, Kaiser’s senior vice president of human resources, said in a statement that Hawaii union-represented employees earn about 26% above the average market wage. She said Kaiser offered up to 4% yearly pay raises – 2% pay increases plus a 2% cash payout each year of a four-year contract. “The challenge we are trying to address in partnership with our unions is the increasingly unaffordable cost of healthcare. … Wages and benefits account for half of Kaiser Permanente’s operational costs,” she said, Hawaii News Now reports.

Idaho

Lewiston: A northern Idaho mayor has announced he’s running for governor. Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad said Monday in Lewiston that he’s running as a Democrat to defeat first-term Republican Gov. Brad Little. The 47-year-old Rognstad said he’s running to break the lock Republicans have had on the state for 30 years. “For the better part of a generation, Idaho has effectively been a one-party state,” Rongstad said, the Lewiston Tribune reports. “There are no checks and balances, no compromise, no accountability. This is dangerous. The most extreme voices now go unopposed. Commonsense leadership has been replaced by authoritarianism and culture wars.” Democrats have not held the governor’s office since 1995 or statewide elected office since 2007. Only 12 of the 70 House members and seven of 35 senators are Democrats. The Idaho secretary of state’s website lists Rognstad as the second Democrat to join the race, after Melissa Sue Robinson, 70, a transgender woman who owned a construction company before shifting to a career in telecommunications. She lists adequately funding education as a top goal. The race also includes eight Republicans. Little hasn’t yet announced his reelection plans but is expected to run and has been fundraising. Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin over Little.

Illinois

Chicago: A police oversight agency recommended suspension and in some cases potential termination for more than half a dozen officers following a botched 2019 raid on the home of a Black woman who wasn’t allowed to put on clothes before being handcuffed, according to a report released Wednesday. Earlier this year, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which investigated the wrongful raid on social worker Anjanette Young’s home, noted nearly 100 allegations of misconduct by about a dozen officers. The agency’s report recommended between one day and one year of suspension for multiple officers and “up to and including separation” from the department for some officers. Police Superintendent David Brown has already moved to terminate one sergeant. The raid “reveals problems far more pervasive than any individual incident of officer misconduct,” the report said. It also noted “other concerns, including lack of adequate training and supervision surrounding the Department’s use of search warrants and the disproportionate impact of police actions on people of color.” The botched raid, first reported by WBBM-TV, and the city’s handling of it prompted anger from clergy, lawmakers and civil rights activists who decried it as racist and an affront to a Black woman’s dignity.

Indiana

Indianapolis: Public schools should treat the Black Lives Matter movement as a political group, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said Thursday, potentially limiting the ability of schools and teachers to promote the BLM message in classrooms. “Black Lives Matter is unequivocally a political organization,” Rokita said in a news release Thursday morning. “Promoting or displaying some politically based materials while prohibiting the promotion or display of others could create a liability for schools and could violate the First Amendment.” Rokita issued an advisory opinion on how schools should treat BLM at the request of two state lawmakers amid concerns about the politicization of students’ education and what Rep. Michelle Davis, R-Whiteland, called the “controversial ideology” of BLM. Rokita’s opinion comes after months of debate around the country about how and what schools should and should not be teaching, particularly with regard to race and racism in America’s history. Conservative groups have decried the teaching of critical race theory in the nation’s K-12 schools, which do not teach the academic framework used by legal scholars to examine the intersection of race and law in America. Still, activists and parents have latched onto the term.

Iowa

Iowa City: A former Iowa State Patrol officer with a history of excessive force allegations has been indicted on a federal charge over a 2017 traffic stop in which dashcam video captured him roughing up a motorcyclist. A federal grand jury charged Robert James Smith last week with violating the motorcyclist’s civil rights by using unreasonable force during the stop near West Liberty, roughly 15 miles southeast of Iowa City. The indictment notes that the victim suffered “bodily injury” during the encounter, which means the charge could carry a maximum of 10 years in prison. Smith is set to make his initial appearance Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids. Dashcam video shows Smith pulling over Bryce Yakish for speeding. The routine stop escalated immediately when Smith ran from his car with his gun drawn and pointed at Yakish, then 20 years old. Smith used his left hand to strike the face shield of Yakish’s helmet, knocking him backward onto his motorcycle and to the ground. Smith briefly put his knee on Yakish’s neck while handcuffing him. Yakish can be repeatedly heard in the video complaining of neck pain. Smith falsely accused Yakish of trying to flee and charged him with eluding law enforcement, even though he stopped immediately after Smith activated his lights and siren. That charge was dropped after a prosecutor reviewed the video and concluded it was baseless. Yakish lost his license because of the arrest, his motorcycle was impounded, and he spent the night in jail.

Kansas

Peck: A 19-year-old is getting ready to graduate from Washburn University’s School of Law in Topeka. Braxton Moral’s parents have long known he was gifted. He skipped fourth grade and took his first undergraduate class at Harvard University while still in sixth grade. As he got older, he spent his summers at Cambridge. But when the school year started, he switched to online classes so he wouldn’t miss out on experiences like prom and homecoming at Ulysses High School. “He just wants to be like everybody else,” said his mother, Julie Moral. “He’s a blessing from God.” At Harvard, Braxton developed a love for government and realized he wanted to go to law school. But what should have taken three years he completed in two and a half. Next month, Braxton Moral will receive his juris doctor degree. In February, he will take the bar exam. “When I started out, it was more about just something fun to do,” Moral said. “And then you start off, you’re like, ‘Well, I just kind of want to get better now.’ So once you get a little bit of experience, it transfers from just fine to an actual goal.”

Kentucky

Frankfort: A judge has approved a request from Kentucky regulators to force West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice to pay $2.9 million in fines for cleanup violations at some eastern Kentucky coal mines. The Tuesday order from Franklin County Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate requires that the Justice companies finish reclamation work at the mines, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. The order also allows the state to take posted bonds to cover the work. Kentucky officials called the violations at the Justice-owned mines “among the most egregious we have seen in nearly a decade” when the original agreement with Justice was struck back in 2014. Most of the sites are surface mines. The work includes cleaning out ponds, stabilizing land, improving drainage and reshaping the land to its original, pre-mining contours. Under the agreement with Kentucky, the West Virginia governor and his son, Jay Justice, are personally, jointly liable for the $2.9 million penalty. Jay Justice runs the company’s coal, timber and agriculture businesses. The Justices have argued that they have not been able to meet the deadlines because of the economic downturn and safety concerns caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Louisiana

Baton Rouge: State government agencies lost more than 17% of their civil service employees in the last financial year. Byron Decoteau, director of Louisiana’s State Civil Service, said the turnover rate was nearly 2 percentage points higher in the 2020-21 budget year that ended June 30 than in the previous year. More than 6,000 civil service workers left state government in the latest year, including 21% who retired. Other employees were laid off, died, moved, left to go to school, got private-sector jobs or had other personal reasons, according to the report Decoteau presented to the commission that oversees the state workers who have civil service protection, called classified employees. The highest turnover rates were among prison guards at adult and youth prison facilities, the report showed – a consistent problem year after year. Decoteau noted that 10% of classified state employees currently are eligible to retire across agencies, while nearly 15% will be eligible to retire within five years. The data doesn’t cover political appointees across agencies or workers who transferred to other state government jobs.

Maine

Saco: State park campers set another record this year. Maine is home to 48 state parks and historic sites, and attendance and camping at the parks have soared during the coronavirus pandemic. Preliminary state figures showed Maine state campground attendance set a record for the second straight year, the Portland Press Herald reports. The state’s 12 state park campgrounds experienced an 8% increase in visitors from 2019 to 2020, when campers set a record of more than 270,000. This year, the number grew to about 315,000. The state parks were heavily used before the pandemic, and the onset of the pandemic led to even more use as residents and visitors sought more outdoor forms of recreation. This year’s attendance was especially high even though July, in the heart of camping season, was full of rain. State officials said they expected 2022 to be another big year for the campgrounds.

Maryland

Manchester: Five bald eagles were found acting strangely and seemingly sick in northern Maryland, prompting an investigation by state wildlife officials. William Fauntleroy found the birds Sunday in the Manchester area of Carroll County near the Pennsylvania border, The Washington Post reports. He said he saw an eagle near his mailbox that was acting weirdly and appeared to be unable to fly. The group of birds was feeding on a deer carcass, according to Fauntleroy. One died after flying into a power line. “I saw some were flying poorly,” Fauntleroy told the newspaper. “One seemed like it couldn’t get off the ground and couldn’t fly. It was acting like it was drunk.” Wildlife rescuers took the four other eagles to the Phoenix Wildlife Center in Baltimore County. Maryland Natural Resources Police spokesperson Lauren Moses said her department is “actively investigating” to figure out what happened to the birds, a federally protected species. The deer carcass the eagles ate was buried so no other wildlife would feed on it, according to Moses. She told the Post that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials were expected to take samples from the remains for analysis. “Was it poison? Was it an algae bloom? Was it something else?” the wildlife center said in a Facebook post Wednesday. “We don’t have answers yet.”

Massachusetts

Boston: Marine researchers in New England said Tuesday that they have collected data from tags that were surgically implanted in sea turtles for the first time. Scientists with the New England Aquarium who performed the work said it could lead to improvements in the way researchers monitor threatened species of turtles. The loggerheads were rehabilitated at the Boston-based aquarium’s turtle hospital and released earlier this year with the acoustic tags implanted in their bodies. Acoustic receivers in Nantucket Sound off Massachusetts showed multiple detections earlier this month, the researchers said. Scientists have long used turtle tagging to monitor the animals, but the tags have previously been placed on their shells using an epoxy. Kara Dodge, a research scientist with the aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, said the new tagging method will make it easier to monitor injured turtles that are released back into the wild after rehab. The tags allow scientists to “assess rehabilitated turtles’ survivorship over time and resumption of normal behaviors in the wild,” she said.

Michigan

Detroit: A judge on Wednesday approved a $626 million deal to settle lawsuits filed by Flint residents who found their tap water contaminated by lead following disastrous decisions to switch the city’s water source and a failure to swiftly acknowledge the problem. Most of the money – $600 million – is coming from the state of Michigan, which was accused of repeatedly overlooking the risks of using the Flint River without properly treating the water. “The settlement reached here is a remarkable achievement for many reasons, not the least of which is that it sets forth a comprehensive compensation program and timeline that is consistent for every qualifying participant,” U.S. District Judge Judith Levy said in a 178-page opinion. Attorneys are seeking as much as $200 million in legal fees from the overall settlement. Levy left that issue for another day. The deal makes money available to Flint children who were exposed to the water, adults who can show an injury, certain business owners and anyone who paid water bills. About 80% of what’s left after legal fees is earmarked for children. “This is a historic and momentous day for the residents of Flint, who will finally begin to see justice served,” said Ted Leopold, one of the lead attorneys in the litigation.

Minnesota

Minneapolis: COVID-19 hospitalizations have reached their highest level of the year in the state, and hospital capacity continues to tighten amid an alarming surge in cases, Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said Wednesday. The Minnesota Department of Health on Wednesday reported 5,277 new coronavirus cases and 43 new deaths, raising the state’s pandemic totals to 831,669 confirmed cases and 8,925 deaths. Minnesota hospitals were caring for 1,159 COVID-19 patients, including 257 in intensive care units. Malcolm called the new case and death numbers “extraordinarily high and concerning” and said that “right now we find ourselves in a really truly alarming spike” in new cases. “Every day now we’re seeing dozens of Minnesotans dying from an illness that they didn’t have to get, and that is beyond heartbreaking for all of us doing this work,” Malcolm said. “The tragedy of this current spike in cases is that more than ever, we have the tools and the knowledge to minimize the impact of this virus.” Those tools include vaccinations, masking in public and staying home when sick, she said. Most Minnesotans are vaccinated, but too many still aren’t, she said. And Kris Ehresmann, the department’s infectious disease director, said the problem of “waning immunity,” which appears to show up around six months after vaccination, seems to be a factor in the rise of breakthrough cases.

Mississippi

Jackson: The state has finished repairing section of highway that collapsed during torrential rainfall brought by Hurricane Ida, and the road reopened Wednesday. Two people were killed and nine injured Aug. 30 as seven vehicles plunged, one after another, into a deep pit that opened up on the dark, rural stretch of Mississippi Highway 26 near Lucedale. One of the injured people died in a hospital Sept. 11. The Mississippi Department of Transportation awarded a $1.8 million repair contract in October. A construction company met the department’s goal of getting the highway back open safely and quickly, southern district Transportation Commissioner Tom King said in a news release Wednesday. “I know how important Highway 26 is for the region, and I appreciate all the work that went into getting it open ahead of schedule,” King said. Department of Transportation Director Brad White told legislators in September that the area had already received more than double its average annual rainfall before the hurricane, and then Ida dumped more than 12 inches of rain in less than one day. The stretch of highway is on a hillside, and White said the deluge blew out a pipe that ran under the roadbed. King said work will continue until early 2022 as crews repave routes that had been used as detours amid the closure.

Missouri

St. Louis: Security camera footage, shell casings, and a small but distinctive tattoo played pivotal roles in the arrest of a man suspected in at least six killings over the past two months in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas. The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office on Tuesday charged Perez Deshay Reed in the shooting deaths of two people in the city in September. Reed was charged Saturday in two other fatal shootings in September in St. Louis County. He is also suspected of killing two people in Kansas City, Kansas, and the FBI has labeled him a suspected serial killer. Reed, who turned 26 on Wednesday, remained jailed on $2 million bond Tuesday. Surveillance video in Kansas helped lead to Reed’s arrest. Images captured by the cameras showed the distinctive crescent moon-shaped tattoo on Reed’s forehead. Another key factor was evidence left behind at each of the St. Louis-area shootings. “The commonality among them were handgun casings,” said Rich Quinn, special agent in charge of the FBI office in St. Louis. “We knew they came from the same handgun.” Reed is charged in the St. Louis County killings of 16-year-old Marnay Haynes on Sept. 13 and 40-year-old Lester Robinson on Sept. 26. In the city of St. Louis, he is suspected in the killings of 49-year-old Pamela Abercrombie on Sept. 16 and a 24-year-old man, Carey Ross, on Sept. 19. All four victims were shot in the head.

Montana

Billings: Tribes and conservation groups sued state environmental regulators Wednesday after Gov. Greg Gianforte’s administration dropped a legal claim against a mining executive over decades of pollution from several mines. The lawsuit was filed in state district court in Lewis and Clark County by attorneys for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the Fort Belknap Indian Community, the Montana Environmental Information Center and other groups. Under Gianforte, the Department of Environmental Quality in July quit a legal action that sought to block Idaho-based Hecla Mining Co. and its president, Phillips Baker Jr., from involvement in two proposed silver and copper mines. Baker was an executive with Pegasus Gold, which went bankrupt in 1998, leaving state and federal agencies with more than $50 million in cleanup costs at several mines, including the Zortman and Landusky mines near the Fort Belknap reservation. A state “bad actor” law enacted in the wake of the Pegasus bankruptcy punishes companies and their executives who don’t clean up mining pollution. Under the law, companies and their senior leaders can’t receive new mining permits until they’ve reimbursed the state for past cleanup costs.

Nebraska

Lincoln: A coalition that includes labor unions and civil rights groups has launched a website and social media pages in its drive to get a measure to raise Nebraska’s minimum wage to $15 an hour on the ballot next year. Raise the Wage Nebraska says it wants to highlight the stories of the 195,000 Nebraska residents who’d see higher pay, the Lincoln Journal Star reports. The coalition needs to collect 87,000 signatures on petitions by July 2022 to get its proposal on the ballot in November 2022. The measure would increase the minimum wage by $1.50 annually until it reached $15 in 2026. After that, there’d be an annual cost-of-living increase. Nebraska voters widely supported raising the minimum wage in 2014. Nearly 60% backed an initiative that increased it from $7.25 an hour to its current $9 an hour. Business groups oppose the measure, saying it could hurt small-business owners who already are having difficulty filling jobs as the country emerges from the coronavirus pandemic. Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts also is opposed. But supporters said raising the wage will help people living in poverty and working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

Nevada

Carson City: The Legislature is finally set to start redrawing the state’s political maps. Gov. Steve Sisolak announced Thursday that lawmakers would convene for a long-delayed special session focused on redistricting at 1 p.m. Friday. Sisolak said in a statement that he was looking forward to “an efficient and productive session” that will fulfill the Silver State’s constitutional duty to revise every federal, state and local voting district after each census. The redistricting process is controlled by whichever political party holds the Legislature, often resulting in districts that favor one party over the other, a process known as gerrymandering. Bitter battles over this practice happen often in Carson City, where a court-appointed panel had to finish drawing boundaries on which politicians couldn’t agree in 2011. The undertaking was almost equally toxic in 2001, when there were also legal challenges, then a special session called after remapping efforts repeatedly stalled in a split partisan Legislature. Draft maps debuted Tuesday point to the possibility of a more harmonious redistricting session in 2021, though Republicans are likely to take issue with proposed changes that could make the state’s two battleground congressional districts more Democratic-leaning over the next decade.

New Hampshire

Concord: After rejecting millions of dollars to help increase the state’s vaccination rate, the Executive Council on Wednesday reversed course and approved $22 million for the effort, along with a nonbinding resolution that condemns vaccine mandates. Last month, the Republican-led council, a five-member panel that approves state contracts, rejected $27 million in federal vaccination funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over concerns that language in the grants would have bound the state to follow federal directives and mandates related to COVID-19. The language the Republicans opposed has appeared in other contracts they approved, and both Republican Gov. Chris Sununu and Attorney General John Formella said it does not in any way impede the state’s sovereignty. Later in October, the council voted to use $4.7 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding to help community health centers and regional public health networks set up school-based and community vaccination clinics. With the approval of Wednesday’s funds, that money will now be repurposed. “We are moving full steam ahead,” Sununu said in a statement Wednesday.

New Jersey

Asbury Park: Garden State businesses owned by people of color were more likely to lose money during the early months of the pandemic and less likely have access to the credit they needed to make up for it, according to a study released Wednesday. The report showed Black- and Latino-owned business were at a particular disadvantage when it came to the government’s main emergency finance plan, the Paycheck Protection Program, forcing them to rely on their own savings to survive. “It was a bit of a worry; it was a bit of a panic attack,” said Tashianna Gayle, 34, owner of Hair Haven, a salon in Asbury Park. She was told she didn’t qualify for a PPP loan because she had only been open for a month before the pandemic hit. The report by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority was designed to look at how racial disparities during the pandemic’s economic crisis played out among small businesses in the state. “It’s discouraging and, sadly, not surprising that the pandemic hit Black- and Latino- owned businesses especially hard,” said Tim Sullivan, the New Jersey EDA’s chief executive officer. The agency rolled out a low-interest micro-loan program Wednesday that aims to address the disparity.

New Mexico

Albuquerque: Two of the state’s largest hospitals announced Thursday that they would be focusing on patients who need care the most, meaning procedures that aren’t medically necessary will likely have to be delayed. While most patients are not dealing with coronavirus infections, officials at Presbyterian Healthcare Services and University of New Mexico Health say the ability to grow the capacity that was built over the past year due to the pandemic is now limited by space and the availability of health care workers. The two hospitals announced they were activating crisis standards of care, noting that it’s not really a shift in policy but rather a continuation of how they have been managing the crush of patients since last winter. “It’s really important to recognize we are not deallocating care. That is not part of this. We are not triaging and denying care,” said Dr. Jason Mitchell, Presbyterian’s chief medical officer. “At this point we are trying to make sure that every patient has care in a bed across our state and even in surrounding states.” He saud the decision will not be to take a patient off a ventilator, for example, but rather to find other hospitals within New Mexico or in neighboring states that can take patients or directing patients with less severe issues to urgent care clinics or other providers.

New York

Albany: Six state correctional facilities will close next March in a cost-saving move amid declining inmate populations, officials announced Monday. More than 1,700 people work at the six upstate New York facilities, which house more than 1,400 inmates. The inmates will be sent to other locations, and no layoffs are expected from the closures, which are projected to save $142 million, according to the release from the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. The corrections agency said it will work with unions to provide staffers with transfer opportunities to other facilities or to other state agencies. The facilities set for closure March 10 are Ogdensburg Correctional Facility, Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility, Willard Drug Treatment Campus, Southport Correctional Facility, Downstate Correctional Facility and Rochester Correctional Facility. The governor was authorized by the Legislature this year to close state prisons amid a long-term drop in inmates. There are currently 31,469 inmates in state correctional facilities, down from a systemwide high of 72,773 in 1999. The agency said officials looked at multiple factors before making the decision, including physical infrastructure, program offerings, facility security level, proximity to other facilities and health services.

North Carolina

Raleigh: A trial judge on Wednesday ordered the state to pay out $1.75 billion to help narrow public education inequities, angering Republicans who said the directive usurps lawmakers’ constitutional authority over state coffers. Superior Court Judge David Lee, who is charged with overseeing corrective responses related to school funding litigation that began over a quarter-century ago, said the legislative and executive branches have been afforded every courtesy over the years to act decisively. But “this court’s deference is at an end at this point,” he said. The judge’s action likely will set up a constitutional showdown among the three government branches. Lee said his order wouldn’t take effect for 30 days, giving GOP leaders at the Legislature or others time for a legal challenge, which is likely. Republicans say that only the General Assembly can appropriate funds in state accounts and that Lee is violating the state constitution if he acts contrary to that. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2004 in the Leandro lawsuit – named after an early student plaintiff – that while North Carolina’s children have a fundamental right to the “opportunity to receive a sound basic education” under the constitution, the state had not lived up to that mandate.

North Dakota

Bismarck: A storm system that is expected to bring snow to the state late this week could help improve persistent long-term drought conditions. Forecasters are expecting 2 inches to 4 inches of snow in the eastern half of the state, with up to 6 inches in the northeastern corner of North Dakota. Wind gusts of up to 60 mph are expected along with the snow, potentially making travel difficult, according to forecasters. Drought conditions that brought hardships for ranchers and farmers this summer have made marked improvement. In eastern North Dakota in recent weeks, much of the region is no longer listed in any of the four drought categories, the Bismarck Tribune reports. Much of the central and west regions remain in severe or extreme drought, but even those areas have improved dramatically from last summer. There is no change in this week’s U.S. Drought Monitor map, which is updated every Thursday. “In the Dakotas, where long-term drought is still ongoing, livestock water quality and (mule deer) fawn production were both reported to be suffering as a result of the drought,” wrote National Drought Mitigation Center Climatologist Curtis Riganti. Harvest is mostly wrapped up in North Dakota, though about one-fifth of the corn crop and one-third of the sunflowers remain in fields.

Ohio

Toledo: A polar bear who was a fixture at the Toledo Zoo for more than two decades has died due to kidney disease. Michael Frushour, the zoo’s curator of mammals, told The Toledo Blade that the bear named Marty was euthanized Nov. 4, less than a month shy of his 25th birthday, Marty had been diagnosed a couple of years ago with what Frushour described as “age-related kidney disease.” Zoo officials had recently noticed that Marty wasn’t eating as much as usual and had become less active. An examination determined his kidneys were functioning very poorly, so they decided to have him euthanized. Marty was born in late 1996 and came to the Toledo Zoo from Chicago in 1999. In 2007, he went to the Pittsburgh Zoo for a year before he returned to Toledo. Marty and the Toledo Zoo’s female polar bear, Crystal, had several cubs together, and zoo officials believe Crystal – who turns 23 this week – may be pregnant again. The zoo hopes to replace Marty with another male polar bear, though it’s not yet clear when that might happen.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma City: Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday directed the State Department of Health to stop issuing birth certificates listing a nonbinary option instead of designating a gender, despite a settlement agreement in a civil case in which the agency agreed to do so. The first-term Republican said in his order that his administration never reviewed or approved the settlement agreement, which requires the Oklahoma State Department of Health to amend birth certificates in a manner not permitted under Oklahoma law. The order directs the department to cease amending birth certificates in any way not specifically authorized under state law and to remove from its website any reference to amending birth certificates for nonbinary people. People who are nonbinary do not identify with traditional male or female gender assignments. Stitt also directed the Legislature to pass legislation when it returns next year to specifically prohibit the issuance of birth certificates with nonbinary designations. Freedom Oklahoma, which advocates for nonbinary and LGBTQ people, said in a statement that while the state is facing scrutiny over how it carries out executions, “it felt easy for the governor to try and refocus media narratives and partisan pressure by attacking some of the most marginalized and historically excluded residents of our state.” Nichole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, said the governor does not have the authority to overturn an agreement entered into in a court of law.

Oregon

Salem: A school board that recently banned teachers from displaying symbols including those supporting gay pride and Black Lives Matter has abruptly fired the superintendent, deeply upsetting members who opposed the move. The escalating disputes in the Newberg School Board come as schools nationwide have become battlegrounds, with arguments over vaccine and mask mandates, how racism is addressed in teaching, instruction related to sexuality and gender-neutral bathrooms. After Superintendent Joe Morelock was fired in a Zoom meeting late Tuesday night, board member Brandy Penner said Wednesday she believes the conservative board members fired Morelock because he didn’t aggressively implement their ban on controversial symbols, adding that the policy didn’t define what symbols would be unacceptable. Rebecca Piros – one of three who opposed his firing – told Morelock she was sorry. Morelock replied: “Just remember that from the darkest dark comes the brightest light, so everything will work out eventually.” Piros broke down in tears when she heard those words. On Wednesday, some residents of Newberg, a town of 23,000 about 25 miles southwest of Portland, erected signs quoting Morelock’s reply to Piros. Newberg Equity in Education, a group composed mostly of parents who oppose the school board’s recent rightward tilt, planned a demonstration Thursday at the school district office.

Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh: Justice was not blind when a lawyer dropped his pants after repeatedly setting off a metal detector at a courthouse. Jeffrey Pollock, 59, was trying to pass through security outside family court Wednesday, but the machine kept sounding an alarm, authorities said. The lawyer told guards his suspenders were causing the alerts, and he could not remove them. The guards asked him to keep trying until the alerts stopped. “After a heated discussion with the guards, Pollock unhooked his suspenders, dropped his drawers, took them off, and placed them in the bin to go through the metal detector,” the Allegheny Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Authorities said Pollock stood in his shirt and underwear. He was charged with disorderly conduct. “I used poor judgment,” Pollock told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “I was trying to make a point.” The sheriff’s office noted “that visible underwear is not part of the dress code.”

Rhode Island

East Providence: An 89-year-old has achieved a goal he spent two decades working toward and nearly a lifetime thinking about: earning his Ph.D. and becoming a physicist. Manfred Steiner recently defended his dissertation successfully at Brown University. Steiner said he cherishes this degree because it’s what he always wanted – and because he overcame health problems that could have derailed his studies. “But I made it, and this was the most gratifying point in my life, to finish it,” he said Wednesday at his home in East Providence. As a teenager in Vienna, Steiner was inspired to become a physicist after reading about Albert Einstein and Max Planck. He admired the precision of physics. But after World War II, his mother and uncle advised him that studying medicine would be a better choice in turbulent times. He earned his medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1955 and moved just a few weeks later to the United States, where he had a successful career studying blood and blood disorders. Steiner studied hematology at Tufts University and biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before becoming a hematologist at Brown University. He became a full professor and led the hematology section of the medical school at Brown from 1985 to 1994.

South Carolina

Columbia: The amount of money in state bank accounts continues to grow thanks to a quick recovery from the economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic and people spending money much faster than experts predicted. The latest estimate released Wednesday said South Carolina lawmakers will have nearly $1 billion more to spend this budget year, according to the state Board of Economic Advisers. That boosts the money over which the General Assembly has control to nearly $11 billion and doesn’t count the roughly $3 billion in federal COVID-19 relief money coming to South Carolina. It also doesn’t count about a $1 billion surplus after the state closed the books on the fiscal year that ended June 30. Predictions that economic growth would slow because of supply chain issues, consumers slowing their spending or dwindling federal stimulus money didn’t come true. The 13.2% growth in the 2020-21 fiscal year budget was the largest in at least 40 years, the board said. South Carolina sales tax collections continue to soar, growing by $500 million to $3.8 billion in the past fiscal year. Corporate tax revenues have also risen sharply thanks to retailers benefiting from all that extra money being spent. The state’s economic experts still think the rapid rise in revenue can’t continue.

South Dakota

Sioux Falls: Only 45% of educators are teaching required standards on Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings, according to a new survey by the South Dakota Department of Education. OSEUs are basic understandings of Lakota, Dakota and Nakota culture and history. The standards were approved by the Board of Education Standards in 2018, which should make them required for all K-12 students, but DOE officials have said in the past that they were unsure how broadly OSEUs were used and that they weren’t required. Lawmakers have drafted bills to make sure OSEUs were required, but such a bill was shot down in the 2021 session. News of survey results comes months after it was revealed the DOE removed more than a dozen explicit references to the Oceti Sakowin from a draft of social studies standards before they were released to the public. That issue caused state-level protests and outcries from residents and educators. Weeks later, Gov. Kristi Noem ordered the DOE to restart the standards revision process to include more input from stakeholders, including Native Americans. But educators and Indigenous education advocates are still calling on Noem and other top education officials to resign after their mishandling of the social studies standards process.

Tennessee

Lynchburg: The distillery producing Jack Daniel’s whiskey is teaming with a military support group to help service members and their families get home for the holidays. More than 1,700 service members and relatives will head home through “Operation Ride Home,” organizers said. That’s the most participants in program history. In its 11th year, the program provides financial assistance to active-duty, junior-enlisted military members and their families to travel to loved ones’ homes nationwide. The Jack Daniel Distillery teams with the Armed Services YMCA to offer the assistance. Service members from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard have been assisted with travel to every state. “We are absolutely thrilled they’ll get to reunite with their loved ones this year,” said Chris Fletcher, Jack Daniel’s master distiller. “Providing some financial assistance to see that they make it home is the least we can do.”

Texas

Austin: An 18-year-old man has been arrested and charged with arson for a fire at a synagogue, officials said. Franklin Barrett Sechriest was held on a $100,000 bond for the Oct. 31 fire at Congregation Beth Israel, KVUE-TV in Austin reports. According to the Austin Fire Department, the fire was a “small exterior fire” that caused no injuries but resulted in an estimated $25,000 damage, including the synagogue’s wooden doors. Arson investigators said broken glass indicated an item might have been thrown at the building, and a flammable liquid accelerated the fire. An arrest affidavit describes surveillance videos from multiple cameras on the property showing a suspect resembling Sechriest driving a black sport utility vehicle registered to a woman living at the same address as Sechriest. The fire at the synagogue came a week after a string of antisemitic incidents, including an antisemitic banner displayed from an overpass on a heavily traveled boulevard. It was not immediately clear if the fire was connected to those incidents.

Utah

Salt Lake City: Southern Utah’s Dixie State University is poised to change a name often associated with the Deep South and slavery after the Legislature approved a new name Wednesday over local backlash. The Republican-controlled Legislature voted to change the name to Utah Tech University after multiple executives from the burgeoning tech sector said the Dixie name is often met with confusion and distaste as the institution grows. GOP Gov. Spencer Cox is expected to sign the bill. The term got new scrutiny following a national outcry against racial injustice after the death of George Floyd. “This process is not about cancel culture. No one is trying to erase the great history of this beloved institution,” said Republican Rep. Kelly Miles, who sponsored the name-change bill. “We as Utahns pride ourselves in our forward thinking … it just makes sense that our students in this great state will be better served by the name Utah Tech University.” A compromise provision will keep the name Dixie on the main campus in St. George, a city near the Arizona border that’s among the fastest-growing in the country.

Vermont

Lyndon: A federal grant will go toward helping the state to educate more nurses. Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College announced Wednesday that the $240,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce would be used to expand Vermont Technical College’s existing nursing program at Northern Vermont’s University’s Lyndon campus. Vail Hall on the Lyndon campus will be transformed into the Clinical Nursing Education Center, complete with a nursing instruction classroom and skills and simulation lab spaces. “Addressing Vermont’s nursing workforce challenge requires increasing opportunities for Vermonters to pursue careers in nursing,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy said in a statement. Officials say the number of new registered nurses in Vermont declined 69% from 2007 to 2014. It’s estimated that Vermont needs 900 skilled nurses per year. In 2019, 421 completed licensed practical nurse or RN programs.

Virginia

Arlington: President Joe Biden saluted the nation’s military veterans as “the spine of America” on Thursday as he marked his first Veterans Day as president in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. “There’s nothing low-risk or low-cost about war for the women and men who fight it,” said Biden, whose administration earlier in the day announced a federal effort to better understand, identify and treat medical conditions suffered by troops deployed to toxic environments. Earlier in the week, members of the Chief Plenty Coups Honor Guard from Pryor, Montana, placed flowers in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and saluted the unknowns. Dozens more Crow Nation representatives, including students from Plenty Coups High School, followed suit Tuesday morning – the first time in 96 years the public and visitors had been allowed to approach the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It’s a privilege typically reserved for the sentinels of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, “The Old Guard,” according to the Arlington Cemetery. The flower ceremony kicked off a two-day centennial commemoration event. The dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier took place Nov. 11, 1921, according to the National Archives.

Washington

Seattle: Amtrak Cascades will resume service Nov. 18 on the Point Defiance bypass between Tacoma and Olympia, nearly four years after a deadly derailment there. The first train to use the bypass is scheduled to leave Seattle at 7:22 a.m. and arrive at the new Tacoma Dome station at 8:08 a.m., according to an Amtrak statement. The first northbound train will leave Eugene, Oregon, at 5:30 a.m., stop in Portland and arrive in Tacoma at 10:54 a.m., The Seattle Times reports. Amtrak said eight trains – including Amtrak Cascades and Coast Starlight – will use the bypass daily, with additional trains added as COVID-19 restrictions ease. Additional safety measures and most of the National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendations have been implemented following the 2017 derailment, Amtrak said. The other recommendations are being pursued, the statement said. Key among the improvements is the installment of activated positive train control, which uses GPS technology to stop or slow a train before a collision or derailment occurs. The NTSB first called for widespread use of the crash-preventing technology in 1990, and in 2008 Congress mandated that it be installed on every passenger route and high hazardous material route across the U.S. within seven years.

West Virginia

Huntington: Health care coverage has been stopped for striking maintenance and service workers at a hospital, according to a union. About 1,000 members of the the Service Employees International Union District 1999 went on strike last week at Cabell Huntington Hospital after their contract expired. Union organizing director Sherri McKinney said in a statement that the coverage was cut off without notification to striking employees and union retirees, The Herald-Dispatch reports. Hospital human resources director Molly Frick said in a statement that “union leadership was well aware that a strike would result in the cessation of pay and benefits. Any employee who wishes to return to work will have all benefits restored, including healthcare insurance.” A Cabell County judge issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday that was sought by the hospital prohibiting the union from certain activities outside the hospital. Frick said the activities include loud noises, such as the use of bullhorns and loud music, that have disturbed hospital patients. The injunction also prohibits strikers from honking horns and encouraging drivers to honk, blocking hospital entrances, interfering with traffic at the hospital, or making threatening statements to anyone trying to enter or leave the hospital’s campus.

Wisconsin

Milwaukee: People who receive a COVID-19 vaccine at a Saturday clinic at Fiserv Forum will get to have their picture taken with the Milwaukee Bucks’ championship trophy, according to a Milwaukee Health Department news release. The health department and the Bucks are teaming up for a vaccine clinic from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in the atrium of Fiserv Forum. “Everyone vaccinated at this clinic will have the opportunity to take a photo with the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy,” a news release said. The focus of the clinic is on children ages 5 to 11, and the clinic’s offerings will include pediatric Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines. “Vaccination is the best tool to keep ourselves and our children safe from COVID-19,” Milwaukee Health Commissioner Kirsten Johnson said in a news release. “We hope the opportunity to ‘take a shot’ in the home of the 2021 World Champion Milwaukee Bucks will encourage Milwaukee children and families to get vaccinated.” The clinic will also offer first, second and booster doses of Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines for eligible individuals, the news release said. Flu shots will be available as well. Those under the age of 18 will need permission from a parent or guardian to receive a vaccine.

Wyoming

Jackson: A grizzly bear and her four cubs who are already well-known to wildlife watchers got even more attention by taking a nighttime stroll through the city. Security video showed the bears wandering around downtown Jackson on Tuesday night, according to local police. Police and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials shooed the five bears into a less populated area near town, the Jackson Police Department said in a statement Wednesday. Grizzly No. 399, so named for an ear tag she received after being trapped for study, has been familiar to wildlife watchers for years. She’s had a reputation for lingering with her cubs near roadways in Grand Teton National Park, making her arguably the Yellowstone region’s most well-known grizzly. Biologists speculate that hanging around people helps keep away male grizzlies, which are known to kill cubs. Charming as it may seem for a mother bear and four yearling cubs to roam a tourist town, the bears’ behavior has worried wildlife managers. The bears have been raiding garbage, bee apiaries and animal feed in the Jackson area, raising the risk of a dangerous encounter with people. On Saturday, biologists trapped three of the four cubs. They put tracking collars on two in the hope that knowing the bears’ whereabouts will help prevent problems.

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Turtle power, ditching Dixie: News from around our 50 states