News from around our 50 States

Those concerned about traveling 15 mph standing on a shared electric scooter now have a seated option. Razor, one of three shared scooter companies operating in Tempe, is offering one with a large padded seat and a front-mounted basket meant for longer rides. The EcoSmart scooters, as they’re called, cost $1.15 to unlock and 15 cents per minute to ride, or about $10 an hour. The seated scooter “is great for all adult riders, especially on those longer rides or when you are running errands,” says Danny Simon, Razor’s chief operating officer. The battery lasts about 80 minutes and has a 20-mile range. The scooter can be ridden while standing or seated.

The Little Rock Police Department is adding four patrol units to high-crime areas in the city after a recent spike in gun violence. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports Interim Police Chief Alice Fulk announced Saturday that four officers will start working overtime shifts in areas with high concentrations of shootings or other crimes. The news conference was held on the same street where a man was fatally shot the day before, marking the last homicide in November, the city’s deadliest month this year, with 10 deaths as the result of violence. Fulk says the department will use data to determine areas where shootings, homicides, robberies and drug deals are more concentrated. She says the purpose isn’t to make arrests or issue tickets for minor infractions.

A Colorado boy is trying to get rid of his town’s ban on snowballs, and officials are wondering what took so long. Severance town administrator Kyle Rietkerk told The Greeley Tribune that snowballs are defined as missiles. Officials think throwing them has been illegal since the town’s founding nearly a century ago even though the ban isn’t enforced. When elementary students visit town hall, he says the mayor and town board members tell them about the law and also say they have the power to change it. Nine-year-old Dane Best is the first one to try. Last month, he told school board members his little brother would be the target of his first legal snowball.

When Henry Meding, above center, started selling crabs from the back of a pickup truck in 1983, he never imagined he would have a connection to two legendary Apollo astronauts. Looking to attract attention to his business, he bought a 47,000-pound, 20-foot cast-iron ship’s propeller and parked it in front of Meding’s Seafood. Passing motorists can’t miss the gleaming gold nautical object, which played a fascinating role in U.S. nautical and space exploration history. It was one of four that once helped thrust the USS Shangri-La, which was significant in the lives of astronauts Jim Lovell, commander of ill-fated Apollo 13 lunar mission, and Gene Cernan, the last man to have walked on the moon. Both pilots were deployed on the carrier in the 1950s. The Shangri-La and its propellers even figure into a pivotal scene in the 1995 movie “Apollo 13.”

Hurricane Michael left its mark in a dramatic and unexpected way in this small town. Torrential downpours from the Category 4 storm opened up a giant crater along the side of Virginia G. Weaver Street, swallowing trees, chunks of pavement and a power pole, as well as threatening a nearby cemetery and public housing duplexes. The hole was 40 to 50 feet deep and roughly 250 feet long and 60 feet wide as of Friday, says Del Tucker, operations manager for Hale Contracting Inc., in Midway, which has been hired to fix it. But heavy rain over the weekend was only expected to make it grow larger. The chasm is no sinkhole but rather the product of major erosion.

Prepare yourself for six minutes of glory. In a video posted to YouTube by professional trombonist and music educator Christopher Bill, 28 players combined for an all-trombone cover of Queen’s 1977 hit “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The beautiful warm tones created in the video, which has already amassed well over 1 million views, are the perfect complement to the classic tune. This isn’t the first time Bill has had a cover go viral: In 2014, he looped parts of his trombone to cover Pharrell Williams’ hit “Happy.” He’s also created viral covers for “Shape of You,” “Let it Go” and many more. The videos promote the mission of the International Trombone Festival. In July 2019, the event will take place at Ball State University.

For four months this summer, the paper that central Iowa residents dutifully placed in their curbside recycling bins ended up at the landfill, where it was buried with the rest of the metro’s garbage. It wasn’t a mistake. Mid America Recycling, the company that processes the metro area’s recyclables, says it couldn’t find anyone willing to take the paper. Across the country, cities are having trouble offloading recyclables since China began tightening its standards on the materials it would accept nearly two years ago. In Des Moines that meant about 20 tons of paper a day ended up in the landfill during the summer, says Mick Barry, president of Mid America Recycling.

When a pair of goats were walking along the highway, Louisville Metro Police officers knew exactly what to do: Lure them in with Fritos. Last week, two goats were found strolling along Interstate 265. Someone called the police, and officers brainstormed a way to tempt the goats off the highway and into their squad car, the police department said on Facebook. “After carefully and strategically placing some BBQ-flavored Fritos in the backseat of our cruiser, the goats were coaxed to our warm car, together,” the post said. Police eventually found the goats’ owner and took them home.

As protest symbols go, small blue duckies might seem cute and harmless. But supporters of local artist Robert Park hope they highlight the absurdity of spending taxpayer dollars – $17,000 so far – to get rid of an art installation on Park’s private property. The township says the use of recycled items violates an anti-junk ordinance prohibiting storage of “cast-off” items. The ducks are popping up on mailboxes, along car dashboards and in windowsills around town as a statement of support for “The Blue Loop.” The blue ducks refer to a county judge’s Oct. 31 ruling that, of the thousands of pieces of blue plastic and recycled items that made up Park’s artwork, only a blue duck is allowed to remain. Melissa Eggleston, owner of Eggleston Gallery and Studios, is sponsoring a showing of Park’s canvas artwork that opens Saturday and runs until March 2.

The University of Southern Mississippi has received the largest gift in its history: $8.7 million from the Luckyday Foundation of Ridgeland. The money will continue the foundation’s support of the Luckyday Citizenship Scholars Program at the university. The foundation has provided more than $35.7 million to the program to date – making it the school’s most generous benefactor. It funds scholarships for exemplary Mississippi high school seniors with outstanding leadership skills and community involvement. Nearly two decades after the program’s inception at Southern Miss, its mission remains strong, as students gain the opportunity to pursue a higher education through scholarly engagement, structured personal development and financial support.

The city is getting ready to embark on a major project: developing a new map that will set the trajectory of its future. For city leaders, a new map could mean a chance to elevate Springfield’s reputation in the country – to make it into a place that will grow and prosper and become a destination for tourists and new residents alike. The map, called the comprehensive plan, outlines policy guidelines about how the city uses its land, invests in capital improvements and more. The comprehensive plan shapes the physical look and layout of the city, and Springfield is overdue for a new one. Springfield is currently working off a comprehensive plan originally created in the mid-1990s, called Vision 20/20. It was updated in 2004.

Guided outdoor activities in Montana were a $374 million-dollar industry in 2017. A new report by the University of Montana’s Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research says the amount is nearly twice that counting related spending on food and lodging. Jeremy Sage with the institute says the findings aren’t surprising given the trend of increased spending on professional guides in Montana. Guided activities in the state include not only hunting, fishing and rafting but also horseback riding and snowmobiling. The Great Falls Tribune reports outfitters and guides served more than 700,000 clients in 2017. Almost two-thirds were from out of state.

Carter Frey is the boy in upcoming Nebraska tourism ads who provides the analogy to describe Nebraska: that odd kid who didn’t say much in school, slightly peculiar maybe. But when you took the time to get to know him, turned out he was pretty interesting. Carter, the 9-year-old towhead looking at the camera through oversized glasses, likes to eat Brussels sprouts, rather than that boring mac and cheese that so many kids live on. “See? Odd, peculiar,” his mom says. Carter plans to figure out a way to convince his parents to buy him a ball python. It doesn’t bother him to be referenced in the tourism ad as an odd kid. That’s who he is, he confirms. And those oversized glasses he wears? Not just a prop. He was born with Duane syndrome, an eye disorder in which the movement of one of his eyes is limited. He’s worn glasses since he was 6 months old.

A turtle given to a bedridden little boy in New Hampshire back in 1968 has celebrated her 50th birthday with party hats, a sheet cake with the right number of candles and many well-wishers. Diane the Turtle was given to Jim Tonner when he was 12 and being treated for hip arthritis at his home in Braintree, Massachusetts. Years later, Jim and his twin brother, Brad Tonner, opened a gift shop in Bristol, New Hampshire, which became Diane’s home. Her tank is surrounded by photos of store visitors. On Saturday, the store was crowded with visitors singing “Happy Birthday” to Diane, who wore a tiny party hat. The brothers have written and illustrated books about Diane and set up a turtle webcam in their shop.

Every year about this time, some sea turtles in the Northeast wash up on beaches or are found bobbing in the surf. They may look lifeless, but in reality they are cold stunned – a condition in which their body temperature dips too low for them to do practically anything, including eating or swimming. A healthy sea turtle’s heart beats 30 to 40 times per minute, but a severely stunned turtle’s heart may pump just once in an hour. This happened to “Eco Ed,” a young green sea turtle rescued by the Marine Mammal Stranding Center on the bayside of Long Beach Island on Nov. 17. The nonprofit Sea Turtle Recovery is taking care of Eco Ed at its facility in Essex County.

The SkyStar, a multicolored, 150-foot observation wheel that has graced the city since August, will stay in Cincinnati for six more months, the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber announced Monday. The SkyStar wheel, a temporary guest to Cincinnati’s skyline, is a celebration of the 10th anniversary of The Banks. The wheel will now stay until June 16. The wheel will operate seven days a week: 4-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, noon to midnight Friday, 10 a.m. to midnight Saturday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday. Tickets cost $12.50 and can be purchased at www.skystarwheel.com.

All hope and faith, a child writes a letter to Santa Claus and slips it into the mailbox without his mom knowing. He’s curious if Santa’s really out there somewhere, and, if so, he really wants the big guy in red to know what’s on his holiday wish list. His Christmas experiment could end there, if it weren’t for Santa’s helpers. Here in Silverton, they are a U.S. Postal Service carrier and his wife, who quietly keep the season’s joy alive. Separately, in Town Square Park, Silverton’s Kiwanis Club maintains a bright-red “Letters to Santa” mailbox year-round. At the tree-lighting ceremony Friday, club members will help kids who want to write to Santa on the spot, and then they’ll make sure the jolly old elf replies to them all.

Philly and its ’burbs warmed up to the Flyers’ Muppet-like mascot Gritty just in time for the holidays – the Grittsmas holiday. If your Secret Santa recipient is a Flyers fan – or somebody who’s just big on giant, orange, bulgy-eyed fluff balls on ice skates – there’s a quirky gift out there that’s a perfect match. Alisa Wismer, a Philly-based illustrator, watched Philly’s love for Gritty grow overnight. And with that love came a market for merch. Wismer created a holiday greeting card that wishes you and yours a merry Grittsmas. And there are plenty more ideas where that came from.

A University of Vermont researcher has been busy figuring out how to save wild bees and grow better blueberries in the process. “There’s a little bit of buzz around it,” Charles Nicholson, 30, of Burlington said of his study published in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. Nicholson earned his Ph.D. at UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment and the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources with the guidance of Gund Director Taylor Ricketts. Nicholson’s work is part of a series of studies looking into native bee conservation. It shows that when the bees targeted a berry farm to dine on nectar and collect pollen, the results were larger quantities of good-looking fruit over a shorter amount of time.

Wisconsin Milwaukee: Lowlands Restaurant Group has erected plastic, igloo-like domes on the rooftop patio of Cafe Benelux because winter cannot stop Wisconsinites from getting outdoors. The Lux Domes opened Friday, but they’re already sold out. Every time slot through the holidays is booked. Dan Herwig, director of branded marketing for Lowlands Group, says he isn’t surprised by the popularity of the new domes. “Last year at Benelux we had done these ice bars. They were bars carved of ice, thousands of pounds of it, and even with how cold it gets in Wisconsin, they melted in two weeks,” he says. The ice bars were immensely popular but fleeting. So Herwig started researching a semi-permanent option for Wisconsinites who wanted to be outside in winter.