What does Putin want in Ukraine? The conflict explained | CNN

CNN —

Russia’s multi-pronged invasion of Ukraine has thrust the country into a conflict that many on the European continent had thought was one for the history books. Now the country is in the throes of war, with a humanitarian disaster unfolding.

After months of military buildup and brinkmanship on Russia’s side of the border, Ukraine’s 44 million residents woke up to an all-out conflict on Thursday. Fighting has erupted in several cities across the country, including in the capital, Kyiv, and nearly a half a million people have fled to neighboring countries, according to the United Nations.

Russia had been tightening its military grip around Ukraine since last year, amassing tens of thousands of soldiers, as well as equipment and artillery, on the country’s doorstep.

Black smoke rises from a military airport in Chuguyev near Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, on Thursday. Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

Frenzied diplomatic efforts early this year failed to avert the worst-case scenario. Now those troops are engaged in combat with Ukrainians for control of the country.

The escalation in a years-long conflict between the nations has now triggered the greatest security crisis in Europe since the Cold War. Russia’s attack on the country has also sparked an intense showdown between Western powers and Moscow.

So how did we get here? The picture on the ground is shifting rapidly, but here’s a breakdown of what we know.

How did Russia invade Ukraine?

Several areas across Ukraine came under attack on Thursday morning after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the start of a “special military operation” and warned of bloodshed unless Ukrainian forces lay down their arms.

The move came after months of speculation about what Moscow’s intentions were with the troops it had massed on the Ukrainian border. At least 150,000 Russian troops encircled the country on three sides, like a sickle, according to estimates from US and Ukrainian intelligence officials.

In late 2021 and early 2022, fears heightened as satellite images revealed new Russian deployments of troops, tanks, artillery and other equipment cropping up in multiple locations, including near eastern Ukraine, Crimea and Belarus, where its forces were participating in joint drills with Moscow’s closest international ally.

Some of those forces began pouring across the border, crossing into Ukraine from the north in Belarus and to the south from Crimea, according to the Ukrainian State Border Service. Elsewhere, explosions rang out in multiple cities, including the capital Kyiv.

Missile strikes and street fighting have raged in the days since. Military aged men have been ordered to stay in Ukraine, while countless others have fled westwards towards Poland or Romania.

Russia’s larger and far better-equipped military has, faced determined resistance across the country, as ordinary Ukrainians and reservists have joined efforts to defend their families and homes, frustrating Moscow’s attempts.

That resistance has been “stiffer than expected” and Russia has had unexpected difficulties supplying its forces, two senior US officials with direct knowledge told CNN. On the battlefield, Russia is suffering heavier losses in personnel and armor and aircraft than expected. This is due in part to the fact that Ukrainian air defenses have performed better than pre-invasion US intelligence assessments had anticipated.

But US intelligence and defense officials closely tracking the Russian campaign say that Putin still holds a number of moves in reserve that could devastate the Ukrainian resistance.

The US and its allies have said they have no intention of sending troops into Ukraine, which is not a NATO member. But Ukraine has received assistance in other forms from Europe, the US and beyond, as the West united in condemnation of Putin’s move. NATO’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg condemned the Russian attack as a “grave breach of international law, and a serious threat to Euro-Atlantic security.”

And a raft of heavy sanctions have threatened to cripple Russia’s economy; Moscow has been virtually cut off from the Western financial apparatus and the value of its currency, the ruble, has tanked.

The coordinated assault came days after Putin announced that Moscow would officially recognize the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR), in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, ordering the deployment of Russian troops there in what was widely believed to be the opening salvo to a broader military confrontation.

The territory recognized by Putin extended beyond the areas controlled by pro-Russian separatists, raising red flags about Russia’s intended creep into Ukraine.

What set the stage for the conflict?

Ukraine was a cornerstone of the Soviet Union until it voted overwhelmingly for independence in a democratic referendum in 1991, a milestone that turned out to be a death knell for the failing superpower.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO pushed eastward, bringing into the fold most of the Eastern European nations that had been in the Communist orbit. In 2004, NATO added the former Soviet Baltic republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Four years later, it declared its intention to offer membership to Ukraine some day in the distant future – crossing a red line for Russia.

Putin has seen NATO’s expansion as an existential threat, and the prospect of Ukraine joining the Western military alliance a “hostile act” – a view he invoked in a televised speech on Thursday, saying that Ukraine’s aspiration to join the military alliance was a dire threat to Russia.

In interviews and speeches, Putin has previously emphasized his view that Ukraine is part of Russia, culturally, linguistically and politically. While some of the mostly Russian-speaking population in Ukraine’s east feel the same, a more nationalist, Ukrainian-speaking population in the west has historically supported greater integration with Europe.

In early 2014, mass protests in the capital Kyiv known as Euromaidan forced out a Russia-friendly president after he refused to sign an EU association agreement. Russia responded by annexing the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and fomenting a separatist rebellion in Ukraine’s east, which seized control of part of the Donbas region. Despite a ceasefire agreement in 2015, the two sides have not seen a stable peace, and the front line has barely moved since. Nearly 14,000 people have died in the conflict, and there are 1.5 million people internally displaced in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian government.

In the eight years since, Moscow has been accused of engaging in hybrid warfare against Ukraine, using cyberattacks, economic pressure and propaganda to whip up discord. Those tactics have escalated in recent months, and in early February the State Department claimed Putin was preparing a false-flag operation to create “a pretext for an invasion.”

What does Putin want?

In a lengthy essay penned in July 2021, Putin referred to Russians and Ukrainians as “one people,” and suggested the West had corrupted Ukraine and yanked it out of Russia’s orbit through a “forced change of identity.”

That type of historical revisionism was on full display in Putin’s emotional and grievance-packed address to the nation last Monday announcing his decision to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, while casting doubt on Ukraine’s own sovereignty.

But Ukrainians, who in the last three decades have sought to align more closely with Western institutions like the European Union and NATO, have pushed back against the notion that they are little more than the West’s “puppet.”

In fact, Putin’s efforts to bring Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere have been met with a backlash, with several recent polls showing that a majority of Ukrainians now favor membership of the US-led transatlantic military alliance.

In December, Putin presented the US and NATO with a list of security demands. Chief among them was a guarantee that Ukraine will never enter NATO and that the alliance rolls back its military footprint in Eastern and Central Europe – proposals that the US and its allies have repeatedly said are non-starters.

Putin indicated he was not interested in lengthy negotiations on the topic. “It is you who must give us guarantees, and you must do it immediately, right now,” he said at his annual news conference late last year. “Are we deploying missiles near the US border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep.”

High-level talks between the West and Russia wrapped in January without any breakthroughs. The standoff left Europe’s leaders to engage in a frenzy of shuttle diplomacy, exploring whether a negotiating channel established between France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine to resolve the conflict in Ukraine’s east – known as the Normandy Format talks – could provide an avenue for calming the current crisis.

In a news conference with the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on February 16, Putin repeated unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine is carrying out a “genocide” against Russian speakers in the Donbas region and called for the conflict to be resolved through the Minsk peace progress – echoing similar rhetoric that was used as a pretext for annexing Crimea.

But less than a week later, after Russia’s upper house of parliament approved the deployment of military forces outside the country on February 22, Putin told reporters that the Minsk agreements “no longer exist,” adding: “What is there to implement if we have recognized these two entities?”

The agreements, known as Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 – which were hammered out in the Belarusian capital in a bid to end a bloody in eastern Ukraine – have never been fully implemented, with key issues remaining unresolved.

Moscow and Kyiv have long been at odds over key elements of the peace deal, the second of which was inked in 2015 and lays out a plan for reintegrating the two breakaway republics into Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently stated that he did not like a single point of the Minsk accords, which require dialogue on local elections in the Russian-backed separatist regions and – although unclear in what sequence – would also restore the Ukrainian government’s control over its eastern borders. Critics say the agreement could give Moscow undue sway over Ukrainian politics.

Putin previously responded in blunt terms by saying that regardless of whether Zelensky likes the plan, it must be implemented. “Like it or don’t like it, it’s your duty, my beauty,” Putin said in a news conference alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. Zelensky, a former comedian and TV star, won a 2019 election in a landslide on promises to end the war in Donbas, but little has changed. Responding to a question about Putin’s stark, undiplomatic language, Zelensky responded in Russian, saying bluntly: “We are not his.”

How has Ukraine responded?

President Zelensky previously downplayed the danger of all-out war with Russia, noting that the threat has existed for years and that Ukraine is prepared for military aggression. But on Thursday, as Russia launched an assault on his country, Zelensky made an emotional address directly to the Ukrainian people, declaring martial law in the country.

“Russia began an attack on Ukraine today. Putin began war against Ukraine, against the entire democratic world. He wants to destroy my country, our country, everything we’ve been building, everything we are living for,” Zelensky said in a video message posted on his official Facebook page.

Across the country, residents have been preparing for the worst – packing emergency evacuation kits and taking time out of their weekends to train as reservists.

Ukraine’s government insists that Moscow cannot prevent Kyiv from building closer ties with NATO, or otherwise interfere in its domestic or foreign politics. “Russia cannot stop Ukraine from getting closer with NATO and has no right to have any say in relevant discussions,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement to CNN.

Zelensky has since requested Ukraine be admitted “urgently” to the European Union, and has implored Western leaders to help boost Ukrainian forces on the ground.

Delegates from Ukraine and Russia held talks on Monday near the border of Belarus, a country which has assisted Putin’s invasion, and which Ukrainian officials fear could soon put its own boots on the ground in support of Russia.

Ukraine demanded a full Russian withdrawal in advance of those talks, but it is unclear whether the meetings will result in a Russian retreat. Zelensky downplayed the significance of the talks, which he did not attend in person. “I do not really believe in the result of this meeting, but let them try, so that no citizen of Ukraine would have any doubt that I, as president, did not try to stop the war when there was even a small chance,” he said Sunday,

People in Quezon City, Philippines, light candles in the shape of a peace sign February 28 as they protest Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Ezra Acayan/Getty Images A woman from Ukraine takes part in an anti-war protest in Bangkok, Thailand, on February 28. Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters An anti-war protest takes place outside the Russian Embassy in Mexico City on February 28. Luis Cortes/Reuters A boy holds a Ukrainian flag with a heart drawn on it as he attends a protest with his mother in Sydney on February 28. James D. Morgan/Getty Images Thousands of protesters gather in Berlin's Tiergarten park on February 27. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images Lidiya Zhuravlyova, a Ukrainian performance artist, takes part in an anti-war protest in Bangkok on February 27. Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters A "Football Stands Together" message is displayed in Ukrainian colors ahead of the League Cup final between Chelsea and Liverpool on February 27 The match was played at Wembley Stadium in London. Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images Silhouettes are seen through a Ukrainian flag during a demonstration in Madrid on February 27. Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket/Getty Images People gather for a demonstration in Prague, Czech Republic, on February 27. The event in Prague was particularly poignant given that many of its attendees experienced a Russian invasion firsthand. In 1968, Soviet-led armies of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia, crushing the so-called Prague Spring democratic reform movement and restoring the totalitarian communist regime. The troops stayed in Czechoslovakia for over two decades, with the last leaving in 1991. Ondrej Deml/CTK/AP Thousands of people show solidarity with Ukraine at Dam Square in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on February 27. Cris Toala Olivare/Getty Images Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa meets with demonstrators outside Belem Palace in Lisbon, Portugal, to show his support on February 26. Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP/Getty Images A protester holds a sign that says "help before it's too late" during a rally in Brussels, Belgium, on February 26. Valeria Mongelli/AP New York's Empire State Building is illuminated in the colors of the Ukrainian flag on February 25. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images People gather to protest outside the Russian Consulate in Istanbul on February 25. Burak Kara/Getty Images People photograph Paris' Eiffel Tower as it is lit with Ukraine's colors on February 25. Adrienne Surprenant/AP A child holds smoke bombs at a protest in Buenos Aires on February 25. Mariana Nedelcu/Reuters A demonstrator against the invasion is led away by police in Moscow on February 24. Hundreds of protesters in Russia have been detained in anti-war protests, independent protest monitoring site OVD-Info said. Russia's Investigative Committee warned that participation in any anti-war protest was illegal. It also said that offenses could be entered on participants' criminal records which would "leave a mark on the person's future." Daniil Danchenko/NurPhoto/Getty Images Ukraine supporters march through the streets of New York with flags and signs on February 24. John Lamparski/NurPhoto/Associated Press Members of the Ukrainian community demonstrate outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles on February 24. Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images People protest in Rome on February 24. Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis/Getty Images Flinders Street Station in Melbourne is lit in yellow and blue on February 24 as public buildings were lit up in the national colors of Ukraine. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/AFP/Getty Images A demonstrator in Barcelona, Spain, cries during a protest on February 24. Pau Barrena/AFP/Getty Images People protest in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on February 24. Hannibal Hanschke/Getty Images Protesters gather outside the Massachusetts State House in Boston on February 24. M. Scott Brauer/The New York Time/Redux Demonstrators rally at Times Square in New York on February 24. Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty Images A Ukraine supporter in Minneapolis attends a prayer service inside the St. Constantine Ukrainian Catholic Church on February 24. Stephen Maturen/Reuters Protesters chant and gather in front of the Texas State Capitol in downtown Austin on February 24. Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman/USA Today Network A vigil for Ukraine takes place in Montclair, New Jersey, on February 24. Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com/USA Today Network In pictures: The world rallies in support of Ukraine Prev Next

Tensions between the two countries had been exacerbated by a deepening Ukrainian energy crisis that Kyiv believes Moscow has purposefully provoked. Ukraine views the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline – connecting Russian gas supplies directly to Germany – as a threat to its own security.

Nord Stream 2 is one of two pipelines that Russia has laid underwater in the Baltic Sea – in addition to its traditional land-based pipeline network that runs through eastern Europe, including Ukraine. Kyiv views the pipelines across Ukraine as an element of protection against invasion by Russia, since any military action could potentially disrupt the vital flow of gas to Europe.

After requests from Zelensky and the US administration, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday that he would halt the certification of the pipeline following Putin’s decision to order troops into parts of eastern Ukraine.

Nord Stream 2 was just one of myriad challenges facing Zelensky’s government; the former actor, who played a president on Ukrainian television, had experienced a brutal baptism of fire into real-world politics since assuming office in 2019, thanks in part to the pandemic and ongoing tensions with Russia.

But in the days since the invasion, admiration for him has soared both inside and outside Ukraine; Zelensky refused to leave the country and has instead posted frequent videos from the streets of Kyiv, where he has been encouraging his fellow countrymen to resist Russian forces.

Why Arabs and Muslims feel stung by coverage of the Qatar World ...

Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

Abu Dhabi, UAE CNN —

“Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker,” FIFA chief Gianni Infantino said in a fiery tirade on Saturday, comparing his own plight as a redhead son of migrants to that of marginalized communities.

His ostensible empathy with Qatar was due to the barrage of criticism the nation has faced in Western media for hosting the tournament.

But it’s hypocritical of the West to be giving lessons in morality to others, he said.

Those statements on the eve of the World Cup went viral, inviting much anger and ridicule. But to many Arabs and Muslims, they resonated strongly.

US actor Morgan Freeman (2nd L), Qatari singer Dana al-Fardan (2nd R), and Qatari YouTuber Ghanim al Muftah (R) perform during the Qatar 2022 World Cup opening ceremony on Sunday. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images

Omar Alsaadi, a 21-year-old Qatari, told CNN that Infantino vocalized “from a Western point of view” what many of his compatriots have felt about being targets of racism.

In the run-up to the tournament, Western media coverage has been dominated by the controversies surrounding the event rather than the sport itself, including the Gulf nation’s treatment of migrant workers, its rules on LGBTQ people and its tight social restrictions. Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC, refrained from airing the opening ceremony on television, opting instead to cover criticism of the host nation. The BBC said it did broadcast the ceremony on their video-on-demand service.

This year’s World Cup is certainly like no other before it. It is the first to be held in a Muslim country and Qatar has gone a long way to give the event a distinctly Arab and Muslim flavor.

The Bedouin-themed opening ceremony on Sunday began with a female singer donning a traditional burqa, a kind of face covering that has been banned in several European countries. It also cited a verse from the Quran about God creating humanity into “nations and tribes” so they can get to know each other.

According to social media reports, some hotel rooms in the country offer visitors QR codes to learn about Islam, and Muslim volunteers have been teaching visitors about Islamic fashion.

Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), which is responsible for overseeing the infrastructure projects and planning for the World Cup, didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.

But in an earlier statement to CNN, the SC said it was committed to “an inclusive and discriminatory-free” World Cup.

“Everyone is welcome in Qatar, but we are a conservative country and any public display of affection, regardless of orientation, is frowned upon. We simply ask for people to respect our culture.”

The visibility of Islamic symbols in Qatar hasn’t escaped those attending. An on-air joke by a French journalist about the presence of “a lot of mosques” in the country caused outrage among Muslims on social media.

Western news outlets have also been accused of peddling stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims.

The Times of London on Monday said “Qataris are unaccustomed to seeing women in Western dress in their country” in a photo caption that was later deleted after being flagged on social media. Around 87% of the country’s population of 2.9 million is made up of expatriates, many of whom are Western.

“I think that the Western media is biased because they don’t want to see an Arabic success, a Muslim success in the delivering and hosting of a global cup for football in a third [world country],” Najd Al-Mohanadi, a 20-year-old Qatari, told CNN.

But some in the Western media have spoken out against stereotyping and alleged biases. Ayman Mohyeldin, an MSNBC host who previously worked for Qatar’s Al Jazeera, said recent coverage of Qatar shows “the depths of Western prejudice, performative moral outrage and, perhaps most significantly, gross double standards.”

The Economist and the New York Times have also run articles defending Qatar’s right to host the tournament. The Times of London ran an essay saying criticism of Qatar was “laced with hypocrisy.”

“I always question the timing [of the criticism], as migrants throughout the region endure poor living arrangements for meager pay, while also working under strenuous physical and mental conditions,” said Mira Al Hussein, a postdoctoral researcher from the UAE who is studying at Oxford University in England.

“Scrutiny is overdue and it makes no sense to tie it to global events where virtue-signaling becomes deeply problematic,” Al Hussein told CNN.

“Especially when it comes from non-NGO entities that are themselves embroiled in human rights violations within and across their borders.”

James Lynch, director of the human rights group FairSquare and a former British diplomat in Qatar, said that while some of the coverage around Qatar in the West has reinforced negative stereotypes about the Arab Muslim world, most of the criticism has been “fair and proportionate.”

“It’s absolutely right to call out instances of that kind of coverage, but wrong to generalize from those examples to imply that all, or most, criticism is driven by racism,” he said.

Workers in the country continue to “face harsh, abusive working conditions and severe exploitation, with domestic and construction workers among those most at risk,” he said, adding that Qatar’s women and LGBTQ people “face serious discrimination and repression, both in law and practice.”

Critics of Western media coverage of Qatar have countered that other countries with questionable human rights records didn’t receive such scrutiny when hosting global sporting events.

“At the risk of engaging in whataboutism… Qatar’s human rights records, as poor as they may be, cannot possibly be more outrageous than other countries, such as Russia, China and Israel,” said Al Hussein. “Qatar is certainly not engaging in ethnic cleansing, nor are migrants living in concentration camps, despite the poor living conditions.”

Maryam AlHajri, a Qatari researcher at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said some of the recent rhetoric around Qatar shows that some Western critics have been more concerned with feeding into an “orientalist discourse,” referring to language aimed at imposing Western worldviews, than human rights.

“This should not be read as a justification to cease criticizing the migrant worker condition in Qatar,” she said. “Rather, it should be interpreted as an argument for the necessity to contextualize the migrant workers situation as part of a globalized economic order built on colonialism and racial capitalism.”

She noted however that some over-zealous defenders of the government on the Qatari side have neglected the country’s human rights shortcomings.

“Many of the people defending Qatar are also using terrifyingly pro-government language,” she said, adding that it reaches a point that doesn’t help the cause of Qatar’s migrant workers.

“The plight of migrant workers in places like the US or the UK does not take away from the fact that we have problems in Qatar,” AlHajri told CNN. “It shouldn’t be about whataboutism.”

With additional reporting from Mariam Dirar Alqasem in Doha

Iran protests

Video Ad Feedback CNN hears testimony from women who say they experienced sexual violence by Iranian regime 06:31 - Source: CNN

Social media videos have emerged allegedly showing Iranian security forces sexually assaulting female demonstrators on the streets.

With media access inside Iran severely constrained, CNN went to the region near Iraq’s border with Iran, interviewing eyewitnesses who’d left the country and verifying accounts from survivors and sources both in and outside Iran.

The covert testimonies revealed sexual assaults on male and female activists as a women-led uprising spreads throughout Iran.

US Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley on Tuesday tweeted it is “a reminder of what is at stake for the Iranian people - and of the lengths to which the regime will go in its futile attempt to silence dissent.”

Read the article here.

Here’s the latest on the protests in Iran:

UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Tuesday that the rising number of protest-related deaths highlights the “critical” nature of the situation in the country. The UN said its sources had reported over 40 deaths “in mainly Kurdish cities in the past week.”

Forty foreign nationals “affiliated in riots” have been arrested in Iran since protests started in September, Iranian judiciary spokesperson Masood Satayshi said without revealing their nationalities.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday the US is taking steps to “push back against actions Iran is taking to repress its own people.”

Mobile internet was restored in Iran after a major disruption on Monday, according to internet watchdog NetBlocks, which said that cellular data was down for about 3.5 hours as security forces cracked down on protesters in the Kurdish region of Iran.

World Cup

Saudi Arabia produced one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history Tuesday, beating Lionel Messi’s Argentina 2-1 in an astonishing Group C match.

Many had expected the South American team, ranked third in the world, unbeaten for three years and among the favorites to win the tournament, to sweep aside its opponent, ranked 48 places below it in the world rankings.

Watch CNN’s Becky Anderson speak to celebrating fans of the Saudi team:

Also read:

The digest

Teenage student dies in twin explosions in Jerusalem

Two explosions shook Jerusalem early Wednesday, killing one person and injuring 18 others in a suspected “combined terror attack,” according to an Israeli police spokesperson. The first explosion occurred at a bus station near the entrance of Jerusalem, killing a 16-year-old student at a Jewish seminary, his family told local media. The second explosion occurred almost half an hour later at the city’s Ramot junction. Initial investigations indicated that explosive devices were placed at both blast sites and a search is underway for suspects, the police spokesperson said.

Background: The attack brings the number of people killed on the Israeli side of the conflict to at least 29 this year. This year has also been the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2015.

Why it matters: Jerusalem has not seen a double bombing like this one in many years. Prime Minister Yair Lapid said after participating in a situation assessment with security officials that the incident was “different from what we have seen in recent years.” The explosions come after months of tensions in the occupied West Bank.

Russia to build attack drones for Ukraine war with the help of Iran, intelligence assessment says

Iran and Russia have reached an agreement to begin the production of attack drones in Russia, according to a new intelligence assessment from a country that closely monitors Iran’s weapons program. Iran is beginning to transfer blueprints and components for the drones to Russia after the initial agreement was struck earlier this month, said a source familiar with the assessment.

Background: US officials have said that Russia has received hundreds of drones from Tehran which have had a deadly effect in Ukraine. Earlier this month, the Iranian government acknowledged for the first time that it had sent a limited number of drones to Russia in the months before the start of its invasion of Ukraine.

Why it matters: The move would further cement the partnership between Tehran and Moscow and likely provoke significant anger from Ukraine and its western allies including the US. Sources explained that the goal is for Russia to produce thousands of new attack drones using Iranian components and blueprints.

Saudi Arabia says it may take steps to balance market

Oil rose on Tuesday after Saudi Arabia said OPEC+ was sticking with output cuts and could take further steps to balance the market, outweighing global recession worries and concern about China’s rising Covid-19 case numbers, Reuters reported. Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman on Monday was also cited by state news agency SPA as denying a Wall Street Journal report that said OPEC was considering boosting output.

Background: The Wall Street Journal earlier on Monday reported an output increase of 500,000 barrels per day was under discussion for the next meeting of OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, on December 4. The report cited unidentified OPEC delegates. The report sent oil prices plunging by more than 5%.

Why it matters: The oil cartel last month cut production by 2 million barrels per day in an effort to stabilize the market “in light of the uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks.” The oil cut was made despite strong US pressure against it. Potential further cuts could exacerbate already tense relations between the US and Saudi Arabia.

Photo of the day

Nadeen Ebrahim Abbas Al Lawati
Nadeen Ebrahim
Abbas Al Lawati

Ukraine: The foreign fighters and ukrainian expats taking up arms to ...

Shehyni, Ukraine CNN —

The gray asphalt road that leads to Ukraine’s Shehyni border crossing with Poland has for the past week seen 30-mile tailbacks as people try to flee the country, often saying tearful goodbyes to the family members and friends staying behind to fight the Russian invasion.

Wednesday brought a different sight: groups of young men, laden with heavy bags and military kit, entered Ukraine from Poland as they answered President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for “citizens of the world” to fight “Russian war criminals.”

Among them, New York resident Vasyk Didyk, a 26-year-old carpenter wearing a fluorescent Carhartt beanie who is originally from Ukraine.

“This is our motherland,” he told CNN in Shehyni. “We couldn’t stay in our comfortable lives in America and watch what is happening here.”

Didyk, accompanied by his friend Igor Harmaii, had spent 24 hours traveling from New York to Poland before crossing back into his homeland carrying a canvas backpack and pulling a suitcase on wheels.

I haven’t been back to Ukraine in four years – but it wasn’t even a choice. Vasyk Didyk

He has no military training and came despite his parents, who do not live in Ukraine, weeping on the phone when they heard he was joining the fight.

“I haven’t been back to Ukraine in four years – but it wasn’t even a choice,” he said. “I had to come and help my country.”

The world has watched in horror since Russia invaded Ukraine late last week, triggering what could be the largest land war in Europe since World War II. And Zelensky’s defiance has not only united Western opposition to Russia, but also inspired foreign volunteers and Ukrainians abroad to fight for the cause.

“This is not just Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Zelensky said on Sunday. “This is the beginning of a war against Europe, against European structures, against democracy, against basic human rights, against a global order of law, rules, and peaceful coexistence.”

Ukrainian embassies have been helping recruit foreign fighters, while at least one senior politician from a Western government that has previously prosecuted those who joined foreign wars indicated support for citizens taking up arms in Ukraine.

“If people want to support that struggle, I will support them doing that,” UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the BBC on Sunday.

Asked by CNN whether it consented to French foreign fighters in Ukraine, the French government said: “Ukraine is a war zone, classified as a red zone in the travel advice, updated on a permanent basis and available under the following link (Travel advice). As a result, we formally advise against any travel to Ukraine.”

The question was not directly answered by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a press briefing on Wednesday.

When asked about American foreign fighters he said the US has been “clear for some time” in telling “Americans who may be thinking of traveling there not to go.”

Vasyk Didyk (left) and Igor Shehyni (right) arrive in Ukraine on Wednesday after more than 24 hours of travel from New York. AnneClaire Stapleton/CNN

If Americans want to help Ukraine, “there are many ways to do that, including by supporting and helping the many NGOs that are working to provide humanitarian assistance; providing resources themselves to groups that are trying to help Ukraine by being advocates for Ukraine,” he said.

On Thursday, Zelensky said the first of 16,000 foreign fighters were making their way to Ukraine “to protect freedom and life for us, and for all,” he said. CNN has not been able to confirm those numbers.

“An attack on Europe”

In the English city of Milton Keynes, more than 1,200 miles west from Shehyni, British builder Jake Dale said the call for foreigners to join Ukraine’s International Legion inspired him to book a flight to Poland on Friday. He aims to cross into Ukraine by Saturday afternoon.

“As soon as I heard his [Zelensky’s] call – it made me think he needs help,” the 29-year-old said from his home he shares with his girlfriend and two children. “I think it is a worthy cause to risk my life, and my girlfriend feels the same. Obviously, she gets upset, as anyone would, but she supports it as she can see I want to help.”

Back in 2015, Dale wanted to join a Kurdish militia group, the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which was leading the fight against ISIS in Syria, but decided against it due to warnings by the British government.

This time, he is not worried about the potential legal trouble he could face on his return from Ukraine. “I’m willing to deal with it,” he said after the British government distanced itself from Truss’s comments.

During a trip to Poland, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK was not “actively” supporting volunteers going to fight. “I can understand why people feel as they do, but we have laws in our country about international conflicts and how they must be conducted,” Johnson told reporters.

Dale is heading to Ukraine with Peter Hurst, a 36-year-old former infantry soldier with the British Army, who did a tour of Afghanistan before leaving the military in 2011.

The father of five, who lives in the northern English town of Pontefract, spoke to CNN on a video call while he picked out kit from an army supplies store in a nearby town. He said wanted to fight to protect democratic values and freedoms.

British citizen Jake Dale (left) is pictured with his family. Peter Hurst (right) is pictured with his wife on their wedding day. Both men plan to be in Ukraine by Saturday.

“It feels like an attack on Europe. If you don’t help stop war there [in Ukraine], it will probably spread,” he said.

Both Hurst and Dale met this week on a Facebook group – created to help supply British medical and military aid to Ukraine. They have been working with a liaison – whose name is listed on an information pack sent by the Ukrainian embassy – who will provide them with body armor and vests in Poland.

Dale has spent £300 ($400) buying kit and plane tickets and worries about the financial impact of him not working. “It will be a strain on my family when I leave,” he said. “But I am sure we will be fine.”

Not everyone is supportive of the idea of foreign fighters in Ukraine.

US-based extremist tracking organization SITE Intelligence Group has warned of the involvement of outfits such as Azov, a paramilitary group whose logo is the Wolfsangel, a symbol appropriated by Nazi Germany.

“Following Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine, far-right communities online have rallied to the side of groups like Azov, both in terms of fundraising and stating their intent to fight alongside them,” a SITE report says.

The British government has told those without military training to avoid the fight.

On the Facebook group Hurst and Dale met on, one user warns: “That is absolutely no place to be for someone with no weapon handling skills and doesn’t speak the language. Apart from being a danger to others it’s not fair on the lads themselves.”

Dale says he is aware of such warnings but insists his skills as a qualified mechanic could be useful.

“People can say it is wrong to go in without a military background, but I believe by fighting alongside Ukrainians, I am answering their call for help,” he said. “Putin’s regime is ruthless – it is not just Ukraine we are protecting.”

“As long as we have to”

Ukrainian citizen Valery, who asked for his last name not to be published, lives in eastern France, but felt compelled to return to visit his elderly parents as Russia massed troops on Ukraine’s border.

The February 24 invasion began soon after he arrived in Kyiv, where it was heralded with pre-dawn warning sirens.

“I woke up around five o’clock in the morning with the very strange sound,” he said. “I thought I was still dreaming. I couldn’t believe my ears. But the sound was so persistent I couldn’t fall asleep any further.”

Valery said his mind then turned to one thing: “How useful can I be to my country? The first thought was to join the army and check how useful I can be.”

How useful can I be to my country? The first thought was to join the army and check how useful I can be. Valery

After enlisting at a conscription center, the 45-year-old said he “felt this sense of nausea” when he received his weapon, realizing normality had been shattered. “Kyiv has been a very peaceful town since 1943,” he said.

Valery is serving with five others in a military unit. “Many of them have families, have children. Nonetheless, they joined,” he said, adding that morale is high within the forces. “There is a lot of determination to defeat the enemy.”

All foreign fighters share that determination – but the people crossing into Ukraine vary wildly in terms of their organization and experience.

CNN spoke to a group of six volunteers, made up of Americans and one Briton, with military equipment in a packed train station in Pzsemysl, Poland. “If more people would have joined the fight in 1936 we wouldn’t be dealing with fascism now,” the British man said. Most said they are veterans; one said he is not and has never fought in a war.

None speaks Ukrainian, Russian or Polish, and they did not have a translator or a plan to get to the conflict.

“We’ve tried to get in touch with (the) embassy but (traffic) crashed all the websites,” one said. “There’s women and children dying indiscriminately and you know – we gotta be here,” said another.

Elsewhere, CNN spoke with a band of Brits and Canadians who had met each other in a Polish airport, all determined to cross the border and join the Ukrainians in battle.

Wali, who is French Canadian, said he had served as a sniper in Afghanistan and volunteered previously to fight against ISIS in 2015. He added that he has contacts in Ukraine who can supply him with weapons. “My friend … called me and said, OK, we really need you,” he said.

Back at the border crossing in Shehyni, New Yorkers Didyk and Harmaii wrangle with their canvas backpacks and wheeled suitcases.

When asked how long they plan on staying in Ukraine, they both pause and say almost at the same time: “As long as we have to.”

Tara John Anneclaire Stapleton Joseph Ataman

Graceland: The history of Elvis' home in Memphis. Here are 40 facts

Graceland opened to the public on June 7, 1982.

That was 40 years ago.

Forty!

Seems like a significant number.

When Elvis died on Aug. 16, 1977, he was only 42.

He had lived at Graceland for 20 years. So, the house, in a way, has been home to Elvis' legacy for twice as long as it was home to Elvis.

How to tell the story of Graceland? Here's one way: 40 facts to mark that 40th anniversary.

Actually, you'll find many more than 40 facts below. But the list is numbered 1 through 40, for the sake of symmetry and convenience. (In any case, math never was my strong suit; neither, according to his 6th-grade report card, was it Elvis'.)

MEMPHIS TOURISM:Graceland made Memphis a tourism destination. Here's how it continues to impact the city

GRACELAND HISTORY:Graceland felt like 'a twilight zone' when it opened in 1982. Now it's more like a home | Beifuss

40 facts about Graceland

1. The Graceland name predates the mansion. Owner Stephen C. Toof, a Memphis commercial printer, named his "Graceland Farms" property for his daughter, Grace, who inherited the land when her father died in 1894.

2. Grace's niece, Ruth Moore, referred to in newspaper reports as a "socialite" and "musical prodigy," and her husband, Thomas Moore, a doctor, built the Colonial Revival (sometimes called "Classical Revival") mansion in 1939. Before Elvis expanded it, the house contained 10,266 square feet.

3. Elvis purchased Graceland — the house, the barn and the 13.8 acres of land — on March 19, 1957, for $102,500. The home's Whitehaven location was relatively isolated and rural, unlike Elvis' previous address at 1034 Audubon Drive in East Memphis. Elvis immediately began adding to the mansion, expanding the house to 17,552 square feet and 23 rooms. The mansion would be his Memphis home for 20 years.

4. Lisa Marie Presley is the sole owner of the Graceland mansion and its original grounds. Under the terms of Elvis' will, she inherited the property in 1993, when she turned 25. (Meanwhile, Elvis Presley Enterprises, a corporate entity of the Elvis Presley Trust, manages Graceland's operations as well as most other business dealings related to Elvis, his legacy and his likeness.)

5. Graceland was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on Nov. 7, 1991. It was the first rock-and-roll-related site to be so honored.

6. Graceland was declared a National Historic Landmark on March 27, 2006. Again, it was the first rock-and-roll-related site to be so honored.

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7. The Historic Landmark documentation provides a detailed, even literary description of Graceland: "The house was constructed at the top of a hill, almost at the center of the property in a grove of oaks, with rolling pastures in front and behind it, and a western exposure towards the Mississippi River. A curving driveway, bordered by a six-inch concrete curb lined with small electric lights along the outside edge, approaches from the state highway at the foot of the hill and forms a large loop that passes in front of the house and returns back down the hill."

8. The document continues: "The house is a two-story, five bay residence in the Classical Revival style with a side-facing gabled roof covered in asphalt shingles, a central two-story projecting pedimented portico, and one-story wings on its north and south sides. The front and side facades of the central block are veneered with Tishomingo limestone from Mississippi..."

9. The familiar pink Alabama fieldstone wall that fronts the property was erected in 1957, to protect Presley's privacy and discourage trespassing fans. (It has not been entirely successful; see fact No. 15.) Since Elvis' death, the wall has served as a graffiti magnet and message board, with fans scrawling sometimes very personal sentiments or adding artwork tributes to the King to almost every available space on the rough but conveniently pale stone.

10. Built and erected by the Tennessee Fabricating Co. and Memphis' Dillard Door Co. at a total cost of about $2,700, the famous custom-built gates of Graceland — a "special double drive way gate," to quote the work order — were installed on April 22, 1957. With their stylized representations of a guitar-strumming Elvis set against a pattern of musical staffs and notes, the gates suggest the entryway to a musical heaven. The gates were restored in 1990 by the National Ornamental Metal Museum.

11. In a testimony to Elvis' influence, the City Council on June 29, 1971, unanimously approved a proposal to change the name of the five-mile stretch of South Bellevue between South Parkway and the Mississippi state line to "Elvis Presley Boulevard"; the street address of Graceland thus became 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard. The first sign was put in place during a January 1972 ceremony that was attended by Mayor Wyeth Chandler and Elvis' father, Vernon Presley.

12. A highlight of any Graceland tour, the ornamental stained-glass peacocks that flank the open doorway between the living room and the music room were added by the Laukhuff Stained Glass Company of Memphis in 1974.

13. Also in 1974, Elvis remodeled two basement hang-out rooms. Painted and decorated in yellow and black, the "TV Room" is notable for the three television sets built into the south wall, so Elvis could watch all three commercial networks at once (presumably, he wasn't much of a PBS fan), and for the spooky white monkey statuette on its center table. (The figure inspired "Porcelain Monkey," an Elvis lament by singer Warren Zevon: "Hip-shakin', shoutin' in gold lamé/ That's how he earned his regal sobriquet/ Then he threw it all away/ For a porcelain monkey.") Even more challenging to the eyeballs is the "Pool Room," its claustrophobic interior dominated by a central pool table and its walls and low ceiling covered in close to 400 yards of vividly multi-colored pleated fabric.

14. On Nov. 24, 1976, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis' contemporary and onetime rock-and-roll rival, was arrested at about 3 a.m. outside Graceland, after he drove up to the gates in his Lincoln Continental Mark IV and demanded to see Elvis, while "screaming and yelling and waving a Derringer in the air" (according to the testimony of a guard at the gates, as quoted in The Commercial Appeal). Police confirmed that the Killer's "two-shot .38 caliber Derringer" was loaded (as, apparently, was Lewis).

15. A less troublesome trespasser was Bruce Springsteen, who, on April 29, 1976, after making his Memphis concert debut at the old Ellis Auditorium, took a taxi to Graceland, accompanied by E Street Band guitar player "Miami" Steve Van Zandt. According to an oft-repeated story, when the Boss saw a light on inside the mansion, he had an urge to meet the King. As Springsteen told a concert crowd in 1985, when introducing a cover of Elvis' "Follow That Dream": "I said, 'Steve, man, I gotta go check it out.' And I jumped up over the wall and I started runnin' up the driveway, which when I look back on it now was kind of a stupid thing to do because I hate it when people do it at my house... Guards came out of the woods and they asked me what I wanted. And I said, 'Is Elvis home?' Then they said, 'No, no, Elvis isn't home, he's in Lake Tahoe'. [Which was true.] So, I started to tell 'em that I was a guitar player and that I had my own band, and that we played in town that night, and that I made some records. And I even told 'em I had my picture on the cover of Time and Newsweek. I had to pull out all the stops to try to make an impression, you know. I don't think he believed me, though, 'cause he just kinda stood there noddin' and then he took me by the arm and put me back out on the street with Steve."

16. In addition to rock-and-rollers, Graceland attracted many animals. Pets owned by Elvis included Scatter, a chimpanzee, and Bambi, a squirrel monkey. Some exotic animal gifts were donated to the Memphis Zoo, including two wallabies, sent by Australian fans.

17. The animals with the longest history at Graceland were horses. Elvis' reputed favorite was Rising Sun, a golden palomino. Mare Ingram was a mare, named after Memphis Mayor William B. Ingram. Some other horses owned by Elvis and housed in Graceland's air-conditioned barn included Flaming Star, Thundercloud, Star Trek and a Tennessee Walking Horse named Ebony's Double, which was the last horse Elvis bought.

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18. After rigging the Jungle Room into a home studio, Elvis made his final recordings inside Graceland, in February and October 1976. Featuring members of his touring band, including such legends as guitarist James Burton and drummer Ronnie Tutt, the sessions provided the foundation for the singer's last two studio albums, "From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee" and "Moody Blue" (which was released less than a month before the singer's death), and yielded the last three Top 40 pop chart singles of his lifetime: "Hurt," "Moody Blue" and "Way Down."

19. Built in 1975, the two-story racquetball building behind the mansion contained an upright piano. Elvis sat at that piano not long before he died on Aug. 16, 1977, performing "Unchained Melody" and "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain." Later, upstairs at Graceland, Elvis' girlfriend, Ginger Alden, discovered Presley on his bathroom floor. He was taken to Baptist Hospital on Union Avenue and pronounced dead.

20. Elvis' funeral was held on Aug. 18, 1977, at Graceland. The eulogy was delivered by Jackie Kahane, a standup comic who opened many Presley concerts in the 1970s. At Vernon Presley's request, a public viewing of the body was held in the foyer of the mansion the day before, attracting 10,000 to 25,000 mourners. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of other fans congregated during the week along Elvis Presley Boulevard.

21. Originally interred about four miles north of Graceland inside the Forest Hill Cemetery Midtown mausoleum on Elvis Presley Boulevard, the bodies of Elvis and his mother, Gladys Presley, were moved to the Meditation Garden at Graceland on Oct. 2, 1977. The move came after the Aug. 29 arrest of three men in a plot to steal Elvis' body from Forest Hill and hold it for ransom. With its circular pool, fountains, stained-glass panels and Ancient World-looking columns, the Meditation Garden had been constructed in 1964 and '65.

22. Five people are buried in the Meditation Garden. Using the spellings that appear on the grave markers, these people include Elvis Aaron Presley ("Aron" is the way the name appears on Elvis' birth certificate, marriage certificate and driver's licenses); Elvis' father, Vernon Elvis Presley; his mother, Gladys Love Smith Presley; his grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley; and the grandson he never met, Benjamin Storm Presley Keough, the son of Elvis' daughter, Lisa Marie Presley. The Garden also contains a marker for Elvis' stillborn twin, Jessie Garon Presley, who was buried in an unmarked grave in Tupelo. ("Jessie" is spelled "Jesse" in most other sources.)

23. The gravesite is the focus of the annual Candlelight Vigil that draws thousands of fans to Graceland every year, to promenade to the Meditation Garden on the anniversary of Elvis' death. The vigil originally was a fan-generated event, but it soon was embraced by Elvis Presley Enterprises and made the centerpiece of Graceland's annual "Elvis Week" August activities. The first vigil was held in 1978, when fans from the Austin, Texas-based Elvis Country Fan Club traveled to Graceland to pay their respects to the King by lighting candles outside the gates.

24. Family members continued to live at Graceland after Elvis' death, including Vernon Presley, who died in 1979, and Minnie Mae Presley, who died in 1980. But the hardiest post-Elvis Graceland resident was Delta Mae Presley Biggs, known to family and fans alike as "Aunt Delta." The sister of Vernon Presley, Aunt Delta moved to Graceland in 1966, after the death of her husband, and continued to live in the mansion even after it was opened to the public, until her death on July 29, 1993, at 74. During this time, the Graceland kitchen and bedroom frequented by Delta remained off-limits to tourists; they were added to the tour after her death.

25. Graceland was opened to the public on June 7, 1982. Admission was $5. Attendance through the end of that year exceeded 330,000 — well above projections. Now, the cheapest available Graceland ticket that includes the mansion tour is $77 (or $44 for a kid, 5-10); yearly attendance is about 500,000.

26. On Feb. 22, 1984, Elvis’ two private jets — the Lisa Marie and the Hound Dog II — arrived in Memphis and were transported down Elvis Presley Boulevard to their present location, across the street from the mansion. The Lisa Marie is a Convair 880 with a cruising speed of about 615 mph that seats about 28 people; Elvis bought it from Delta Airlines in 1975 for $250,000 and fitted it with a private bedroom with a queen-size bed; four televisions; and a 52-speaker stereo system. The Hound Dog II, which can host only about 10 passengers, is a Lockheed JetStar.

27. In 1994, the live tour guides that had been a fixture at Graceland were replaced by "audio guides" — audiotapes with headphones that visitors wear as they tour the mansion. The audio guides are available in nine languages: English, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and French.

28. On May 30, 2016, Graceland welcomed its 20 millionth visitor since its conversion to a tourist attraction. Accompanied by husband Robert Greenoak, Tiffany Greenoak, 31, of London, England, was designated lucky No. 20,000,000. “We played Elvis music at our wedding, so for us as a couple, this trip to Memphis has tremendous meaning," said Mrs. Greenoak. The couple was given a private tour and received a congratulatory phone call from Priscilla Presley, who was married to Elvis from 1967 to 1973. (Priscilla's wedding took place not at Graceland but at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas.)

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29. On June 30, 2006, President George W. Bush became the first sitting U.S. President to visit Graceland when he, first lady Laura Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took a private tour of the mansion, led by Priscilla Presley and Lisa Marie. The reason: Koizumi — who shares Elvis' Jan. 8 birthday — is a Presley superfan. According to press reports, he said visiting Graceland was like a "dream," and serenaded the Bushes and Presleys during the tour with song snippets, crooning, "Hold me close, hold me tight," and "Love me tender."

30. As chronicled on the "Celebrity Visitors to Graceland" snapshot gallery on the Elvis website, other notables who have visited Graceland in recent years include — to name just a few — Dua Lipa, Vanilla Ice, Tom Brokaw, Gilbert Gottfried, Dolph Lundgren, Chris Tucker, Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Bill Nye (the Science Guy), demonic Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, the Foo Fighters and the pre-divorce duo of Russell Brand and Katy Perry. (Not pictured: Prince William and Prince Harry, who visited Graceland in 2014.)

31. Paul McCartney visited Graceland on May 26, 2013, and tweeted a picture of himself leaving a guitar pick on Elvis' grave. He reportedly told onlookers the gesture was "so Elvis can play in heaven."

32. The 450-room Guest House at Graceland opened on Oct. 27, 2016, north of the mansion on Elvis Presley Boulevard. The hotel space includes a 464-seat theater and four bars and restaurants. It effectively replaced the 128-room Heartbreak Hotel, a remodeled 1986 Wilson World lodge that Graceland remodeled and reopened in 1999.

33. A casualty of Graceland expansion was the so-called Graceland Crossing shopping plaza, an L-shaped strip mall of independent Elvis souvenir shops located across the street and to the north of the mansion. A popular Elvis Week hangout for fans, who gathered in a tent in the plaza parking lot to listen to performances by tribute artists (this reporter once ran into Jackson Browne there), the space was bought by Graceland and closed in 2017.

34. Located in a secluded space between the Guest House and the mansion, the Graceland Chapel in the Woods lived up to its "Love Me Tender" mission on Aug. 13, 2018, when Memphis-based Elvis fans Julie Guardado and Marc Caudel — who had met during Elvis Week 2015 — became the first couple to be married in the then-new chapel.

35. Also among the structures now on the grounds of Graceland is the Elvis Presley archive: a climate-controlled cinderblock building that houses much of the estate's estimated 1.5 million documents, photographs, wardrobe items, musical instruments and other Elvis-connected objects.

36. The ambitious centerpiece of an attempt to expand the Elvis experience beyond the mansion, Elvis Presley’s Memphis opened on March 2, 2017. Located on the Graceland campus across the street from the house, the $45 million, 40-acre complex includes restaurants, shops, exhibit space and The Soundstage at Graceland, which has become one of the city's busiest venues, hosting concerts by such artists as Tanya Tucker, X, the Monkees (with Michael Nesmith, just two months before his death) and the other Elvis, Costello.

37. Graceland is closed to visitors only on Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, on March 20, 2020, Graceland closed — like many public places in Shelby County — due to Health Department mandates related to the coronavirus pandemic. It reopened May 21, with a number of whimsical Elvis-themed cautions in place. "Don't Forget to Social Distance" counseled the campus' illustrated signs, which represented the recommended six-feet-of-separation as a measurement equal to "6 teddy bears," "3 hound dogs," "2 guitars" or "1 Elvis."

38. Excluding the Guest House, Graceland has 231 employees — 160 of whom work fulltime.

39. In 2018, the Hallmark Channel holiday movie "Christmas at Graceland," starring American Idol contestant turned country music hit-maker Kellie Pickler, became the first fiction film to be shot on the grounds of the Elvis Presley estate. A ratings smash for the channel, it inspired two HCU (Hallmark Cinematic Universe) follow-ups, "Wedding at Graceland" and "Christmas at Graceland: Home for the Holidays."

40. From its 1982 public opening through May 2022, Graceland has attracted just under 23 million visitors, according to figures supplied by Graceland. With some 600,000 "guests" per year, the Elvis estate is the second most-visited "house museum" in the United States, according to Forbes. The first is the White House.

Prairie power, beer pig, bystander honor: News from around our 50 ...

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

Alabama

Mobile: A coastal environmental group filed suit Monday trying to block a decision by Alabama Power Co. to leave millions of tons of coal ash along a riverside in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, where opponents say a spill could devastate a huge ecosystem. The federal lawsuit by Mobile Baykeeper was filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center, which announced plans to sue the electrical utility in July. The group wants to force Alabama Power to give up what it contends is an illegal plan to permanently leave more than 21 million tons of coal ash in an unlined pit at Plant Barry, located north of Mobile along the Mobile River. Environmentalists argue the ash pond is polluting groundwater and could destroy a verdant, biologically diverse region should it be breached by heavy flooding, a hurricane or some other disaster. “Plant Barry is the only coal ash lagoon of a major utility left in a low-lying coastal area of the Southeast that is not already cleaned up or on track to be recycled or removed to safe storage, away from waterways,” Barry Brock, director of the law center’s Alabama office, said in a statement. Alabama Power declined to comment on the lawsuit. Plant Barry opened in 1965 about 25 miles north of Mobile. The company contends moving the material farther away from the plant site would pose a hazard in itself.

Alaska

Anchorage: A U.S. Coast Guard ship on routine patrol in the Bering Sea came across a guided missile cruiser from China, officials said Monday. But it turned out the cruiser wasn’t alone as it sailed about 86 miles north of Alaska’s Kiska Island on Sept. 19. The patrol boat, known as a cutter called Kimball, later discovered there were two other Chinese naval ships and four Russian naval vessels, including a destroyer, all in single formation. The Honolulu-based Kimball, a 418-foot vessel, observed as the ships broke formation and dispersed. A C-130 Hercules provided air support for the Kimball from the Coast Guard station in Kodiak. “While the formation has operated in accordance with international rules and norms, we will meet presence with presence to ensure there are no disruptions to U.S. interests in the maritime environment around Alaska,” Rear Adm. Nathan Moore, Seventeenth Coast Guard District commander said. The Coast Guard said Operation Frontier Sentinel guidelines call for meeting “presence with presence” when strategic competitors operate in and around U.S. waters. The Kimball will continue to monitor the area. The Chinese and Russian formation came a month after NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned about China’s interest in the Arctic and Russia’s military buildup there.

Arizona

Phoenix: A massive expansion of the state’s private school voucher system will likely go into effect after public school advocates failed to gather enough signatures to block the law, a conservative think tank that supports the expansion said Monday. The Goldwater Institute, a conservative and libertarian public policy think tank in Phoenix, said Save Our Schools Arizona “submitted just 88,866 signatures, according to petition sheets made available by the Secretary of State’s office.” That’s “significantly short of the requisite 118,843 signatures needed to overturn the reform via ballot referendum.” Although Save Our Schools Arizona said it “will await accurate numbers” from the Secretary of State’s office regarding its challenge to the law, the head of the grassroots group acknowledged it’s probably well below the threshold. Monday’s developments appear to be a major victory for “school choice” advocates in Arizona and across the nation who argue that parents should be able to use public tax dollars to send their children to schools that best serve their needs. Voucher opponents say they drain money from long-underfunded public schools that serve the vast majority of children, sending public money to unaccountable private and religious schools and mainly benefiting the wealthy.

Arkansas

Fort Smith: Deer season for archery is underway in western Arkansas, though drought may have affected the population and growth of deer this summer. A healthy population of deer and bear has been noted by those in the field during the opening days since the season began Saturday. Lack of vegetation can affect growth of deer during a drought. Young bucks may have smaller antlers, wildlife experts say, should the drought persist. That has not been the case in Arkansas this year. But the deer harvest this year in western Arkansas should be strong because the drought did not start until mid- to late June, said Ralph Meeker, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s statewide deer program coordinator. The does were able to produce enough milk for fawns that can adapt. The number of deer harvested could increase because visibility increases for hunters when drought causes foliage to die off, taking away the cover for the deer. But the deer so far are healthy, Meeker said. Antler growth has not been affected, he has observed. “Whitetail deer are a very adaptable species,” Meeker said. “We had a good growing season before the drought started in mid to late June. Fawn production was phenomenal.” The bear population – for which archery season is underway – has also reportedly increased this year in western Arkansas.

California

Sacramento: Beyond what they learn academically in kindergarten, students learn everyday routines: how to take care of class materials and how to be kind to their peers, according to Golden Empire Elementary School kindergarten teacher Carla Randazzo. And nearly two-thirds of students at the Sacramento school are English learners. “Those kids just start out having to climb uphill,” she said. “They need a lot of support to be successful.” Randazzo always thought it was “peculiar” that kindergarten is not mandatory in the state. For now, though, California won’t join 20 other states with mandatory kindergarten. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, vetoed legislation Sunday night that would have required children to attend kindergarten – whether through home-schooling or public or private school – before entering first grade at a public school. As he has with other recent legislative vetoes, Newsom cited the costs associated with providing mandatory kindergarten, about $268 million annually, which he said was not accounted for in the California budget. Newsom had supported similar legislation in the past. Proponents of mandatory kindergarten say it could help close the academic opportunity gap for low-income students and students of color, as well as help children develop important social skills before the first grade. Kindergarten enrollment in California dropped nearly 12% in the 2020-21 academic year compared to the previous year, according to the state Department of Education.

Colorado

Loveland: A bystander who intervened during the rough arrest of an elderly woman with dementia has been recognized as the only one who “did the right thing.” Reidesel Mendoza had stopped his car to confront the police officers arresting 73-year-old Karen Garner on June 26, 2020, because “the way they were handling that situation was not the right way,” he said in an interview Sept. 17, after receiving a citizenship award for his actions that day. Garner was accused of leaving Walmart without paying for $13.88 worth of merchandise, but staff stopped her and retrieved the items before she left. Garner was walking home when Officer Austin Hopp stopped her, soon forcing Garner to the ground and trying to arrest her. Mendoza saw how Hopp and two other officers were treating Garner and decided he needed to intervene. “Do you have to use that much aggression?” Mendoza could be heard saying in Hopp’s body camera footage. Hopp told him: “Get out of here; this is not your business ... this is what happens when you fight the police.” Mendoza continued to speak up. The award was presented in part by the Community Trust Commission, formed by the Loveland City Council to aid in rebuilding trust with the community and its police department. Interim Loveland Police Chief Eric Stewart applauded Mendoza’s courage in stepping up that day and said the public plays a key role in successful policing. “We certainly didn’t do a great job that day,” Stewart said. “I’m sorry we let you down that day.”

Connecticut

Waterbury: Ian Hockley testified Tuesday that he was ridiculed online as a “party boy” and an actor after posting a video of the memorial service for his 6-year-old son, who was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre. Hockley is the latest family member of the 26 victims of the shooting to testify at the defamation trial of Alex Jones, in which a jury is deciding how much the conspiracy theorist must pay for spreading the lie that the shooting was a hoax. Hockley, who lost his autistic son, Dylan, in the shooting, testified that he became the target of conspiracy theorists because he smiled during what he found as an uplifting memorial service. “That is what that video started to attract is people saying this must be fake,” he said. “ ‘He’s an actor. He’s smiling. Oh, you’re out of character’ – all of those things started to appear until we took our video down.” Earlier in the trial, other victims’ relatives gave often emotional testimony describing how they endured death threats, in-person harassment and abusive comments on social media by people calling the shooting a hoax. Some moved to avoid the abuse. The jury of six will determine how much in damages Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, should pay relatives of five children and three adults killed at the school for saying the shooting didn’t happen and inflicting emotional distress. An FBI agent who responded to the shooting also is a plaintiff.

Delaware

Wilmington: A man was killed when he was pinned beneath a truck, police said. Officers were called to Beehler Court in the Wilmington area Sunday for a report of a person hit by a vehicle, New Castle County Police said in a news release. When officers arrived, they found a 46-year-old man pinned beneath a Ford F-350 pickup truck, police said. Officers and paramedics tried to resuscitate the man, but their efforts were unsuccessful, and police said he was pronounced dead on the scene. The initial investigation revealed that the man got out of the truck while it was still in gear, and he was hit by the truck, then became pinned beneath it, police said. His body was turned over to the Delaware Division of Forensic Sciences.

District of Columbia

Washington: First lady Jill Biden paid tribute Friday to Jacqueline Kennedy, a predecessor 60 years ago, for her pivotal role in preventing the teardown of historic buildings on iconic Lafayette Square near the White House. Biden helped the White House Historical Association, an organization that Kennedy helped spearhead, unveil a medallion of the former first lady, designed by American artist Chas Fagan, in front of the association’s office on the square. The wife of President John F. Kennedy is widely credited with ushering in an emphasis on historic preservation at the White House during her 1,036 days as first lady. Lafayette Square, just north of the White House, over the years has become a gathering place for protesters, from suffragists in the early 20th century to Vietnam demonstrators in the 1960s to Americans speaking out for policing reform in 2020. In quieter daily times, it is a city oasis for tourists and for office workers on lunch breaks. The bas relief of Kennedy sits in a new garden at the front of the association’s office, known as Decatur House. It includes one of her best-known quotations: “The White House belongs to the American people.” Jill Biden said Kennedy worked to save the park and surrounding historic townhouses “because we all deserve to experience our rich history, the full, complex and beautiful story of who we are.”

Florida

Fort Lauderdale: Prosecutors in the penalty trial of school shooter Nikolas Cruz began their rebuttal of the defense case Tuesday by showing the jury swastikas he drew on a gun magazine and his boots, his online racism and misogyny, and his online searches for child pornography. Prosecutors are trying to show that Cruz’s murder of 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School four years ago was driven by antisocial personality disorder – commonly known as being a sociopath – and not fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as the defense contends. Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last October to the Feb. 14, 2018, murders – the trial is only to decide whether he is sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole. Detective Nick Masters, an online investigator, then testified about racist and sexist searches and comments Cruz made starting about eight months before the shootings. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer only allowed prosecutors to present a fraction of the searches and comments Cruz made, saying more would be excessively prejudicial. Jurors were told Cruz wrote that “the Nazi party will rise again.” He made searches and comments using a racial slur directed against Black people. He wrote that he punched his widowed mother and called her a slur used against women. He wrote that “women are less important than a dog.” He also made comments extolling animal abuse, saying he had killed 12 cats and writing: “I am glad when animals die. It makes me happy.”

Georgia

Atlanta: State regulators began hearings Tuesday on Georgia Power Co.’s request to raise rates by 12% over the next three years, setting up clashes over how much profit the utility should earn, how much solar panel owners should be paid and how rates should be structured. The five elected members of the Public Service Commission are scheduled to decide in December on the company’s request to collect a cumulative $2.8 billion more from its 2.3 million customers beginning in January. Changes are likely before any vote. The company says it needs more money to improve the grid, retire old coal plants, acquire electricity from new sources and upgrade customer-facing computer systems. A residential customer who uses 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per month pays Georgia Power an average of $128 a month now, the company has said. Under the plan, that would rise by $14.32 a month in 2023, reaching a total of $16.29 more over the three-year period. That’s nearly $200 a year more by 2025. However, electricity bills are likely to go up even more. Commissioners have already approved plans for the company to increase rates by $3.78 a month when the first of two new nuclear units being built at Plant Vogtle starts generating electricity, likely early next year. A bigger increase could follow the second new reactor coming online, possibly in 2024.

Hawaii

Honolulu: A man pleaded not guilty Monday to charges he kidnapped and sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl and forced her to smoke meth. Duncan Mahi, 52, also requested a trial by jury. Judge Wendy M. DeWeese maintained bail for Mahi at $2 million and set his trial date for Feb. 7. According to an indictment filed Wednesday, Duncan forced the girl to tie up her boyfriend at a Anaehoomalu Beach in Waikoloa, put a knife to her throat and kidnapped her. He’s charged with 11 counts, including kidnapping, terroristic threatening, robbery, sexual assault and methamphetamine trafficking. If found guilty, he could face life in prison without the possibility of parole because he was convicted twice for two separate 2018 cases of terroristic threatening. Police issued an Maile Amber Alert, similar to the Amber Alert for missing children in other states, shortly after the girl’s kidnapping on Sept. 16. Police said the girl managed to get free one day later after she convinced Mahi to take her to a restaurant in Hilo to get something to eat, and people recognized her from the alert.

Idaho

Boise: Universities across the state are warning staffers not to refer students to abortion providers, and at least one public university is barring employees from telling students how to obtain emergency contraception or birth control as well. It’s the latest restriction in a state that already holds some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. “This is going to have a very broad impact,” said Mike Satz, an attorney and former faculty member and interim dean at the University of Idaho’s College of Law. “It’s going to have a very strong chilling effect on free speech, and it’s going to scare people. I’m afraid it’s going to scare people from going to school here or sending their kids to school at Idaho institutions.” The prohibition against referring students to abortion providers or “promoting” abortion in any way comes from the “No Public Funds for Abortion Act,” passed by Idaho’s Republican-led Legislature in 2021. Boise State University, like the University of Idaho, told faculty members in a newsletter earlier this month that they could face felony charges for violating the law. Idaho State University did not respond to messages asking if it had issued similar guidance. The law also bars staffers and school-based health clinics from dispensing or telling students where to obtain emergency contraception, such as the Plan B pill, except for in cases of rape.

Illinois

Springfield: Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday that the state’s relatively low jobless rate will help him keep his promise to pay off coronavirus-era debt in the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund by year’s end. The Democrat announced he will transfer $450 million from the account set aside to pay jobless benefits toward the debt that ballooned to $4.5 billion during business closures forced by COVID-19. That decreases the remaining balance of the federal loan to $1.8 billion, which Pritzker pledged will be eliminated by the new year. Illinois joined dozens of other states in borrowing money to pay unemployment claims, which in Illinois surged in spring 2020 to levels not seen since 1982. “With the COVID-19 pandemic came a disaster of a different kind,” Pritzker said at a Chicago news conference. “All across the United States, to make sure eligible individuals could get access to unemployment benefits, extraordinary measures were taken by state unemployment trust funds because nearly none … were funded enough to cover that kind of an emergency.” The General Assembly, controlled by Democrats, and Pritzker agreed last spring to use $2.7 billion in federal pandemic relief funds to more than halve the debt. Republicans argued for paying the entire balance with federal money while it was available.

Indiana

Indianapolis: The Satanic Temple is suing the state on claims a near-total abortion ban violates the rights of its Hoosier members who want abortions after their birth control failed. A lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana by the Massachusetts-based religious association says it brought the lawsuit on behalf of anonymous women from Indiana who say they became pregnant by accident despite using contraceptives. Gov. Eric Holcomb and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita are listed as defendants. The new law bans abortions except in cases of rape or incest up to 10 weeks post-fertilization, when pregnancy poses a risk to the life or long-term health of the mother, or in cases of fatal fetal anomalies. Enforcement of the law was put on hold last week by a Monroe County judge who found that it may violate the Indiana Constitution. Rokita has already appealed the judge’s decision. The Satanic Temple has more than 11,300 members in Indiana, according to its lawsuit. The group “venerates, but does not worship,” the allegorical Satan as featured in the 17th-century epic poem “Paradise Lost” by John Milton. Members follow a set of tenets including the belief that a person’s body is subject to their will and their will alone, the lawsuit says, and that beliefs should “conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world.”

Iowa

Des Moines: Cattle producer Bryan Sievers thinks the black-eyed Susans, purple coneflowers and native grasses in his eastern Iowa prairie can help warm homes and tackle water pollution, erosion and other pressing environmental problems in the state. Thanks to a five-year, $80 million federal grant, Sievers will work with Missouri business Roeslein Alternative Energy, Iowa State University and a dozen other groups to test whether U.S. farmers can make money turning prairies and manure into renewable fuel. Sievers and his partners plan to mix harvested prairie, cover crops and conservation grassland with cattle manure in an anaerobic digester to make renewable natural gas that will go into a pipeline that feeds homes and businesses or be compressed to power trucks and other vehicles. The project is one of 70 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently awarded $2.8 billion, a total the federal agency nearly tripled after receiving about 450 requests. The projects seek to create new carbon markets that pay farmers for work to reduce the environmental impact of commodities like corn, soybeans, beef and pork. Sievers and his partners expect their project will help pave the way for more on-farm digesters that can reduce odor from cattle, pig and other livestock operations; cut harmful methane, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions; and encourage farmers to plant prairies, conservation reserve grasses and annual cover crops on marginal farmland, as well as buffers along rivers, lakes and streams.

Kansas

Wichita: A man was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison for his role in a hoax phone call that led police to shoot and kill an innocent man in 2017. Shane Gaskill was sentenced after pleading guilty in May to wire fraud, KSN reports. He was originally placed on probation but faced renewed prosecution after violating the terms of his probation. Prosecutors said Gaskill got into an argument in December 2017 with Ohio gamer Casey Viner over a $1.50 bet. Using an old Wichita address Gaskill had given him, Viner persuaded Tyler Barris in Los Angeles to call Wichita police and say a kidnapping and shooting had happened at the address, prosecutors said. It’s called “swatting,” a form of retaliation in which someone makes a false report to police to send first responders, including SWAT teams, to someone’s address. Andrew Finch, 28, who lived at the address, was shot and killed by police after he opened the front door to see what was going on outside. Barris was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to 51 counts of making fake emergency calls and threats around the country, including the one that led to Finch’s death. Viner served 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

Kentucky

Frankfort: The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a woman who shoplifted about $80 worth of items from a Walmart self-checkout station should not face a felony that carries five to 10 years in prison – a punishment that Attorney General Daniel Cameron defended. All seven justices instead agreed with the Kentucky Court of Appeals, which had said it was “inherently unfair to convict somebody of a class C felony for theft of goods worth $80,” and the high court sent the case back to Pulaski Circuit Court, where a jury had initially found Chasity Shirley guilty of “unlawful access to a computer.” Shirley, 34, will now likely receive a directed verdict, which would see her felony conviction dismissed in court. While shopping in 2018 at a Walmart in Somerset, Shirley pulled what retailers call a “switcheroo” by switching the bar codes from a toothbrush holder with those from a more expensive children’s rug and slipcover before checking herself out of the store. A loss-control associate caught her, and the cost difference between the item she paid for and the two items she tried to take was $80.80. She also allegedly “pushed and elbowed” a loss prevention manager as she exited the store but was later found not guilty of a fourth-degree assault charge at trial, the Kentucky Supreme Court noted.

Louisiana

New Orleans: A social services nonprofit long called the Kingsley House renamed itself Tuesday, dropping the name of a Victorian clergyman who is perhaps best remembered as the author of a children’s fantasy novel but held profoundly racist views. For 126 years it was Kingsley House, named both for author and social reformer Charles Kingsley and for the founder’s son Kingsley Warner, who died as a toddler. Now the nonprofit will be called Clover. Officials knew Charles Kingsley had been a chaplain to Queen Victoria, tutor to the boy who became King George V, and had written about 20 books. “And he was quote-unquote a social reformer who helped create the settlement house movement,” said Keith Liederman, CEO of Clover, shortly before Tuesday’s announcement. The Rev. Beverly Warner of New Orleans’ Trinity Episcopal Church founded Kingsley House in 1896 as a settlement house, an inner-city institution dedicated to fighting poverty. The organization’s programs now help children in need, families and community. Its prominence made it a stop in Democrat John Edwards’ unsuccessful campaign for president in 2007. Its community outreach was why former Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush visited there in 2006 to announce $9.7 million in grants to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Maine

Portland: Congressional candidates in a hotly contested race snipped at each other Tuesday about a contribution from the leader of a conservation group that has discouraged consumers from buying lobster. Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden is defending his seat in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District against Republican former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin and independent candidate Tiffany Bond. Poliquin’s campaign on Tuesday called on Golden to return a contribution of $667 from Julie Packard, the executive director of Seafood Watch. The group based at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California that Packard helped found added American and Canadian lobster to its “red list” of seafood species to avoid this summer because of the risk fishing gear poses to endangered whales. Poliquin’s camp said that listing has caused economic hardship for fishermen in Maine, where most of the nation’s domestic lobster comes to the docks. “Seafood Watch’s warning to consumers to avoid Maine lobster, on top of forty-year high inflation and fuel prices, have gouged Maine lobstermen’s paychecks,” said Roy Matthews, a Poliquin spokesperson. Golden’s campaign said he has no intention to return the money and cited Golden’s opposition to new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration whale protection regulations as evidence that he has the fishing industry’s interests at heart.

Maryland

Annapolis: A judge granted an emergency petition Friday filed by the Maryland State Board of Elections to enable the counting of mail-in ballots earlier than they were during the state’s July primary. Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge James Bonifant granted the petition, which will allow local elections officials across the state to begin canvassing mail-in ballots on Oct. 1. Bonifant wrote that with so many mail-in ballots, local boards of election would not be able to verify the vote count within 10 days of the general election as required. “There is no doubt that the increased number of mail-in ballots will have an enormous affect on the process of this election,” Bonifant wrote in his ruling. “Mandatory deadlines will be missed if the Court takes no action.” The state elections board said the ruling provides election officials with additional time to canvass and tabulate mail-in ballots to ensure that all critical election-related deadlines established by law are met. “It also enables elections officials to return to a well-established process of canvassing mail-in ballots prior to Election Day, which was allowed in the 2020 General Election,” the board said in a statement.

Massachusetts

Provincetown: A Harwich pig that had long been overshadowed by a diva sibling has risen to celebrity status and beer label glory. A stirring portrait of Bartholomew, a 200-pound half-Julianna, half-mini pig, now graces the cans of a new offering from the Provincetown Brewing Co. The high hog honor has not affected Bart one bit. “He’s kind of like an old man in a sport coat with sneakers on,” owner Emma Bankman said. “He doesn’t care what anyone thinks.” “Bartholobrew,” billed as “a classic wheat ale with sweet, caramelly notes,” is the frothy result of a summer-long pet label contest to benefit Provincetown’s Carrie A. Seaman Animal Shelter. Sherry Brec, CASAS board president, said there were more than 65 animal entries, and the donate-to-vote system generated more than $17,000 for the no-kill facility that places dogs and cats with folks on the Outer Cape. Meanwhile, in Harwich, Bartholomew has finally eclipsed the renown of his domineering half-sister Matilda. According to Bankman, Matilda has long been the boss hog in the house and often shuts the door on Bart, leaving him outside. And Matilda even tried to nose in on Bart’s bowl of celebratory Bartholobrew, a sudsy incursion that was nipped in the bud by an alert Bankman.

Michigan

Detroit: General Motors is stepping back a bit on a return-to-work policy after a backlash from salaried employees. CEO Mary Barra sent out a note to the salaried workforce Tuesday offering an apology of sorts for the timing of putting out a new policy late in the day Friday saying employees would have to return to working in the office three days a week. She said in the update that GM’s plan still will include a more regular in-person presence, but it will not implement any changes to its return-to-the-office policy this year as the company continues to listen to worker feedback. The plan still will ask employees to work in-office three days each week. “The initial letter was a notification, and the purpose of the update is to provide clarification and additional details,” GM spokeswoman Maria Raynal said Tuesday. “The timing has shifted slightly; however, the overall plan has not changed.” In Tuesday’s note sent to employees, Barra wrote: “We want to take the opportunity to address some of the questions, concerns, and misconceptions that we’ve heard. We acknowledge that the timing of the message, late on a Friday afternoon, was unfortunate. It was also unintentional.” GM will communicate more information on its plan next month, Barra said.

Minnesota

St. Paul: Republicans attacked Democratic Gov. Tim Walz on Monday after a judge took the rare step of disputing the administration’s claim that the judge prevented the state from cutting off payments to Feeding Our Future, which is the target of a $250 million federal fraud case. The GOP candidates for governor, attorney general and state auditor – Scott Jensen, Jim Schultz and Ryan Wilson – said Walz and other top Democrats should have done more to stop the alleged fraud before it became what federal prosecutors last week called the largest pandemic-related fraud in the country. But the warring political sides disagree on how far Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann went toward compelling the Minnesota Department of Education to resume payments to Feeding Our Future. A court statement issued late Friday said the judge “never issued an order” for the state to resume payments, but the department produced a hearing transcript showing the judge threatened to hold one attorney in contempt if the state failed to restore the flow of funds. The Republican candidates largely accepted the judge’s version of events. Jensen called for an independent investigation to report back before he and Walz hold their next debate Oct. 18.

Mississippi

Jackson: The federal government wants to work with officials in the city to reach a legal agreement that ensures Jackson can sustain its water system in the future, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan said Monday. Federal attorneys also sent a letter to city officials Monday threatening legal action if Jackson does not agree to negotiations related to its water system. Regan returned to Mississippi’s capital city Monday to meet with Jackson officials about the city’s troubled water system. At the meeting with Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and U.S. Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim, Regan said the federal government would work with the city to “deliver long overdue relief for Jackson residents.” “The people of Jackson, Mississippi, have lacked access to safe and reliable water for decades. After years of neglect, Jackson’s water system finally reached a breaking point this summer, leaving tens of thousands of people without any running water for weeks,” Regan said. “These conditions are unacceptable in the United States of America.” In a Monday letter sent to city officials and obtained by the news station WLBT-TV, Kim and attorneys for DOJ’s Environmental Enforcement Section said they were “prepared to file an action” against the city under the Safe Drinking Water Act but hoped the matter could be resolved through an “enforceable agreement.”

Missouri

St. Louis: As abuse allegations mount against a Christian boarding school, the way “troubled” children are often whisked away to facilities far from home is under fire. Within what’s known as the secure transport industry, it’s called “gooning.” Brawny men show up under the cover of darkness and force a teenager into a vehicle, taking them against their will to a boarding school, foster home or treatment center. They might be restrained with handcuffs or zip ties. They could be blindfolded or hooded. Criminal charges are rare because the little-known industry is virtually unregulated. In Missouri alone, more than 100 Christian boarding schools promise hope for wayward teens. The former doctor at Agape Boarding School, in Stockton, which serves about 60 teenage boys, was charged last year with multiple counts of sexual abuse of children, and five staff members are charged with abuse. In nearby Humansville, Circle of Hope, a Christian boarding school for girls, closed amid an investigation in 2020. The husband-and-wife co-founders were charged with 99 abuse counts last year, including sexual abuse. The allegations of wrongdoing at Agape and Circle of Hope led state Rep. Keri Ingle, a Democrat, to sponsor a measure signed into law last year that requires more rigorous oversight in Missouri. Now, Ingle said she’ll seek stricter regulations on companies transporting the kids against their will.

Montana

Kalispell: Authorities said Tuesday that they were investigating the shooting of a 6-month-old dog by a woman who skinned the animal and posted pictures of herself with the pelt, apparently believing she had killed a young wolf. The animal was among more than a dozen dogs that local residents reported abandoned last week on national forest land in northwestern Montana near Kalispell, according to the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office. The hunter who shot one of the dogs posted images of herself smiling on social media in front of the animal’s head and hide, which were taken by the sheriff’s office and turned over to a state wildlife biologist, said Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks spokesperson Greg Lemon. The biologist determined the remains belonged to a domestic dog about 6 months old, Lemon said. Officials were investigating if the woman was properly licensed to hunt wolves, he said. The sheriff’s office is investigating both the shooting of the dog and the abandonment of the other dogs but declined Tuesday to release any further information. Lemon said accurately identifying animals before they are shot is a core tenet of hunting. “The vast majority of hunters are very deliberate about when they pull the trigger that the animal in their sights is the animal they are licensed to hunt,” he said.

Nebraska

Lincoln: With Memorial Stadium on the cusp of its 100th anniversary, the University of Nebraska athletic department on Thursday set the stage for a massive renovation that will make the venue more fan-friendly for decades to come. University leaders also announced a new multimedia rights deal that would bring in more than $300 million over 15 years and said that alcohol would be sold at men’s and women’s basketball games at Pinnacle Bank Arena starting this season. The athletic department must get approval from the university Board of Regents, which is expected to approve the plans. The next board meeting is Friday. Nebraska is scheduled to open a $160 million football facility next year, and the Big Ten’s billion-dollar-a-year media rights deal announced this summer will bring unprecedented windfalls to league members. The announcements came less than two weeks after Nebraska began its search for a new football coach following the firing of Scott Frost. Athletic director Trev Alberts said discussions about stadium upgrades and the rights deal have been going on for months, and the timing is coincidental. The Cornhuskers have played in Memorial Stadium since 1923, and incremental improvements have been made over the years, including luxury suites in 1999 and an expansion to more than 85,000 seats in 2013.

Nevada

Las Vegas: A dolphin habitat at a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip has been temporarily closed after the third mammal death at the attraction in five months. Officials at the Mirage Secret Garden and Habitat said an 11-year-old bottlenose dolphin named K2 died Saturday. The cause of death remains unclear, but officials told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the mammal had been receiving treatment for a respiratory illness. They say Maverick, a 19-year-old bottlenose dolphin, died Sept. 2 following treatment for a lung infection, while 13-year-old Bella died in April after undergoing treatment for gastroenteritis. According to the international organization Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums’ website, a bottlenose dolphin’s life expectancy is about 28 to 29 years. Mirage interim President Franz Kallao said officials were working closely with veterinary and pathology experts to determine the cause of death for K2, who was born at the Secret Garden. “We are also working with additional outside veterinary, water quality, behavioral, animal welfare, and environmental experts to help us conduct a thorough review and inspection of both the animals and the facility,” Kallao said.

New Hampshire

Dover: A local woman who found herself with an unexpected inheritance and the desire to “do the most good” with the money is helping to make housing for domestic abuse survivors possible. She received more than half a million dollars following the sale of real estate her late uncle’s family business owned. Knowing her family was financially comfortable and living within their means, she did something unexpected: She became an angel investor with a $500,000 investment into Dover Housing Authority-owned property. This income assures the future of the Haven at the Falls project to house domestic abuse survivors, said Ryan Crosby, executive director of the authority. The investment will serve as seed funding to build the affordable housing units. The proposed six-unit apartment development is planned in the Dover Housing Authority’s Whittier Falls neighborhood. The new project was born out of a partnership between the Dover Housing Authority and Haven, a domestic and sexual violence prevention agency. “Our angel investor is a lot like me – frustrated with how little affordable housing there is and how little there is we can do about it,” Crosby said. “This investment allows us to both make a direct, measurable impact in that fight. We both share the belief that housing is a human right.”

New Jersey

Trenton: After months of calls to eliminate a state-mandated expensive teacher licensing test blamed for worsening the teacher shortage, Gov. Phil Murphy did away with it – sort of. The Murphy administration said the educative Teacher Performance Assessment would no longer be required in New Jersey, but it must be replaced by a similar test to be used to certify graduates. Murphy issued a conditional veto Thursday to legislation that shifts the burden of certifying teachers from the state’s shoulders to the colleges that train them. Starting in spring 2024, colleges and universities will be required to use their own tests as a final step to certify graduates before they may join the workforce. The conditional veto was welcomed by many of the state’s education-related groups, including the state superintendents’ association, teachers’ unions and school principals’ associations. Some said Murphy waited too long to make a decision about the test. The New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, welcomed the move to remove the edTPA but indicated in its statement that the decision could have come earlier and that it continues to delay teacher candidates who are otherwise ready to start working.

New Mexico

Santa Fe: Legislators are reconsidering how they evaluate complaints of sexual misconduct against colleagues, amid outrage about the handling of a complaint against an influential senator. A panel of leading lawmakers met Monday to discuss possible changes to ground rules for harassment investigations at the Legislature. “It has become clear that our anti-harassment policy is not working,” said Democratic state Rep. Daymon Ely of Corrales, co-chairman of a legislative ethics committee. “This is intended to start a discussion.” Harassment complaints against lawmakers are often assigned for an initial investigation to a panel of four legislators, which may deadlock on a 2-2 vote. Ely proposed the changes that would assign an outside expert to break any tie vote, with public notice of the outcome. Ely outlined proposals that would remove secrecy provisions that currently prevent people who complain of harassment by legislators from publicly discussing any investigation that has been dismissed without a finding of probable cause. “How do we fix that so that we have closure for those people?” said Democratic Sen. George Muñoz, of Gallup. “It can’t come out in a tie. There has to be closure for both sides.”

New York

Albany: State investigators have substantiated more than 1,600 instances of corporal punishment in New York schools over the past five years, The Times Union in Albany reports. A substantial number of the complaints were in New York City public schools, according to the newspaper. Other incidents included a substitute teacher in Watertown who was fired and arrested for grabbing a student by the throat and forcing him against a wall and a teaching assistant in Syracuse who was transferred and retrained for spanking a nonverbal student. Corporal punishment is generally banned and can be classified as child abuse. In all, the state Education Department documented nearly 18,000 complaints of corporal punishment in public and charter schools from 2016 through 2021, according to the Times Union. The newspaper said it found that school districts have underreported cases of corporal punishment to the federal government and that state Education Department records are not readily available to the public.

North Carolina

Raleigh: Four people pleaded guilty Monday to misdemeanors for their roles in absentee ballot fraud in rural North Carolina during the 2016 and 2018 elections. The convictions stemmed from an investigation that in part resulted in a do-over congressional election. Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway accepted the plea agreements, which resulted in no active prison or jail time, in Wake County court. Cases against six other defendants remained pending, with hearings scheduled through the end of next month, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said. All 10 defendants, according to indictments handed up in 2019, had a common involvement with Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr., a longtime political operative in rural Bladen County. Dowless also was indicted on more than a dozen state charges, with his case scheduled last year to go to trial last month. He rejected a plea agreement and looked forward to his day in court, according to a friend. But he died in April after being diagnosed with lung cancer. Freeman said at the time that the prosecution of the other cases would continue. Dowless worked in the 2018 congressional race for then-Republican candidate Mark Harris, who appeared to have received the most votes in the general election for the 9th District seat in south-central North Carolina. But allegations against Dowless surfaced, and testimony and other information revealed at a State Board of Elections hearing described him running an illegal “ballot harvesting” operation.

North Dakota

Bismarck: A prison guard was fired over the suicide of a man who was serving life sentences for killing four people. Sgt. Deandre Adams violated corrections policy in failing to adequately check on Chad Isaak, according to a termination letter from the warden at North Dakota State Penitentiary. Adams was fired Thursday. Warden James Sayler noted that Adams had received two previous written reprimands, for failing to report that he had left a missing inmate in a recreational area and for not intervening when two prisoners were potentially exchanging contraband, the Bismarck Tribune reports. “Your credibility, professionalism, and the trust I had in you as a sergeant are irreparably damaged,” Sayler wrote. “This level of trust, which is expected of every team member, is something I no longer have in you, due to your misconduct.” Isaak, 48, died July 31. An investigative report from the state Highway Patrol released last month found that Adams said he failed to adequately check on Isaak twice. It also said Isaak had covered his cell with cardboard. Adams knew inmates were not allowed to cover their cell windows but allowed it as a “courtesy in case they were naked in their cells,” the report said. “He stated they could enforce it but that they would just get more window coverings.”

Ohio

Columbus: The state has officially signed off on its biggest package of incentives tied to job creation – potentially totaling as much as $650 million over 30 years for Intel for its $20 billion investment in Licking County. The Ohio Tax Credit Authority on Monday approved the incentive package, one of six projects the panel approved. As is the case with most projects that come before the authority, there was little discussion about the Intel project before the four members approved it. The $650 million approved Monday is part of a total incentive package from Ohio to Intel that is expected to top $2 billion. Unlike the other state incentives for Intel, the one approved by the authority is based on how many jobs it creates. The incentive begins in 2024; Intel has said in anticipates production of semiconductors to begin in 2025. Intel announced in January its plan to create 3,000 jobs as part of its $20 billion investment in New Albany, the biggest single economic development project in state history. Those jobs will have an annual payroll of $405 million, according to Intel. Intel has said it expects to start recruiting this fall from college campus as it anticipates ramping up hiring in advance of the opening of the two plants.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma City: The state’s Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 Tuesday to deny clemency for a man sentenced to die for killing his 9-month-old daughter in 2002, moving him a step closer to his scheduled lethal injection next month. Attorneys for Benjamin Cole, 57, did not dispute that Cole killed Brianna Cole by forcibly bending the infant backward, breaking her spine and tearing her aorta, but they argued that he both is severely mentally ill and has a growing lesion on his brain that has continued to worsen while he has been in prison. Cole has refused medical attention and ignored his personal hygiene, hoarding food and living in a darkened cell with little to no communication with staff or fellow prisoners, his attorneys told the panel. “His condition has continued to decline over the course of this year,” Cole’s attorney Katrina Conrad-Legler said. The lesion on Cole’s brain, which is separate from his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, has grown in size in recent years and affects the part of his brain that deals with problem-solving, movement and social interaction, Conrad-Legler said. Cole declined to speak to the panel. Attorneys for the state and members of the victim’s family told the board that Cole’s symptoms of mental illness are exaggerated and that the brutal nature of his daughter’s killing merits his execution.

Oregon

Portland: Two ships that have been abandoned in the Columbia River for years are being removed, and the U.S. Coast Guard is working with state agencies to clean up the fuel and oil that leaked from the vessels. The ships – a Navy tug called the Sakarissa and a Coast Guard cutter called the Alert – first arrived in Portland in 2006 and were brought near Hayden Island in hopes that they could be turned into a museum. But the funding for that project dried up, and they have been abandoned for more than a decade.Both of the ships sunk two years ago. Bill Ryan with the Oregon Department of State Lands said it’s not yet clear why the Alert sunk, but the Sakarissa foundered after someone salvaging metal cut through a pipe, causing it to flood. The Coast Guard raised the 100-foot Sakarissa from the river last week and towed it to a repair service to remove the remaining oil waste from the ship. Metro Council, a regional government agency that serves three counties in northwest Oregon, is spending $2 million to have the ships removed, and the Coast Guard is spending more than $1 million to clean up. The state estimates that there are more than 300 vessels abandoned around Oregon. Removing them all would cost an estimated $40 million.

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia: Mayor Jim Kenney signed an executive order Tuesday banning guns and deadly weapons from the city’s indoor and outdoor recreation spaces, including parks, basketball courts and pools. The order is the latest attempt by Philadelphia officials to regulate guns inside city limits – something made difficult by Pennsylvania’s preemption law that bars municipalities from enacting or enforcing their own stricter gun regulations. Attorneys for the city said the executive order is the city managing its facilities as a property owner, making it different from previous legislation passed by the City Council and struck down in court. The ceremonial signing also comes the day after Kenney spoke at the funeral for Tiffany Fletcher, a 41-year-old mother of three, who was struck and killed by crossfire earlier this month outside of the city recreation center where she worked. A 14-year-old, who was firing at another group of teens, has since been charged in Fletcher’s shooting death. “I watched (parks and recreation workers) yesterday line up on Lehigh Avenue like police officers burying one of their own. … I saw what I usually see when a police officer or firefighter dies in the line of duty. They were all out there lined up like they were on the front line, and they are,” Kenney said, fighting back his emotions.

Rhode Island

Barrington: The owner of the historic Belton Court mansion has applied to demolish the deteriorating buildings on the 37-acre property. While the demolition permit has not been granted, there is little Barrington can do to prevent issuing the demolition permit once all the requirements are met, including such items as a plan to dispose of asbestos. Barrington Town Manager Phil Hervey said the mansion, once occupied by the Zion Bible College, was the centerpiece of the town’s 2016 master plan, as well as zoning rules passed specifically for the property that would allow it to become age-restricted housing. He is trying to set up a meeting with the project’s managers to discuss the demolition, but no date has been set. “We cannot prevent the teardown,” Hervey said. “If it meets the technical requirements, I don’t see any way to not issue it at a certain point.” The property has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1976. It was once an 800-acre estate, the country house of Frederick Peck, designed by the Providence architecture firm Martin & Hall. The property is owned by a Chinese investor and holdings company who bought it atpublic auction in 2011 for $3.85 million after town officials backed out of a plan to purchase it from the Zion Bible Institute for $5.2 million. Barrington College occupied the campus in the 1950s until it was bought in 1985 by the Zion Bible Institute, which vacated the property in 2007.

South Carolina

Columbia: Conservative lawmakers voted Tuesday not to make changes to the state’s abortion laws after this summer’s U.S. Supreme Court decision, meaning rules on abortion likely will not become more restrictive. South Carolina was for decades at the forefront of passing more restrictive abortion laws that challenged Roe v. Wade, before the landmark case was overturned this summer. But the state that helped lead the nation through requiring ultrasounds, parental consent and 24-hour waiting periods before abortions is at an impasse during a special session. The Senate could only muster enough votes to tweak South Carolina’s current six-week ban – which isn’t even in effect at the moment because of a state Supreme Court challenge. The House started its session Tuesday by rejecting a proposal by Democratic Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter to have the right to abortion placed before voters in a constitutional amendment. “Why are you afraid to let the people decide?” Cobb-Hunter asked. “Are you afraid you are going to be proven wrong? I think that’s it.” The rejection of the Senate’s version allows a group of three lawmakers from each chamber to work on a compromise between the Senate bill and the House version, which banned almost all abortions with exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest or that threaten the life of the mother up to 12 weeks after conception.

South Dakota

Sioux Falls: For the first time this year, anthrax, a serious bacterial disease, has been found in a herd of livestock in western South Dakota. State Veterinarian Dr. Beth Thompson confirmed the presence of the disease in a press release from the South Dakota Animal Industry Board on Tuesday. The disease was found in several deceased cows that belonged to a herd of 160 unvaccinated cattle in Meade County. South Dakota State University’s animal disease laboratory confirmed the disease from samples submitted over the weekend. Anthrax is a pervasive disease that can devastate herds of livestock in a short amount of time, “and much of South Dakota has the potential of experiencing an outbreak,” Thompson said in the release. Cattle that catch anthrax may sudden perish without any visible symptoms. Russ Daly, state public health veterinarian with SDSU, said the general public is not at risk of infection, but farmers need to avoid making direct skin contact with carcasses containing anthrax. Drought, floods and winds can spread anthrax spores to grazing livestock. Spores can also persist indefinitely in contaminated soil and may vegetate in grazeland, which could further spread the infection among South Dakota’s cattle.

Tennessee

Nashville: The state’s textbook commission may need additional staff and its own attorney to deal with the aftermath of a new, controversial Tennessee law requiring schools to catalog and publicize a list of all available library and classroom materials. Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission chair Linda Cash told a legislative subcommittee on Tuesday the law has added a lot of work “to people who already have a full load.” Cash suggested the commission should have an independent attorney who can answer commission questions, as the commission is currently seeking legal answers from the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office. “The way that we’re designed currently, it’s hard to get an opinion,” Cash said. The commission faces a Dec. 1 deadline to issue statewide guidance on the library materials law, which the General Assembly passed this year in response to pushback from conservatives alleging students were being exposed to “inappropriate” school materials. The commission must provide schools’ guidance on determining what is age-appropriate, which is not settled in state law, in addition to establishing an appeals process for local decisions on contested materials.

Texas

Dallas: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ran out of his house and jumped into a truck driven by his wife, a state senator, to avoid being served a subpoena to testify Tuesday in an abortion access case, according to court documents. A process server wrote in an affidavit that he was attempting to deliver the federal court subpoena Monday at Paxton’s home and ultimately had to leave the document on the ground. He said the Republican avoided him for more than an hour from inside his house, then dashed toward the truck, and the couple drove off. Paxton, who is facing a variety of legal troubles as he seeks to win a third term in November, said he avoided the server out of safety concerns and said the news media should be ashamed for reporting on what happened. “It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family,” Paxton wrote on Twitter on Monday night. On Tuesday, a judge hearing the lawsuit by nonprofit groups that want to help Texans pay for abortions out of state granted Paxton’s request to quash the subpoena.

Utah

St. George: State wildlife officers are launching a new drone team to help prevent vandalism and provide law enforcement on public lands. Five Division of Wildlife Resources officers completed various licensing and training requirements with the Federal Aviation Administration to become certified law enforcement drone operators and staff the first Unmanned Aerial Systems team. “Using drones will help us more effectively solve wildlife crimes, and having trained law enforcement drone pilots will also allow us to assist other law enforcement agencies with search-and-rescue efforts or any other investigations,” DWR Captain Wade Hovinga said. The specialized drone officers function similarly to a K-9 officer team, called in to help with situations like search-and-rescue operations, searching for evidence of illegally taken wildlife, assisting biologists with wildlife surveys and investigating hunting-related shooting incidents. “Utah conservation officers are public servants, and these new tools will help us better serve the public, whether we’re solving poaching crimes or locating lost hunters,” Hovinga said. DWR officers patrol Utah’s mountains, lakes and unpopulated areas, often on foot or on off-road vehicles or even on horseback, investigating wildlife-related violations.

Vermont

Northfield: A student at a military college who sued top Pentagon officials after he was deemed unfit for service because he tested positive for HIV has settled his lawsuit and plans to pursue his dream of becoming an Army officer, his lawyers said Tuesday. “I am incredibly grateful to be back on track to obtain a contract with the ROTC and then commission as an officer,” Eddie Diaz, a student at Norwich University, said in a statement released by Lawyers for Civil Rights. “I just want an opportunity to serve my country, and I believe that should be available to all eligible Americans.” The plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in Burlington in May was listed as John Doe, but Diaz is now using his real name publicly. Diaz, 21, of Revere, Massachusetts, said in the complaint that he tested positive for HIV in October 2020 during his sophomore year at Norwich, the nation’s oldest private military college. He was deemed unfit for service and dropped from the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and the Vermont National Guard in violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal law despite being “healthy, asymptomatic and on a treatment regimen that renders his viral load undetectable,” according to the suit. Military officials never asked him how he manages his HIV or spoke to his treating physician, and he was never examined by a military doctor, the suit said.

Virginia

Charlottesville: The Albemarle-Charlottesville Historical Society is creating a database with the information it has uncovered about enslaved people in the area so descendants can make connections. The goal is to allow descendants’ voices to guide the process for creating some kind of memorial for the site, The Daily Progress reports. Charlottesville native Diane Brown Townes knew some of her family history from records kept in an old tattered family Bible passed down for generations, and she knew she had ancestors who were enslaved in the region. But until recently, she had no idea some of her people may be buried in unmarked graves in a city park she’d spent lots of time in over the years or that she’s been living next door to relatives without knowing it. The Charlottesville officials believe there are at least 43 enslaved people buried at Pen Park in unmarked graves. The graves are adjacent to a cemetery belonging to the Gilmer family, which owned a tobacco plantation on the land where the city-owned park and golf course are today. The Albemarle-Charlottesville Historical Society started researching the probable identities of the people buried in the park last year. Members have been able to identify and connect with several area residents likely to have ancestors buried in the park. “For me, it’s finally being able to understand your feeling, a sense of being. I really never felt connected to history. I was always taught dates from a more white, patriarchal perspective,” Townes said.

Washington

Seattle: The National Transportation Safety Board and the U.S. Navy have started efforts to recover the wreckage of a floatplane that crashed in the Puget Sound earlier this month, killing all 10 people on board. A barge that’s been equipped to conduct the recovery entered the shipping channel Monday, KING-5 News reports. It was expected to drop anchors near the suspected wreckage location before a team arrived at the barge Tuesday. The U.S. Navy will use a remotely operated vehicle Deep Drone 8,000, a barge and a crane in recovery efforts. The remotely operated vehicle will collect smaller pieces of wreckage into baskets for the crane to lift, the NTSB said. Some items from the plane have already been recovered, including foam fragments, a seat cushion, a seat belt, dispatch paperwork, flooring structure remnants and some personal items belonging to the victims, according to the NTSB. The plane was traveling from Friday Harbor on San Juan Island to the Seattle suburb of Renton when it crashed Sept. 4. Only one body was found, identified as Gabby Hanna, of Seattle. Officials say determining the probable cause of the crash could take 12 to 24 months.

West Virginia

Charleston: A protester who was forcefully removed from the House of Delegates gallery after allegedly disrupting debate on a bill to ban abortion earlier this month was arrested more than a week after she and others rallied against the ban at the state Capitol. Lindsey Jacobs, a 38-year-old lawyer from Morgantown, was arrested Friday and charged with three misdemeanors: obstructing an officer, willful disruption of governmental processes, and disorderly conduct against “the peace and dignity of the state,” according to a copy of the arrest warrant. Jacobs, who runs advocacy programs for a nonprofit legal services organization, was removed from the House chamber’s gallery Sept. 13 while listening to lawmakers discuss legislation that bans abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions. Republican Del. Margitta Mazzocchi said people who want to protect against pregnancy can buy emergency contraceptives – known as “Plan B” pills – over the counter. “Not if you’re poor,” Jacobs shouted down at lawmakers, followed by shouts from others sitting in the gallery. Jacobs said she became frustrated listening to Mazzocchi’s speech because she felt like the lawmaker was overlooking that the pills cost between $40 and $50, an amount she said is “cost-prohibitive for a lot of people.”

Wisconsin

Madison: All records from the closed Republican-ordered investigation into the 2020 presidential election in the state are being uploaded to a website “for all to see,” an attorney told a judge Tuesday. The investigation was led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who was fired in August by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. He fired Gableman just days after Vos won his primary over an opponent whom Gableman and ex-President Donald Trump endorsed. But the office Gableman led still exists after he was fired. American Oversight, a liberal watchdog group, has filed four open records lawsuits against Gableman, Vos and the office seeking records created during the investigation. On Tuesday, during a hearing over a lawsuit American Oversight filed seeking to stop the deletion of records, attorney James Bopp said that all electronic and paper records from the office have been turned over to the Assembly chief clerk’s office. The files are being uploaded to a website that will soon be available “for all to see,” said Bopp, who represents the office, which he said has no employees. Hundreds of pages of documents have already been made public as the result of other American Oversight lawsuits. Bopp said the data yet-to-be made public that’s being processed now includes text messages on cellphones used in the course of the investigation.

Wyoming

Casper: Gov. Mark Gordon plans to propose spending $25 million in federal pandemic relief on affordable housing projects, the Casper Star-Tribune reports. The governor’s office plans to submit its proposal to a legislative committee for a grant program aimed at funding “shovel-ready” projects with the American Rescue Plan Act money, according to the newspaper.

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

Casey Anthony documentary: Director confronts 'understandable ...

What if everything you knew about Casey Anthony – the woman once branded "America's most hated mom" amid suspicions she killed her 2-year-old daughter – was wrong?

That's the swing-for-the-fences thesis of a three-part docuseries, "Casey Anthony: Where the Truth Lies," streaming now on Peacock. In it, Anthony, now 36, gives her first on-camera interview since her 2011 acquittal.

Anthony being found not guilty in daughter Caylee's death shocked those who had convicted Casey in the court of public opinion. After all, she never reported her child missing in the summer of 2008, though she hadn't seen her for 31 days. She got a tattoo reading "Bella Vita," Italian for "beautiful life," and was convicted on four counts of providing false information to law enforcement, though two were later overturned.

Casey Anthony is a 'pathological liar,' new series says. What does that really mean?

'Casey Anthony: An American Murder Mystery': Docuseries revisits doubts of innocence

"So far, everyone has heard one side of the story," says docuseries director Alexandra Dean ("This Is Paris," "Secrets of Playboy"). "So of course they believe that's the only truth, and the outrage is understandable. I think when they watch the documentary and they hear the other side of the story, they’ll realize there are a lot of questions that haven't been answered."

Casey asserts that she began lying as a coping mechanism to cover up sexual abuse at the hands of her father, George Anthony, and her brother, Lee. George has denied abusing his daughter and declined to talk to filmmakers. Lee, who testified during Casey's trial, did not speak for the documentary. Neither could be located by USA TODAY for comment.

Casey says, "I lied a lot more than I ever told the truth because the truth was too painful."

She believes her dad was abusing Caylee, and might've accidentally killed her while smothering her with a pillow so she couldn't fight him off – as Casey says George did with her. She claims he brought her Caylee's wet body and assured her the child "would be OK" before taking her to an unknown location.

"Just keep doing what I'm telling you to do," he supposedly told Casey, which included lying to police. "You guys will be reunited soon."

More Casey Anthony:Dad George Anthony calls drowning theory 'a bunch of bull'

"I was convinced that she was OK, until December of 2008," when Caylee's remains were found, Casey says.

Dean reveals why she believes Anthony is telling the truth now, Casey's reason for sharing her side of the story, and what she hopes viewers take away from the series.

Edited for length and clarity.

Question: What is Casey's motivation for wanting to get her side of events out now?

Alexandra Dean: Casey's been through 10 years of therapy, and she felt she had started to realize a lot of things about what had happened to her and what had happened to Caylee that she hadn't been able to understand before, and she wanted to tell the world.

'Starving for Salvation':See Jennifer Grey's hair-raising transformation to embody Gwen Shamblin Lara

You say Casey's case wasn't properly investigated. In what way?

Where the documentary lands is that the police did not look at George as a suspect, and so they did not look at his phone records for geolocations, did not compare his story with Casey's phone records.

You mentioned approaching this as an investigative journalist. How did you decide who you would interview to tell a truthful story?

One of the most important sources for me was the transcripts of conversations that Casey had had with psychiatrists and psychologists in jail. And what I got was that the story she's telling me now is completely consistent with the story she was telling them back then. The fact that she told other people about the abuse was important.

Dozens of other documentaries say Casey was probably guilty. What (viewers) haven't heard is why so many of those pieces of evidence were dismissed in court, and I think we explained that pretty well.

'Secrets of Playboy':The most appalling allegations in A&E's Hugh Hefner docuseries

'We're all survivors': Paris Hilton alleges widespread abuse at her former school in new documentary

People in the docuseries talk about Casey's habitual lying and manipulation, which Casey herself has acknowledged. How can you be confident that what she was telling you was the truth?

That wasn't easy. I talked to her employer, Pat McKenna (an investigator Casey met when he worked as part of Casey's defense team). He tells me she's been honest with him.

I talked to a lot of psychologists and psychiatrists about whether it's possible for someone who was a pathological liar 10 years ago to go through therapy and to come to a point where they're not a liar anymore. And I was told by multiple experts that is very possible.

Do you really know what schizophrenia is? Most people don't.

In the docuseries, Casey says she didn't want to leave her daughter alone with her father, out of fear her daughter would be abused. If she so feared this man, why wouldn't she have called the police when he allegedly took her?

Trauma is complicated and difficult to understand. Casey is trying to explain that when you're traumatized from a very young age by somebody who abused you, you can still love them and want to believe they're not trying to harm you, even though they obviously have harmed you and can harm other people. But both realities can be true. I don't think any of us can understand that fully unless we too have been abused by people that we also love, like a parent.

Gaslighting is the 2022 word of the year. Here's what it is and how to address it.

After spending time with Casey and speaking to former friends who described her as a good mom, experts, members of her defense team – what is your opinion?

My opinion is that the police should have looked at George as suspect.

What was the biggest challenge in making this docuseries?

The biggest challenge for me was understanding the trauma brain. It's very complicated to understand how child abuse can alter the brain. And I talked to a lot of experts who did try to explain to me that you can end up with a child who, like Casey, seems like a pathological liar because of the way child abuse affects the brain, and you can also end up with a person who can hold two realities in their mind.

What do you want viewers to take away from the docuseries?

I want people to judge a little less quickly when they hear a complicated story like this one. I want people to realize that the media can create a circus around a person or try to create a reality television villain or a hero out of somebody because it's good television. But it doesn't necessarily mean that you've heard the whole story of their life.

Zelensky says Russia waging war so Putin can stay in power 'until ...

CNN —

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of “following the devil” and waging a war to ensure that its President Vladimir Putin remains in power “until the end of his life.”

Zelensky switched to speaking Russian in his nightly address on Saturday to send a message to the Kremlin and Russian citizens, as Moscow launched a series of deadly strikes that swept several regions of Ukraine ahead of New Year.

“All this war that you are waging, you – Russia, it is not the war with NATO, as your propagandists lie,” Zelensky said. “It is not for something historical. It’s for one person to remain in power until the end of his life.

“And what will be with all of you, citizens of Russia, does not concern him,” he added.

Zelensky said “Russian leader is hiding behind the troops, behind missiles, behind the walls of his residences and palaces” and behind his people. “He hides behind you and burns your country and your future. No one will ever forgive you for terror,” Zelensky emphasized.

Zelensky said “most of the Russian missiles intercepted by air defense forces.”

“If it were not for air defense, the number of casualties would have been different. Much bigger,” he stressed. “And this is yet another proof for the world that support for Ukraine must be increased.”

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal earlier said Moscow wants to cause darkness and leave the country “in the dark for the New Year.”

Moscow intends to “intimidate, leave us in the dark for the new year, cause as much damage to civilian infrastructure as possible,” Shmyhal said on Telegram.

“There are attacks on civilian infrastructure in different regions of our country. Residential buildings, hotel, (a) shop, place for festivals were damaged. There are dead and injured,” he wrote.

“Russians want to intimidate, leave us in the dark for the New Year, cause as much damage to civilian infrastructure as possible.”

Russian shelling in recent weeks targeting critical infrastructure across Ukraine has left much of the country without access to heat and power, amid a harsh winter season.

Shmyhal said Russia wants to "intimidate" Kyiv, as strikes hit the capital on Saturday. Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Russian shelling in Kyiv killed at least one person on Saturday. Vladyslav Sodel/Reuters

Out of the 20 injured in the capital Kyiv, 14 were hospitalized, while six others were given medical care on the spot, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.

Several school buildings in the capital suffered severe damage from the explosions, the mayor added.

Air raid sirens were activated following the attacks in Kyiv, where air defenses later repelled 45 Iranian drones.

“On the night of January 1, 2023, the Russian invaders attacked Ukraine with Iranian-made kamikaze drones Shahed-131/136,” the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement.

“As a result of combat work by the air defense of the Air Force in cooperation with the anti-aircraft defense of other components of the Defense Forces of Ukraine, 45 attack UAVs were destroyed. 13 in 2022 and 32 in 2023.

“They failed to spoil the holiday for the Ukrainians.”

Emergency services were sent to the scene but according to preliminary information there were no casualties.

Further east in the Donetsk, Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions, Russian strikes killed at least six people.

Three people died and three more were wounded in the Donetsk region, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Telegram.

One person was wounded in the Zaporizhzhia region. Two were killed and one wounded in the Kharkiv region. Two people were wounded in the Kherson region, while one died in the Chernihiv region.

Rescuers worked at the site of explosions in Kyiv. Gleb Garanich/Reuters

It came after Russia launched five missiles and 29 air strikes on Friday, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Saturday.

“26 of the enemy’s air strikes were on civilian infrastructure. In particular, the occupants used 10 Shahed-136 UAVs, but all of them were shot down. In addition, the enemy made 80 attacks from multiple rocket launchers, civilian settlements were also hit,” the General Staff said in its latest operational update.

It said that Russia “continues to conduct offensive actions at the Lyman and Bakhmut directions and is trying to improve the tactical situation at the Kupiansk and Avdiivka directions.”

Russian forces fired on several towns and villages, including in Lyman, in the direction of Bakhmut, in the areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

‘We will persevere’

Nearly a third of the capital, Kyiv, was left without power Saturday after emergency shutdowns. Kyodo News/Getty Images

Thirty percent of the capital was left without power due to emergency shutdowns, Klitschko said.

“The municipal ‘life support system’ of the capital is operating normally. Currently, 30% of consumers are without electricity. Due to emergency shutdowns,” he said on Telegram.

“Kyiv residents have water and heat,” he added.

Klitschko also reported that the restrictions were applied to check the open section of the red metro line in the city “for the presence of remnants of missile debris.”

“Specialists are on the way to that area,” he said. “We will inform you further about the resumption of traffic on the red line.”

Locals in Kyiv told CNN how they planned to spend the New Year in the capital.

“From 2023 I really want to win, and also to have more bright impressions and new emotions. I miss it very much. I also want to travel and open borders. And I also think about personal and professional growth, because one should not stand still. I have to develop and work for the benefit of the country,” said Alyona Bogulska, a 29-year-old financier.

Medics and policemen worked next to houses which were partially destroyed by a Russian strike in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on New Year's Eve. Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images

“This year, it’s a symbol, not that it’s a small victory, but a symbol that we survived the year,” said Tatiana Tkachuk, a 43-year-old pharmacy employee.

“And I want to thank everyone who helps Ukraine. We’ve made a lot of friends. And in order to understand that we have a lot of good things, unfortunately, we had to go through terrible things. But so many people are doing real miracles for Ukraine.”

Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska said the country “will persevere,” following the strikes.

“On New Year’s Eve, cities should be covered by wave of celebration, joy and hope. Ukrainian cities are again covered by missile wave from Russia,” Zelenska tweeted.

“Ruining lives of others is a disgusting habit of our neighbors. But we will persevere and be even stronger – in spite of everything.”

Olga Voitovych Yulia Kesaieva Gul Tuysuz Denis Lapin Mariya Knight

News from around our 50 states

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

Alabama

Huntsville: A man who traveled to all 50 states to mow lawns for free says he’s traveling cross-country again to bring together police officers and the community. Rodney Smith Jr. tweeted Monday to announce his “Mowing with Cops” tour started Wednesday in Apopka, Florida. Smith says on his website that he wants to mow at least one lawn in each state for the elderly, disabled, single parents or veterans, and he’s inviting police officers to mow with him. He had a special police-themed mower made. His website shows it’s painted black and white and has emergency lights. Smith was inspired to begin a free yard mowing service in 2015 after seeing an elderly man cutting his lawn. Individual and corporate donations have helped pay for hotel rooms and other expenses.

Alaska

Anchorage: Scientists say the chances of a polar bear encounter have increased, with the bears arriving on shore earlier and staying on land longer. Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey found changes in sea ice habitat have coincided with evidence that polar bears’ use of land is increasing, the Anchorage Daily News reports. The bears come to land from the Beaufort Sea during the ice-melt season, the average duration of which has increased by 36 days since the late 1990s, researchers said. The bears are arriving “a little bit ahead of schedule,” said Todd Atwood, a research wildlife biologist leading the U.S. Geological Survey’s polar bear research program. Polar bears usually come to shore in mid-August, but residents have reported sightings as early as May in Kaktovik, a small town about 640 miles north of Anchorage, biologists said.

Arizona

Ajo: A humanitarian organization that provides aid to border crossers says it is opening an office to welcome visitors for a few hours on Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings in the southern Arizona desert community of Ajo. The Ajo Samaritarans say they will first open the office in the border town Thursday to provide information about their work. The group says Ajo residents have provided water and other aid to travelers in the Sonora desert for generations. The office will be staffed from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursdays and from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays. Border volunteer Scott Warren, who is set to be retried in November on two felony counts of harboring migrants in the U.S. without permission, lives in the community and volunteers with the Ajo Samaritans.

Arkansas

Little Rock: A baby raccoon with a brain injury that hinders her mobility is walking again with the help of a wheelchair. Walkin’ Pets, which makes wheelchairs for animals, says the source of Vittles’ injury is unknown, but it prevented her from balancing and supporting herself. Susan Curtis is a wildlife rehabilitation specialist who helps the state’s bats and raccoons. The company says Curtis found Vittles when she was 8 weeks old. Walkin’ Pets project manager Jennifer Pratt says the wheelchair will adjust as Vittles grows. The company says Vittles can use the wheelchair to sharpen her balance and stability so she can walk on her own. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the company says it’s unlikely Vittles will make a full recovery. But early intervention sparks hope.

California

San Francisco: The city’s school board voted Tuesday to preserve but cover up a public high school mural depicting slavery and the killing of a Native American. After a public outcry, the board voted 4-3 to reverse its June vote to paint over the “Life of Washington” mural at George Washington High School. Instead, staff were directed to work out alternatives to cover the mural with panels or other materials depicting “the heroism of people of color in America” and their fight against racism and poverty, said board President Stevon Cook, who made the proposal. The cover-up will require an environmental review, and the mural will remain on display at least until then. The 1936 work painted directly on the school walls depicts the life of George Washington. Sections of the 1,600-square-foot work were intended to show the darker side of that history.

Colorado

Denver: The state’s child abuse hotline will not change its policy to accept tips via social media, email or text. The Colorado Sun reports the recommendation came from a statewide task force that determined the hotline is set up to take tips only via phone. The review occurred after an internal memo a year ago raised concerns the child welfare division was not being responsive to texts, social media messages and emails about possible abuse and neglect. Officials say an email account for submitting reports went unchecked for more than four years. Officials determined five cases of possible neglect that were undiscovered until May needed immediate attention. The task force recommended caseworkers receiving written tips should record a report via the phone line before forwarding the written information to the hotline center.

Connecticut

Storrs: The new president of the University of Connecticut has begun implementing a plan he hopes will double research spending in the next decade, but he warns that unfunded pension liability could hurt the school’s ability to attract and keep top researchers. Thomas Katsouleas began his tenure at the state’s flagship school Aug. 1 and spoke Wednesday at his first Board of Trustees meeting. Elevating UConn’s status as a top research institution is among his top priorities, he said. He hopes to increase the school’s research money from about $265 million to more than $500 million in federal grants and other funding within a decade. But he also warned that UConn and its medical arm, UConn Health, are handicapped by an unfunded pension liability, which is estimated at $52 million this fiscal year.

Delaware

Dover: The governor has signed into law a package of bills aimed at making it easier for formerly incarcerated people to get professional licenses in some trade fields. Delaware State News reports Gov. John Carney signed three bills Monday that supporters say they hope will improve employment access by removing roadblocks for ex-convicts facing reentry challenges after prison. The bills are designed to help job-seekers obtain licenses in trade fields as plumbers, electricians and massage therapists. The bills modify the impact of criminal history on applicants’ license eligibility by allowing the massage board and electrical examining board to grant waivers for people with certain felony convictions to obtain licenses. It also prohibits the boards from considering some convictions that are more than 10 years old.

District of Columbia

Washington: A new survey from FutureBrand rates the District of Columbia as the No. 4 city in the world, WUSA-TV reports. The study examined culture, business, tourism, quality of life and value systems. It also noted tolerance and environmental friendliness. According to FutureBrand’s site, it unites global experts in strategy, design and innovation to future-proof businesses through brand experiences that drive profitable, long-term growth.

Florida

Kissimmee: A homeowner association says it’s against the rules for an Army veteran to fly a Puerto Rican flag outside her home. The Rolling Hills Estates HOA in Kissimmee recently told Frances Santiago that flags other than a U.S. flag, a military flag or a sports flag aren’t permitted. Santiago tells Orlando television station WFTV-TV that she and her husband, Efrain, decided to fly the flag to support protesters demanding the governor’s resignation in the U.S. territory. Three weeks later, she got a violation notice from the association in the Orlando suburb. The couple says it may be time for the HOA to revisit its rules, especially with Kissimmee’s growing Puerto Rican population. They’ve hired a lawyer and say they have no intention of lowering their flag.

Georgia

Athens: Sports Illustrated is celebrating college football’s 150th season by ranking the top 10 all-time greatest mascots, putting the University of Georgia’s bulldog in first place. The magazine includes both real and costumed mascots in this week’s edition. Following Uga is the Duck at the University of Oregon, Mike the tiger at Louisiana State University, Bevo the longhorn bull at the University of Texas and Stanford University’s Tree. The University of Colorado’s 1,200-pound live buffalo named Ralphie, University of South Carolina’s costumed gamecock named Cocky, Western Kentucky University’s Big Red, Syracuse University’s orange named Otto and University of Tennessee’s bluetick coonhound named Smokey closed the list. The latest Uga is the 10th iteration of the mascot, which the magazine says has been a staple since 1956.

Hawaii

Honolulu: The state Supreme Court has ruled Hawaii’s constitution requires reasonable access to Hawaiian language immersion programs. Hawaii News Now reports the justices ruled the programs are a necessary component in restoring Hawaiian language and culture. The case brought by the parent of two schoolchildren on Lanai says the island’s only public school did not offer a Hawaiian language immersion program. In a 4-to-1 decision, justices ruled that access to a Hawaiian language class only a few times per week was not sufficient. The ruling says steps must be taken to build an immersion program. In a written dissent, Justice Paula Nakayama says the state should provide “as many students as possible” with access to immersion programs but disagrees that the state constitution requires it.

Idaho

Boise: The U.S. Forest Service says $25,000 is being used for a federal-state project in eastern Idaho to identify road-killed animals in a major wildlife migration corridor to determine collision hotspots and potential locations for wildlife crossing structures. The agency says 75% of historical migration routes for elk, bison and pronghorn have been lost in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Freemont County has many of the remaining migration routes but a high rate of wildlife-vehicle collisions. The project started earlier this summer and uses volunteers to identify dead animals on U.S. Highway 20 and State Highway 87. Officials say the information can help the Idaho Transportation Department better understand wildlife-road conflicts through the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.

Illinois

Alton: A marker will be placed at the site where the state’s first soybeans were planted. Officials of the Illinois State Historical Society will join Lewis and Clark Community College representatives when the marker is dedicated Aug. 23 in Alton. The Telegraph reports Dr. Benjamin Franklin Edwards traveled to San Francisco in 1849 and helped shipwreck survivors from Japan. They reportedly showed Edwards their appreciation with a gift of “Japanese peas.” Edwards returned to Alton in April 1851 and gave six of the peas to a friend, who planted them in his home garden. The U.S. Agriculture Department reports Illinois’ 2018 soybean production totaled 688 million bushels. Alton Mayor Brant Walker says commemorating the soybean planting adds a new chapter to the city’s history.

Indiana

Indianapolis: The city’s police chief says a budget proposal dedicating $1.2 million toward officer body cameras doesn’t mean they’re coming quickly. A city spending plan released Monday by Mayor Joe Hogsett includes the body camera funding boost as the police department is in the midst of a pilot program in which some officers are using such cameras from three companies. Police Chief Bryan Roach says a decision on how to proceed with the cameras for the department’s some 1,100 street officers is months away. Roach says the $1.2 million would be enough to start a body camera program but estimates that’s about half of what would be needed each year. The fatal police shooting of a man earlier this month involved Indianapolis officers without body cameras.

Iowa

Des Moines: Gov. Kim Reynolds held a news conference at the Iowa State Fair on Wednesday to make a special request of towns: Show the world your hometown pride for an opportunity to win a custom water tower. The “Home Town Water Tower Contest” encourages towns throughout the state to submit their own two-minute video that features a “water element” in their community. The winner of the contest will receive a new water tower complete with a one-of-a-kind design from a local artist. Video submissions will be accepted through Sept. 30. A public vote to be held Oct. 1-11 will determine the winning video. Iowans take a great deal of pride in their unique water towers. The “Ol’ Smiley” water tower in Adair has long been a roadside icon. Last year, Sioux City spent thousands painting the phrase “Home of Sioux City Sue” on their water tower.

Kansas

Riverton: A Route 66 destination in southeast Kansas is receiving a cost-share grant from a federal preservation program that is expected to end this fall. The Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program awarded Nelson’s Old Riverton Store a $2,500 matching grant to upgrade its exterior. The Joplin Globe reports the Riverton store opened in 1925, one year before U.S. 66 was designated. Originally intended to last 10 years, the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program was extended for another decade in 2009. It is set to expire in October. Bill Thomas, chairman of the Road Ahead board of directors, says supporters are working to ensure the passage of federal legislation to designate Route 66 as a National Historic Trail and to ensure the National Park Service oversees the trail.

Kentucky

Louisville: University of Louisville trustees have approved the school’s purchase of a financially struggling hospital under a plan that would include a $50 million state loan. UofL trustees approved the transaction at a meeting on campus Wednesday. The deal will significantly increase UofL’s footprint in the medical sector of Kentucky’s largest city. Under the deal, UofL would purchase the greater Louisville market assets of KentuckyOne Health Inc., which includes Jewish Hospital. The deal includes the promise of state support though a $50 million loan. Half of the loan would be forgivable if job retention and other conditions are met. Trustees authorized UofL President Neeli Bendapudi to negotiate and finalize the agreement.

Louisiana

New Orleans: Authorities have made an arrest in an attack on comedian Andy Dick outside a nightclub where he had performed. In a news release, New Orleans police spokesman Aaron Looney says 46-year-old David Hale was arrested early Wednesday and booked into jail on suspicion of second-degree battery and simple battery. Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesman Philip Stelly said he did not know whether Hale had an attorney. Dick told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate someone punched him early Saturday, knocking him out for 15 minutes. Dick was outside the French Quarter club when he was punched. Robert Couvillion, who promoted the show, says the performer didn’t have any reason to expect to be attacked. The comedian and musician is known for his role in the 1990s NBC TV show “NewsRadio.”

Maine

Portland: The state’s wild blueberry industry could be looking at another difficult summer, as the crop is projected to remain much smaller than just a few years ago. The Pine Tree State is America’s sole commercial producer of the wild berries, which are smaller than the more ubiquitous cultivated blueberries often seen in grocery stores. Maine’s crop exceeded 100 million pounds every year from 2014 to 2016 before plummeting to 50.4 million pounds last year. Horticulturist David Yarborough, emeritus wild blueberry specialist with the University of Maine, says a cold winter and wet and cold spring are likely to blame for the lower projections. He says the total harvest might again be only about 50 million pounds. The state’s wild blueberry industry is also struggling with Canadian competition and somewhat low prices to farmers.

Maryland

Baltimore: A teachers union is calling for fans to be donated to schools as sweltering heat pushes classroom temperatures into the triple digits, but the district says electrical infrastructure may not be equipped to handle it. The Baltimore Sun reports the union hopes to hand out 500 fans in response to a lack of functional air conditioning in city schools, some of which have none at all. But Baltimore Schools Chief Operations Officer Lynette Washington is warning against it, saying the buildings don’t have the electrical load to withstand it. The union is pushing back. President Diamonte Brown is quoted by the paper as responding: “If you’re so concerned about the electricity being overloaded, then fix it.” The paper reports the district has an almost $3 billion maintenance backlog from decades of underfunding.

Massachusetts

Boston: It’s a sight for sore eyes for commuters on the MBTA’s Orange Line. The first new trains in decades – six of them initially – are going into service Wednesday on the transit line, which runs from the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston to Oak Grove station in Malden. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority eventually plans to replace the entire existing Orange Line fleet with 152 new trains by 2022. The new vehicles are being built by the Chinese-owned company CRRC at a manufacturing plant in Springfield. The T says the new trains will have more spacious interiors, along with wider doors, more handrails, better lighting, and safety features including audio and visual warnings that the doors on the train are opening or closing.

Michigan

Detroit: Rapper Big Sean’s philanthropic foundation is hosting another weekend of events aimed at helping youth in his hometown. The 2nd annual Detroit’s On Now Weekend kicks off Saturday with the unveiling of the Sean Anderson Production Studio in the Dauch Campus Boys and Girls Club. It’s part of an effort to help Detroit children launch careers in the entertainment industry. Big Sean will host a discussion Sunday that focuses on mental health and the stigma around it in the black community. Scheduled guests include psychiatrist Jessica Clemons and sociologist and author Michael Eric Dyson. Other planned events include live performances, health screenings, apprenticeship opportunities and carnival rides, as well as free food, haircuts and braiding. The nonprofit Sean Anderson Foundation was organized in 2012.

Minnesota

St. Paul: A record number of prison inmates in the state were placed in solitary confinement last year. The Minnesota Department of Corrections placed inmates in solitary more than 8,000 times in 2018. Minnesota Public Radio News reports the number of solitary sentences has been going up steadily for the past two years. Last session, the Legislature passed a law requiring mental health screening for inmates being placed in solitary. Republican Rep. Nick Zerwas of Elk River, one of the sponsors, says he’s concerned about the numbers. In June, the Corrections Department implemented new regulations that increase the maximum time allowed in solitary from 90 days to a year. Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell says that ultimately, the department wants to provide incentives to help people get back into the general prison population.

Mississippi

Jackson: One of the four tests that the state’s public school students take in high school may be going away. A testing task force is recommending the state Board of Education scrap a now-required U.S. history test. Students formerly had to pass that test, plus exams in English, algebra and biology, to graduate. Now there are alternate routes to graduate, but some Mississippi students still don’t earn a diploma. Teacher groups and others who say Mississippi students take too many tests are pushing for change. The history test also counts in the grading system under which high schools and districts are assigned A-to-F grades. The recommendation will be considered next week by the state’s accreditation commission. If that group agrees, the state Board of Education would likely seek public comment before voting.

Missouri

Chesterfield: The little girl from suburban St. Louis who became the inspiration behind the St. Louis Blues’ improbable run to the Stanley Cup championship is back in school for the first time in two years. Laila Anderson has a rare autoimmune disease that forced her to miss two school years. Until Tuesday. In a video posted by the Parkway School District, Laila says she hopes to inspire as many people as she can. She also jokes that as much as she loves her parents, “I need a break from their faces.” Laila had a bone marrow transplant in January, just as the Blues began their stunning worst-to-first turnaround. She was such a fan that the team flew her to playoff games and made her part of the victory celebration in June.

Montana

Helena: The state is looking to support the U.S. Forest Service in fighting off a lawsuit challenging a wildfire mitigation project. The Independent Record reports state Attorney General Tim Fox filed a request Monday to intervene in the litigation over the Ten Mile-South Helena Project. The project calls for forest thinning, logging and burning on more than 27 square miles in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. Helena Hunters and Anglers and the Montana Wildlife Federation filed a lawsuit earlier this year over concerns about the impact of mechanized logging on wildlife. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council also filed a lawsuit, contending the federal agency erred in its environmental analysis for the project. The lawsuits have been consolidated into one case.

Nebraska

Crete: A private university in this state where pot remains broadly illegal plans to offer an online program this fall that will cover the science, cultivation, processing and regulation of marijuana and hemp. Doane University in Crete will offer the three-course program. Chemistry professor Andrea Holmes will help teach the certificate program, and she told the Omaha World-Herald that the industry is growing rapidly. She cited jobs across the country for cultivators, technicians, scientists, geneticists, administrators, salespeople, marketers and advertisers. Nebraska bars recreational and medicinal marijuana, but lawmakers cleared the way this spring for a limited number of farmers to grow hemp, a low-THC version of the cannabis plant. THC is the compound that gives marijuana its high.

Nevada

Reno: A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled against the state in a battle with the U.S. government over its secret shipment of weapons-grade plutonium to a site near Las Vegas, but the state’s attorney general says the fight isn’t over yet. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the state’s appeal after a judge refused to block any future shipments to Nevada. The court in San Francisco said the matter is moot because the Energy Department already sent the radioactive material and has promised that no more will be hauled there. “The remedy Nevada sought – stopping the government from shipping plutonium from South Carolina to Nevada under the proposed action – is no longer available,” the court wrote. Nevada also wanted the court to order the government to remove the plutonium it shipped last year but didn’t reveal had arrived there until January.

New Hampshire

Concord: A state survey says 24% of high school-age youth reported having used electronic cigarettes and cigars, vaping and hookah devices in a 30-day period, compared to the national average of 13%. The data is from the 2017 New Hampshire Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Tricia Tilley, the state Health Department’s deputy director for its Division of Public Health Services, says the increase puts a new generation at risk for nicotine addiction. She notes a new state law that updates the definitions of electronic smoking devices and liquids and clarifies that all tobacco-related product devices are prohibited in any public education facility or grounds.

New Jersey

Secaucus: For two days this fall, “Sopranos” fans can immerse themselves in the world of the hit show at SopranosCon. The convention, to be Nov. 23-24 at the Meadowlands Expo in Secaucus, will be an “interactive, street festival themed fan experience,” according to the event website. In the midst of the show’s 20-year anniversary and upcoming prequel, super fans will have the chance to meet cast members and even go to an official after-party. Exhibits, screenings, Q&As with cast members, trivia and costume contests are just some of the activities on the itinerary for the event. The layout of the convention will be inspired by the Feast of St Elzear and will celebrate Italian culture in New Jersey with food, drink, art, music, comedy and some show-related businesses, according to the website.

New Mexico

Farmington: Some Navajo Nation officials are seeking to ask the state to rename a U.S. highway after one of the longest-serving Native American lawmakers in U.S. history. A Navajo legislative committee is requesting New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham name U.S. Highway 491 in honor of the late state Sen. John Pinto, who died in May at the age of 94 and had long sought to turn the deadly U.S. 666 into a four-lane highway and to change its name to U.S. 491. U.S. Highway 491 stretches about 194 miles from Gallup, New Mexico, through Colorado to Monticello, Utah. Pinto was a World War II Navajo code talker and served over four decades in the New Mexico Legislature.

New York

New York: Who’s a good dog? The American Kennel Club says there are now a million of them. The club announced Wednesday that a Bernese mountain dog named Fiona recently became its 1 millionth “canine good citizen,” including dogs past and present. Fiona and owner Nora Pavone had a special reason for pursuing the club’s mark of canine comportment: Fiona spends her days comforting people at the Pavone family’s Brooklyn funeral home. “We wanted her to have proper manners when she’s meeting with so many different people … for her to just be polite and gentle and always in control,” Pavone says. “To gently go up to someone and nudge their hand when they just need her to be next to them.” The club introduced the canine good citizen title in 1989 to promote polite doggy behavior and responsible pet ownership.

North Carolina

Raleigh: The trial is underway in a lawsuit that accuses novelist Nicholas Sparks of defaming the former headmaster of a private Christian school he founded in the state. Saul Hillel Benjamin accuses Sparks of telling Epiphany School parents, a job recruiter and others that Benjamin suffered from mental illness. The jury in the trial that began Wednesday in Raleigh will decide whether the private K-12 school in Spark’s hometown of New Bern, the author and the foundation Sparks created to support the school should pay damages. Benjamin’s lawsuit alleges that the author of “Message in a Bottle” and “The Notebook” defamed him and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Benjamin was in the headmaster’s position for less than five months and says he was forced out.

North Dakota

Bismarck: Traffic at the state’s eight commercial service airports is up 12% in July compared to last year. The state Aeronautics Commission says more than 110,000 people boarded planes at the airports in Bismarck, Minot, Williston, Dickinson, Grand Forks, Fargo, Devils Lake and Jamestown during the month. The Bismarck Tribune says Williston had the highest percentage increase, at nearly 27%. Year-to-date boardings for the eight airports are up more than 10%, to nearly 691,000 passengers. Travelers can reach nine nonstop destinations from North Dakota, though two are seasonal.

Ohio

Columbus: Amid concern about the use of facial-recognition capabilities, Ohio’s attorney general says the state database of driver’s license and law enforcement photos hasn’t been used improperly for mass surveillance or broad dragnets. Even so, Republican Attorney General Dave Yost says he’s ordering training requirements for officers who use the facial-recognition system. He’s also requiring that requests for such searches be handled by the state crime lab until those requirements are met. Concerns have been raised about the potential for abuse as federal investigators have searched such databases unbeknownst to drivers whose photos were scanned. Yost says he’ll appoint advisers to help ensure Ohio’s system is an effective law-enforcement tool that also protects people’s privacy and rights.

Oklahoma

Medford: No injuries were reported after a 3.4 magnitude earthquake shook a sparsely populated area of northern Oklahoma. The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake was recorded about 2:40 p.m. Tuesday about 8 miles south-southeast of Medford and at a depth of about 4 miles. No damage was immediately reported. Geologists say damage is unlikely in temblors below magnitude 4.0. Thousands of earthquakes in Oklahoma have been linked to underground injection of wastewater from oil and gas production. The USGS reports the number of magnitude 3.0 or greater earthquakes is on pace to decline for the fourth straight year after state regulators began directing producers to close some wells and reduce volumes in others.

Oregon

Salem: A new law curbing use of the death penalty in the state now appears to go further than supporters intended, after a recent ruling that a former death row inmate cannot be sentenced to death upon retrial. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that the state’s prosecutors are working to determine how many murder cases might be affected. Meanwhile, lawmakers behind the new law said Tuesday that they were surprised and would seek a fix as soon as possible – even asking the governor to call a one-day special session next month. In passing Senate Bill 1013 this year, lawmakers limited use of capital punishment to a narrow set of circumstances, including terrorist acts and murders of children or law enforcement officers. But officials also appeared to take pains to ensure those changes would apply to sentences moving forward.

Pennsylvania

Harrisburg: State officials have announced plans to close two centers for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities over the next three years. The Department of Human Services says public meetings will be held next month to gather comment on the plans to close the Polk State Center in Venango County in western Pennsylvania and the White Haven State Center in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County. The Polk center currently serves 194 residents and the White Haven center 112. Officials say the commonwealth has steadily closed most state centers since the 1960s, “when best practices turned toward community-based settings and away from institutions.” Fifty years ago, the department served more than 13,000 people with intellectual disabilities in state-operated facilities, but today fewer than 720 receive care in such facilities.

Rhode Island

Lincoln: Twin River Casino says it is feeling the competitive bite from a new resort casino in neighboring Massachusetts. Twin River said Tuesday that it could be forced to lay off up to 30 table game supervisors to reflect the loss in business. The casino in Lincoln says revenue from table games dipped 34% in July compared to the same month the prior year. July was the first full month of operation for the Wynn Resorts-owned Encore Boston Harbor casino in Everett. Twin River said the impact of the competition was greater than it had expected, and it’s exploring the possibility of voluntarily reducing hours to avoid some layoffs – and also hopes business will pick up enough after Labor Day to allow some workers to be rehired.

South Carolina

Greenville: The mayor says affordable housing must be included in a $1billion redevelopment project near the city’s trendy downtown area. Mayor Knox White told a meeting last week that he considers affordable housing to be “non-negotiable.” Greenville’s city center is considered a model for revitalization, and officials are looking at a proposal to spend $1 billion on a redevelopment project within walking distance of the area. As many as 1,500 apartments would be built under the current plan, and White says that must include a mix of housing types. The area that’s being redeveloped doesn’t currently include housing, but it’s beside one of the city’s oldest African American communities. Rising home prices are raising concerns about what will happen to area residents.

South Dakota

Yankton: A county commissioner has been banned from entering Yankton City Hall for a year. Yankton County Commissioner Gary Swensen was sent a letter by Yankton’s city attorney outlining the ban. KYNT-AM obtained a copy of the letter, dated Aug. 12. In the letter, City Attorney Ross Den Herder says Swensen’s recent social media posts are “perceived as threatening to City staff and its elected officials.” The Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan reports Yankton Mayor Nathan Johnson appeared before the commission last week about Swensen’s posting of a cartoon on social media. The cartoon shows a priest telling a woman who confessed to killing a politician that he is “here to listen to your sins, not your community service work.” Swensen has apologized for the cartoon.

Tennessee

Memphis: The producers of the Hallmark Channel’s made-in-Memphis “Graceland” movies are selling off three films’ worth of props, wardrobe items, Christmas decorations and Elvis memorabilia. The sale does not signal the end of the Hallmark-Graceland relationship – in fact, more Elvis-connected feature-film romances are planned. In addition to Christmas items, the extraneous inventory includes clothes worn by actors in the three Memphis-based Hallmark Channel movies, “Christmas at Graceland” and “Wedding at Graceland,” with Kellie Pickler and Wes Brown, and the upcoming “Christmas at Graceland 2,” now officially titled “Christmas at Graceland: Home for the Holidays,” with Adrian Grenier and Kaitlin Doubleday, which finished shooting last week. The cash-only sale will take place Aug. 22-23 at 1910 Nonconnah Blvd., Suite 106.

Texas

San Antonio: An archaeological dig at the Alamo to help preserve the historic Texas mission has unearthed musket balls that experts say could date to the 1800s. The San Antonio Express-News reports the survey of the mission-era west wall of the Long Barrack is meant to help determine how best to protect the oldest component of the Alamo. Crews are digging four pits to help expose the 1700s limestone wall to its foundation in an effort to fight moisture. Archaeologist Kristi Nichols says workers so far have recovered musket balls, a mid-1800s bottle and tin-glazed majolica from the Spanish colonial period. The survey began nearly a month ago. Preservation of the Alamo is part of a wider $450 million development plan for the area.

Utah

Salt Lake City: Wildlife officials say they have found and put to death a bear that bit a 13-year-old boy on his ear and cheek at a campground in eastern Utah. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said Tuesday in a news release that officials found the black bear Friday night within a mile of the riverside campground where the incident occurred on Aug. 9 east of Moab. Wildlife officials euthanized the bear after determining it matched the size, color and tracks of the bear that attacked the boy. The boy was treated and released from the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The campground was reopened Monday. This is the second bear attack in Utah this summer. A bear was captured and killed in June after it scratched a boy camping in northern Utah.

Vermont

Montpelier: The state has launched a website that shows the results of lead testing in water at the state’s schools and child care facilities. The testing is being done at approximately 440 schools and more than 1,200 child care facilities. It’s required under a new law in which schools and child care centers also must make fixes or take outlets, such as drinking fountains, out of service if the results show lead above 4 parts per billion. Officials said Wednesday that the fixes, such as replacing fixtures, are relatively inexpensive. The state is covering the cost of the testing and up to a certain amount of the remediation. Nearly 300 child care facilities and five schools have been tested. The website shows the test results at institutions and if action has been taken.

Virginia

Richmond: Police say more than 50 television sets have been mysteriously placed on front porches in a neighborhood outside the city. Henrico County police Lt. Matt Pecka said residents found older model televisions outside their front doors Sunday morning. He told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that video from one doorbell camera showed a person wearing TV-shaped headgear while dropping off a TV set. Police believe more than one person is responsible. A similar incident occurred in a nearby neighborhood last year. It’s unclear if the incident is a crime. Pecka said that dropping off the televisions on front porches is “at most” illegal dumping. Most of the TVs will be recycled. But a couple of residents indicated they would keep their televisions for now.

Washington

Seattle: The City Council has thwarted a rare veto by Mayor Jenny Durkan by voting for a second time to create a special fund for the city’s soda-tax revenue. The Seattle Times reports the new tax raised about $22 million last year, more than initially predicted, and the mayor and councilmembers disagree on how to spend it. When the council passed the tax in 2017, it indicated the money should be used to boost healthful-food and early-education programs serving low-income communities of color that are targeted by soda marketing. But when the mayor drew up this year’s budget, she used about $6 million from the soda tax to supplant baseline allocations for food banks, a parent-child program and other services that previously had been supported by the city’s general fund. The maneuver freed up $6 million for her other priorities.

West Virginia

Bethany: Bethany College in West Virginia is asking people who like the outdoors to volunteer to help clean up its trail system next month. Projects will include brush cleaning, trail restoration, rubbish removal and outdoor classroom repair. Volunteers should wear work clothes, preferably long pants and sturdy shoes or boots. The school will provide water, bug spray, gloves and tools. The trail system is an asset of Parkinson Forest, which was deeded to the school in 1914. The system includes a waterfall, numerous hiking spots and the outdoor classroom. The cleanup is set for Sept. 15.

Wisconsin

Madison: GOP lawmakers in the state found themselves in the unusual position Wednesday of breaking with anti-abortion groups and advocating for a bill that broadens birth control access, an area where Democrats typically lead. Republicans could undermine a key Democratic campaign issue by passing the bill, but they also find themselves in conflict with groups that are typically their allies. Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Family Action, a leading anti-abortion group, oppose the measure on moral and ethical grounds, saying increasing access encourages premarital sex and the odds of unintended pregnancies and abortions. Only doctors can prescribe hormonal birth control under current state law. The bill would allow pharmacists to prescribe hormonal contraceptive patches and birth control pills, with some caveats.

Wyoming

Gillette: Officials say a firework rocket that was launched during a show for the Pyrotechnics Guild International convention landed in a home and sparked a small fire. The Gillette News Record reports the rocket broke through the roof of the Gillette home about 2 miles from the event center where the fireworks display was taking place Sunday. The Campbell County Fire Department says the flames were extinguished before firefighters got to the house. No one was injured. Guild spokesman Tom Sklebar says the organization will pay for the damages. He says a rocket “took an errant trajectory” after it was launched and hit the house. The fireworks convention started last Saturday and runs through Friday. It features fireworks shows on four nights.

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard: All the nasty bits of the nasty UK trial

Train-wreck trials are box-office gold for the media, so the donnybrook going down now in London between movie stars Johnny Depp and Amber Heard – plus a provocative tabloid newspaper – is a can't-look-away legal melee, risible and appalling at the same time.

So far, the trial has featured testimony about: Violent, shrieking rows. Massive consumption of drugs and drink. Wild punches and flying projectiles. Trashed rooms. A lopped off fingertip. A teacup Yorkie dangled out a car window. Translations of Depp's antique American slang ("haymaker" and "porkie-pies" ) for the British judge.

And ickiest of all, human feces in a bed.

Moreover, this is only Part 1: Sometime later this year or early next year, Depp and Heard are due to put up their dukes again in a Virginia courtroom for a jury trial over Depp's defamation civil suit against his ex-wife. She wrote a newspaper column proclaiming herself a victim of domestic abuse, leaving the strong impression that Depp was the alleged abuser.

Is this judge-only libel trial in the United Kingdom a preview of the American one?

"The American trial will be very different," predicts Adam Waldman, Depp's Washington, D.C. lawyer. "The procedural rules are quite different between the U.S. and the U.K. The Virginia trial is a jury trial and that is another significant difference."

To recap: In London, it's week two in a three-week trial over a civil suit for libel filed by Depp, 57, against the top editor and the publisher of The Sun tabloid (Rupert Murdoch's company), which labeled him a "wife beater" without bothering to precede the term with "alleged" or "accused."

Heard, 34, is expected to take the stand this week for The Sun. She has accused Depp of repeatedly beating her in drug-induced rages since before they married in 2015 until they began divorce proceedings in 2016. Their divorce was finalized in 2017 following an uproar in divorce court in Los Angeles.

Depp has strongly denied all of her accusations, saying she was the abuser in their brief, volatile relationship. Their marriage, he told Heard several times, was "a crime scene waiting to happen," he testified.

On Thursday, Depp's security chief, Sean Bett, said in a written witness statement, released as he appeared in court, that Heard was verbally and physically abusive towards Depp throughout their relationship.

“On many occasions, I witnessed her shout at Mr. Depp. I was also told by Mr. Depp on multiple occasions that Ms. Heard had physically abused him,” he said. “Ms. Heard often behaved in this way when she had been drinking. I learnt quickly to recognize the signs, so that we were able to leave the situation before it escalated further.”

On cross-examination by The Sun's lawyer, Sasha Wass, she suggested Bett was lying to protect Depp, his employer. “Ma’am you can call me a liar a hundred times. I’m not a liar. I’m telling the truth," Bett said.

On Friday, more damaging testimony for The Sun: A MeToo activist said in written testimony that she was “misquoted and misused” by the tabloid to smear Depp. "I (did not) accuse Mr. Depp of hurting Amber Heard, about which I have no first-hand knowledge," said actress Katherine Kendall. Instead, she said, she heard “several times” that Heard was abusive to Depp. Most of what The Sun published in their April 2018 story quoting her, she said, was a "lie."

Also on Friday, Isaac Baruch, an artist and longtime friend to Depp and the next-door neighbor at the couple's Los Angeles penthouse, told the court he saw no signs of marks, scratches, swelling or bruises on Heard’s face in the days immediately after she claimed Depp beat her up in May 2016, just before they broke up.

Until now, none of either Depp's or Heard's accusations has ever been put before a judge or jury in any court anywhere, or even confirmed by police reports. Now a British judge gets first crack at deciding who is telling the truth, who is not and whether anyone was libeled under British law.

Some lowlights from the trial so far:

Who or what left poop in the bed?

In April 2016, Depp's longtime maid found feces in a bed at their Los Angeles penthouse the morning after Heard’s 30th birthday party when she claims the couple fought and Depp threw a magnum wine bottle at her. He denies that.

Heard blamed one of her two tiny Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, for the defecation incident. Depp said it was human; so did the maid. "It was not left by a three- or four-pound dog," he told the court. "I was convinced that it was either Ms Heard herself or one of her (friends)."

He said it was one of the final triggering events for the end of their marriage. “I thought that was an oddly fitting end to the relationship,” he said.

How did Depp's fingertip get chopped off in Australia?

As part of her list of 14 alleged instances of abuse by Depp, Heard claims Depp subjected her to a “three-day ordeal of assaults” in March 2015 in Australia, where Depp was filming his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” film.

Depp rejects this accusation but acknowledged they had a fight which resulted in their rented house being trashed and Depp’s fingertip being severed to the bone.

Depp says that happened when Heard threw a vodka bottle at him. She says she wasn't in the room at the time.

Depp acknowledged he used the blood from severed finger to paint messages on a mirror, and the court was shown pictures of the mirror and of Depp on a hospital gurney.

Who allegedly drank and did drugs the most?

Depp acknowledged heavy use of multiple drugs over his life but he testified he was trying to kick his habits during the period of the marriage, and sometimes lapsed.

Heard was no drug-free saint, Depp claimed. He said she had “many times” chopped out lines of cocaine for him, before rubbing some of the drug into her gums.

Depp's lawyer, David Sherborne, asked him about medical notes from August 2014 that referred to Heard’s “history of substance abuse,” including an addiction to cocaine. The notes said Heard experienced anxiety, insecurity and jealousy and had “severe outbursts of anger and rage.”

Did this tally with Depp's experience of Heard, he was asked. “Yes,” Depp said.

When Sasha Wass said Heard often had two or three glasses of wine during an evening, Depp shot back: “Two or three bottles.”

“That is complete nonsense, Mr. Depp,” Wass snapped.

These two engaged in other sharp exchanges during cross-examination, apparently allowed in British civil trials. When Depp claimed Heard was responsible for most of the damage to the rented house in Australia, Wass protested, "That is completely untrue."

“Thank you, but it’s not," Depp retorted.

Did Depp really threaten Heard's little dog, Pistol?

Heard has accused Depp of dangling her teeny-tiny pooch out a car window and making "howling noises" as he was driving with Heard and others. Depp said this was an "absolute utter falsity."

"I don't think hanging an animal, a small defenseless dog that weighs three pounds, out of a window is fun." He said his sense of humor is "rather skewed" but not that much.

Pistol and Boo have come up several times in the trial because they have been star players before in the Depp/Heard saga. In July 2015, Heard was charged with smuggling the two dogs to Australia on a private jet. She pleaded guilty in April 2016 and escaped a conviction after expressing remorse in an awkward hostage-style video she made with Depp.

On Wednesday, Depp's former estate manager, Kevin Murphy, testified that Heard asked him to lie under oath about illegally sneaking the dogs in. Murphy claimed Heard pressured him to commit perjury or risk losing his job. He said he made a misleading statement in the Australian court case because "Amber wielded a lot of power and would have made my life miserable."

Heard is accused of stealing another woman's rape experience for her own use

In dramatic testimony on Wednesday, Kate James, Heard's former personal assistant, said she told her former boss that she was raped at machete-point in Brazil decades ago. She said she was shocked to learn that in a witness statement, Heard allegedly misrepresented and exploited her story to court sympathy.

“She referred directly to a violent rape that occurred to me 26 years ago and she twisted it into her own story and she used it for her own use," James said by video link from Los Angeles.“I am a sexual violence survivor and that’s very, very serious to take that stance if you are not one."

Depp believes Heard was plotting to lodge fake claims against Depp from the start

In a text message to his doctor after the Australia altercation, Depp called Heard “malicious, evil and vindictive,” said she was desperate for fame, and that he believes she married him with that in mind. He testified he thinks Heard made up fake claims against him as an “insurance policy.”

As evidence he cited an email she wrote but never sent (it was read in court), in which she compared him to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “Many times you have hurt me. Physically and emotionally from the things you say and did while (messed) up,” she wrote.

“Hoax is probably the best word one could use because the allegations, all of the allegations, are patently untrue," Depp testified. "It appears to me that Ms. Heard was building a dossier very early on that appears to be an insurance policy for later.”

Depp lost how much money due to alleged business mismanagement?

Depp's eye-popping spending habits (at one point, monthly five-figure bills for wine) and the vast sums he's raked in as a movie star came up again in the trial. He testified that the big fight with Heard on her birthday in Los Angeles came hours after he was told his former business managers had absconded with hundreds of millions of dollars.

Asked how much was allegedly stolen, Depp said, “This is a ludicrous amount to have to state, it’s quite embarrassing — apparently I had made $650 million,” much of it through the ”Pirates of the Caribbean” films. Depp added that in addition to losing the $650 million he was “$100 million in the hole because they had not paid the government my taxes for 17 years." Depp and his former business managers settled a legal dispute over the alleged fraud in 2018.

What other famous names have come up in testimony?

Depp's former partner, French singer Vanessa Paradis, with whom he has two children, and actress Winona Ryder, his girlfriend in the 1990s, have submitted witness statements supporting him. They were scheduled to testify, but Depp's lawyer said Thursday they were no longer necessary as The Sun does not contest their claim he never hit them.

Other boldfaced names that have come up so far include Marilyn Manson, Keith Richards, James Franco, Billy Bob Thornton, British actor Paul Bettany, and Depp's friend, the late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, whose book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was adapted for a movie Depp starred in.

Depp testified about trashing a hotel room where he was staying with Kate Moss, recalled the death of his friend River Phoenix from a drug overdose at his nightclub, the Viper Room, in Los Angeles, and claimed Elton John helped him kick his $30,000-a-month wine habit.

Contributing: Associated Press

50 states

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

Alabama

Montgomery:A Department of Corrections narcotics dog died last weekend after he had an allergic reaction to a substance inside an Elmore County prison. Department of Corrections officials say K-9 Jake collapsed during a contraband search inside Staton Correctional Facility last Thursday. Jake “alerted” on a substance before falling unconscious. The substance has not yet been identified, though ADOC says an early test by a HazMat team identified it as synthetic marijuana. The nursing staff at Staton performed CPR and inserted an IV before Jake was transported to the Auburn University Veterinary Clinic. But his condition deteriorated after Friday when he developed pneumonia. A funeral with full honors will be held for Jake and Gov. Kay Ivey also commended Jake’s service to the state.

Alaska

Fairbanks: An Alaska company is completing plans to acquire and develop a site for mining metals for foreign markets. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported that Trilogy Metals plans to develop an ore-extraction site called Artic, where about 43 million tons of reserves were discovered. The company president says the copper deposit is located in the Ambler Mining District about 300 miles north of Fairbanks. By the end of this year, Trilogy hopes to complete its plan to use the site to extract and transport metal ore to Asia. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management says the project includes building a road. Federal officials say draft plans for the road are expected to be released in August followed by a public comment period.

Arizona

Phoenix:The state landed $90million in federal grants for a project to widen Interstate 17 north of Phoenix in hopes of easing congestion and cutting down on the number of wrecks, according to Gov. Doug Ducey’s office. It’s part of a $320 million project led by the state Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration to add lanes along 23 miles of I-17, from Anthem Way to Sunset Point. The project will also add eight miles of “flex lanes”, which will carry traffic north on Fridays and Saturdays but south on Sundays between Black Canyon City and the Sunset Point Rest Area.

Arkansas

Little Rock: A meat-alternative food company has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming a state law that bans the use of “meat” in labeling plant-based foods violates free speech rights. Oregon-based Tofurky Co. filed the lawsuit Monday against Arkansas’ Bureau of Standards. Tofurky produces a variety of tofu, quinoa and other plant-based “sausages,” deli slices and burgers. The Arkansas law’s stated goal is to “require truth in labeling.” It also bans companies from labeling other vegetables, such as cauliflower, as “rice.” Arkansas is the nation’s top rice producer. Tofurky filed a lawsuit in 2018 against a Missouri meat-labeling law. This month, Illinois-based Upton’s Naturals Co. challenged a Mississippi law. Arkansas’ law is set to take effect Wednesday. It would fine companies up to $1,000 for each violation.

California

Los Angeles: Her name was “Lucille,” and in B.B. King’s hands she gave voice to the “King of the Blues.” Julien’s Auctions announced Tuesday that King’s black Gibson ES-345 prototype guitar is among the items from his estate that will go up for bid on Sept. 21. Julien’s says Gibson gave King the instrument for his 80th birthday. The headstock has “B.B. King 80” and a crown inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The guitar is estimated to be worth $80,000 to $100,000. The National Medal of Arts that President George H.W. Bush presented to King in 1990 is also up for auction. So are his touring van, jewelry and clothing. The 15-time Grammy winner was 89 years old when he died in 2015.

Colorado

Denver: Public health officials say four homeless people have been diagnosed with hepatitis A this year, so the city is stepping up free vaccinations. KDVR-TV reported Monday that three of the cases were diagnosed within the past three weeks. Public Health executive director Dr. Bill Burman says his agency will set up vaccine clinics almost every day in day shelters, syringe access programs, Civic Center Park and other places where people at risk of contracting the disease are found. Hepatitis A can be spread through the sharing of drugs and equipment, fecal-oral contamination or intimate contact with a person who has the disease. Health officials say the disease can be prevented with a vaccine that has been a part of standard childhood immunizations for more than a decade.

Connecticut

Hartford: Heavy rainfall and thunderstorms that raced across the state caused major flooding and a fire in a dorm at a private school. At the Tweed-New Haven Airport, major flooding Monday night caused airport staff to cancel flights for almost 24 hours through Tuesday afternoon. A dorm at Choate Rosemary Hall, a private school in Wallingford, also caught fire after a lightning strike, forcing students to evacuate and take shelter at an athletic center. No injuries were reported. Lorraine Connelly, director of communications for the school, said the lightning struck the building around 6:20 p.m. Firefighters say they had to wait until the lightning passed to complete their work. The state’s major utilities were reporting scattered power outages Tuesday morning.

Delaware

Georgetown:A Confederate flag and monument honoring those who fought for the South in the Civil War have cost the local historical society more than $14,000 in state funding. The Georgetown Historical Society was set to get $14,443 in grant-in-aid under a bill that gives tens of millions of dollars to more than 100 nonprofits each year, according to budget documents. But Sen. Trey Paradee, D-Dover, who serves on the General Assembly’s Joint Finance Committee, recommended that the group be struck from the list because of the Confederate monument and flag, which are on the grounds of the historical society’s museum on Bedford Street. The bill passed unanimously on the last day of the legislative session. Paradee told The News Journal that he did not discuss the change in funding with the historical society in advance, though he would consider restoring the grant if they got rid of the Confederate symbols. The Georgetown Historical Society did not return calls for comment. Debbie Jones, the group’s vice president, told WBOC 16 that the decision threatens the nonprofit’s financial standing.

District of Columbia

Washington: A D.C. council member who voted for a no-bid sports gambling contract says he wasn’t aware of documentation connecting his cousin to the contract. The Washington Post reports Kenyan R. McDuffie defended his vote Friday, saying his motivating factor was the best interest of the District and residents. Intralot was awarded the sole-source sports gambling contract. The company submitted subcontracting plans with McDuffie’s cousin listed as chief executive of Potomac Supply Company, a commercial paper supplier. McDuffie said he had no knowledge of his cousin being listed as CEO of Potomac before the newspaper contacted him. Potomac’s owner Okera Stewart says Intralot mistakenly identified McDuffie’s cousin as CEO because of an email he sent Intralot on Stewart’s behalf. An Intralot executive hasn’t returned comment requests.

Florida

Cocoa:Trafford Realty, which had been in operation for 102 years, closed July 1. The business was the oldest continuously operating retail office in Florida, says Margot Trafford Hester, former realtor whose father, Al, was chairman. The closure of Trafford Realty followed the death of company President Terry Lolmaugh and Vice President Roy Berry this spring. A.R. Trafford founded the company in 1917. His son, Al, started his career in 1938 and took over the company from his father. Al Trafford, who died in 2014, had continued participating in the business until age 98.

Georgia

Dallas: A K-9 was fatally shot by a deputy during a foot chase of a suspect. News outlets report 8-year-old Verro got out of his patrol car Friday without being assisted by his handler, Cpl. Brandon Kilgore. Paulding County sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Ashley Henson says deputies were pursuing a man fleeing the scene of an alleged domestic dispute. The situation didn’t require the deployment of the dog, but Verro squeezed out of his kennel looking to help Kilgore. The dog then attacked a deputy because he couldn’t differentiate who the suspect was without his handler. Henson says the deputy was unaware the dog was a K-9 and shot him to stop the attack. The suspect was apprehended. Kilgore had worked with Verro for about seven years.

Hawaii

Hilo: Hawaii County officials have announced reconstruction of a Big Island highway covered in lava is progressing on schedule. The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported Sunday that the Department of Public Works says construction on parts of Highway 132 is expected to be completed in a few weeks. A spokeswoman says the project that began earlier this month is expected to be completed by Oct. 5 to qualify for 100% federal reimbursement. Work will continue on various sections of the roadway that was inundated with lava during the 2018 Kilauea volcanic eruption. Officials say access to some residents’ land-locked homes and farms will be restored by October on the highway located about 24 miles southeast of Hilo.

Idaho

Caldwell: Federal data shows more women are operating farms in Idaho, but officials say they have always been there. The Idaho Statesman reports the 2017 Census of Agriculture released earlier this year shows about one-third of Idaho farms are run by women. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recorded more than 10,000 women in farm leadership roles. It also says more than 17,000 women are working on farms and ranches in the state, up from the just over 13,000 recorded in 2012. The department attributed the uptick to a change in how the farm leadership positions are recorded. Department statistician Randy Welk says officials determined that woman and youth were probably getting undercounted. He says often the name listed as the operator of a family farm wasn’t updated.

Illinois

Ford Heights: A south Chicago suburb without a library is getting a boost from students at an alternative high school inside a state juvenile detention facility. Illinois officials say the youth enrolled at Booker T. Washington Alternative High School at Harrisburg youth center constructed four library boxes to be placed throughout Ford Heights. The boxes will continually be replenished with books through a partnership with a bookstore. Department of Juvenile Justice Director Heidi Mueller says the boxes are symbolic of how collaboration, hard work and a shared goal can help families. Ford Heights had to close its library decades ago over funding issues. There will be a dedication ceremony for the boxes on July 30.

Indiana

Indianapolis: Indiana State Fairgrounds officials say a $50 million project will replace its nearly century-old swine barn with a new building that can hold events around the year. Fairgrounds Executive Director Cynthia Hoye says the open-air building can’t generate year-round revenue because it isn’t climate-controlled. The new building will be called the Fall Creek Pavilion and will still house livestock during the state fair. Most of the building that opened in 1923 will be demolished. Work could start after next year’s state fair. Gov. Eric Holcomb proposes dipping into the state’s $2.3 billion in reserves to pay cash for the project. Democrats have lambasted that plan, saying the money should go to other priorities such as raising teacher pay or improving access to affordable child care.

Iowa

Iowa City:The Muslim community in the Iowa City area is growing quickly, and along with that growth so is the need for a new Islamic cemetery, mosque leaders say. The Iowa City Mosque spent years establishing the Al-Iman Cemetery in southwest Iowa City and is now in the slow process of beautifying the space and putting in necessary physical infrastructure. The cemetery has long been an important project for the Iowa City Mosque, in part because members found local cemeteries did not allow them to bury loved ones in accordance with certain Muslim traditions, says Ousainou Keita, president of the Executive Committee for the mosque. The new cemetery allows for loved ones to be buried facing Mecca, the birthplace of Islam, and coffins or caskets are not mandated, like they are with other cemeteries. The Al-Iman Cemetery will serve the small slice of residents who identify as Muslim in Iowa City, Coralville and North Liberty.

Kansas

Wichita: State health and environment officials are recommending alternative ways for municipal water operators to treat toxic blue-green algal blooms that have troubled state lakes for nearly 10 years. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people and animals that come into contact with cyanobacteria algae might suffer diarrhea, headaches and other symptoms. The state Department of Health and Environment has detected traces of toxins related to the blooms in at least five water treatment plants. KMUW-FM reports that the department has suggested adding activated carbon to the water treatment process. The carbon causes algae to fall to the bottom of ponds, allowing clean water to pass through. Department officials say they also offer a program to subsidize water quality tests searching for toxins caused by cyanobacteria.

Kentucky

Ashland: Planning is underway for a monument that would list the names of all Boyd County residents who served in World War II. The Independent reports the Ashland Rotary Club is planning a 79-foot wall that would have 6,700 names laser-etched on it. Cheryl Spriggs is spearheading the project and says the organization has raised about $20,000 and hopes to double that. She says Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has agreed to attend an Aug. 21 fundraiser for the project. She says officials are looking for locations along the riverfront and in Central Park. The wall will replace one built in 1944 and demolished a decade later. Spriggs said she hopes to finish the wall by May 8, 2020, which is the 75th anniversary of Germany’s surrender.

Louisiana

Lake Charles:Hurricane Barry brought a 7-foot storm surge in some parts of south Louisiana and dropped more than 20 inches of rain in one parish, according to a preliminary report from the National Weather Service. The storm, which made landfall July 13 as a Category 1 hurricane, also caused flooding and power outages in more than a dozen parishes, according to the report out of the NWS Lake Charles office. The most rainfall was measured in South Ragley in Beauregard Parish. It received 23.5 inches of rain, according to the report. Morgan City in St. Mary Parish, near Barry’s landfall, received nearly 11 inches of rain. Denham Springs in Livingston Parish received nearly 9 inches. In St. Martin Parish, Barry dropped about 7 inches of rain. Scott, in Lafayette Parish, received about 6 inches. The storm, which might have caused as much as $900 million in property damage, also caused more than 7 feet of storm surge in St. Mary and Vermilion parishes. At its peak on July 14, the Vermilion River in Perry reached nearly 11 feet.

Maine

Madawaska: The state will receive $36 million to help pay for the replacement of an aging bridge that connects one of its northernmost communities with the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, says the money will go toward replacing the Madawaska International Bridge. The bridge connects Madawaska with Edmundston, New Brunswick. The money is through the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America Program, which uses federal grants to help communities fix infrastructure. The program served 26 projects in the country last year. Collins’ office says temporary closures and a weight limit on the bridge forced some residents and businesses to drive as many as 75 miles out of their way. The total cost of replacement is estimated at $73.5 million.

Maryland

Baltimore: The state will receive a $125 million federal grant for long-sought improvements to the Howard Street Tunnel. Gov. Larry Hogan announced the grant Monday from the federal Infrastructure For Rebuilding America Grant Program. Height restrictions prevent the shipment of double-stacked containers by rail to and from the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore and up and down the East Coast. Double-stack containers provide a more cost-effective way to transport freight by rail than by truck.

Massachusetts

Worcester: The largest furniture and flooring store in New England has been acquired. Vystar Corp. announced Monday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Worcester-based Rotmans Furniture and Carpet. Rotmans, one of the largest independent furniture retailers in the U.S., with 200,000 square feet and 150 employees, was founded by and has been under the leadership of the Rotman family for 50 years. Vytex is a Worcester-based manufacturer of environmentally safe and biodegradable rubber latex products. Vystar has acquired a controlling interest in Rotmans for more than $2 million, comprised of 25% cash and 75% in notes convertible into shares. Steve Rotman, CEO of Vystar and Rotmans, says the transaction will not impact the Rotmans store name or business practices and is expected to increase Vystar shareholder value and liquidity.

Michigan

Detroit:Fire has claimed the building that once housed the Gold Dollar, the Cass Avenue bar where the White Stripes played their first show and other bands cut their teeth in the late 1990s as Detroit’s garage-rock phenomenon took flight. The Gold Dollar closed in 2001 after a five-year run, and the property was reportedly purchased by the Ilitch organization in 2015 as the company acquired properties in the area around Little Caesars Arena. Deputy fire commissioner David Fornell says the fire was “fully involved” when firefighters arrived on the scene after 8 p.m. Monday. They were still battling the blaze at 10 p.m. Power and gas services at the building were shut off six years ago, Fornell says, adding it was too soon to determine the cause of the fire or speculate about arson.

Minnesota

Collegeville:A St. John’s University monk has been named 2019 Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities by the National Endowment for the Humanities, marking the first time the honor has been given to a Minnesotan, a member of the clergy or a Benedictine monk. According to a news release issued Monday, Father Columba Stewart, OSB, will give a lecture titled “Cultural Heritage Present and Future: A Benedictine Monk’s Long View” at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 7 at the Warner Theatre in Washington. The lectureship is the highest honor bestowed by the federal government for contributions to the humanities, according to the release. Stewart is a graduate of Harvard, Yale and Oxford universities and a professed Benedictine monk of St. John’s Abbey since 1981. He is a much-awarded expert in the research field of early Christian monasticism, according to the release. Stewart is a professor of theology at St. John’s University School of Theology and Seminary and has been the executive director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at St. John’s since 2003.

Mississippi

Jackson: The Mississippi Department of Education says a $1,500 raise for teachers will cost $18.5 million more than it originally told lawmakers. The department made the announcement Monday, months after local superintendents discovered a shortfall caused by the department’s ignorance of how teachers were classified in its computer system. Lawmakers allotted $58 million for the raise that began July 1, based on it going to 31,000 teachers. But the department didn’t count 10,000 other teaching positions that officials thought were federally funded. Instead, those positions are state-funded, and Mississippi must absorb the costs. Legislators pledge to pay the remainder of the full $77 million when they convene in January after elections. State Superintendent Carey Wright has said the department will give local school districts enough money to cover costs until then.

Missouri

Rocheport: The Missouri Department of Transportation will receive an $81 million federal grant to help pay for the replacement of the Interstate 70 bridge over the Missouri River near Rocheport. Republican members of Missouri’s congressional delegation announced Monday the state will receive the grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Infrastructure for Rebuilding America program. The bridge was built in 1960 and carries about 12.5 million vehicles per year. It is rated in poor condition and repairing it has been a top priority of state officials for years. State transportation officials have said the current bridge will remain open while the new one is built. The agency had applied for about $178 million for the project, which has an estimated cost of $200 million.

Montana

Missoula: Wildlife officials are asking people who are traveling near Glacier National Park to report sightings of animals crossing the road. The Missoulian reported Monday that park officials and the U.S. Geological Survey want to know where animals are crossing U.S. Highway 2. Officials plan to use the data to help find locations for dedicated wildlife crossings and for other efforts to ease animals’ migration between the park and the Flathead National Forest. Park wildlife biologist John Waller says officials are interested in sightings of rare animals like lynx, bears and wolverines, as well as common animals like deer. Research ecologist Tabitha Graves says officials want to collect as much information as possible, including sightings from several years ago.

Nebraska

Lincoln: A poultry farm that could house up to 380,000 chickens has been proposed for Lancaster County as the county considers new regulations for large livestock operations. The Lincoln Journal Star reports that Sunset Poultry LLC applied earlier this month for a special permit for eight barns housing up to 47,500 chickens each on 80 acres just south of the Saunders County line. The birds would go to the Lincoln Premium Poultry plant in Fremont that’s processing chickens for Costco. An application last year for a poultry farm that would supply Costco spurred officials to examine Lancaster County’s lack of specific zoning laws regarding large livestock operations. A task force has arrived at recommendations for changes. A Lincoln Premium spokeswoman says Sunset Poultry would abide by the pending recommendations.

Nevada

Las Vegas:Retired engineer Gary George was a NASA intern in 1976 when he paid $218 at a government auction for three truckloads of film reels that happened to include original video footage of man’s first steps on the moon. On Saturday, three film reels of the moon mission labeled “Apollo 11 EVA” were sold to a private buyer at a Sotheby’s New York auction for $1.82 million. Running 2 hours, 24 minutes, the “unrestored, unenhanced and unremastered tapes” – as described before the auction – including Neil Armstrong’s famous lunar declaration: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” But that sale perhaps would have never happened if George’s father hadn’t looked a little closer at the peculiar tapes. George had decided to donate any leftover tapes to a Texas church that produced a syndicated television show. That way, he said, he could write them off come tax time. His father, Chet, helped him load the remaining tapes into the family’s 1963 Pontiac station wagon. Scanning the labels on the boxes, Chet noticed something that seemed impossible. On three of the boxes were small labels identifying the metal reels as “Apollo 11 EVA.” George took the three reels out of the pile and put them in a safe place with three other reels that seemed worth keeping: A Bob Hope special recorded at NASA as a benefit for the Apollo 1 astronauts who died in a tragic fire.

New Hampshire

Concord: Three public school teachers have received fellowships as part of a program aimed at retaining educators in the northern part of the state. The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation says the winners of the Louise Tillotson Teaching Fellowships are Melissa Jellison, STEAM Coordinator at White Mountains Regional High School in Whitefield; Kate Moore, a second-grade teacher at Brown Elementary School in Berlin; and Deborah Sargent, Art Educator at Pittsburg School. Each winner will receive $10,000. Since 2007, the Louise Tillotson Fellowship has awarded $445,100 to North Country public school educators.

New Jersey

Voorhees: Residents of a southern New Jersey nursing home have returned to their rooms after a malfunctioning air conditioning system forced them to be evacuated for several hours during last weekend’s heatwave. Officials say 183 residents of Voorhees Care and Rehabilitation were evacuated Sunday afternoon while repairs were made. Most were taken across the street to Eastern High School, while some went to other medical facilities. Residents returned to the center around 8 p.m. Sunday. Officials say at least one patient was taken to a hospital, though it wasn’t clear if that case was heat-related. Officials said outside temperatures were reported at 99 degrees when the cooling system failed, with the heat index around 110 degrees. Some patients’ relatives said temperatures inside the facility reached into the 90s.

New Mexico

Albuquerque: Five trees planted in New Mexico from seeds taken to the moon during Apollo 14 and given to the state by NASA have died or been forgotten. KOAT-TV reports officials, where the trees were planted decades ago, admit they have lost track of the trees. Other states have kept up with moon tree locations. Moon trees were grown from 500 seeds taken into orbit around the moon by former U.S. Forest Service smokejumper Stuart Roosa during the 1971 mission. NASA says the resulting seedlings were planted throughout the United States and the world. A NASA list of moon trees only cites one New Mexico tree. That one was planted in Albuquerque and city officials say it died.

New York

Buffalo: After more than 20 years and $50 million, the restoration of an estate designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright for a patron in Buffalo is complete. Work on the Darwin D. Martin House complex has been ongoing since the early 1990s and involved restoring or rebuilding the main house and several smaller structures, including a carriage house, glass-roofed conservatory and covered walkway. The complex was built between 1903 and 1905. The 1.5-acre estate is a National Historic Landmark and has received $24 million from the state over the years. On Monday, officials announced the completion of the Wright-designed landscape, the final piece of the project. The estate is seen as an example of Wright’s vision of architecture that promotes harmony with the natural world.

North Carolina

Raleigh: North Carolina lawmakers are cracking down on robocalls and telephone scammers in a bill that has passed both chambers of the General Assembly. The state Senate voted 45-0 on Monday and sent the bill to Gov. Roy Cooper to be signed. Under the bill, any telephone solicitor who masks their real number on caller ID so that the call appears to come from a local number or a familiar number can be fined up to $5,000. The practice of using fake numbers or names is illegal under federal law, but this bill gives North Carolina more leverage to go after scammers. It requires callers to use their real information or the information of the business they’re representing. The bill also applies to text message solicitations.

North Dakota

Northwood: Sheriff’s officials say an overweight semitrailer loaded with dried beans caused a more-than-century-old bridge to. Grand Forks County sheriff’s officials say the bridge over the Goose River near Northwood collapsed Monday afternoon. Photos show the wooden and iron span buckling under the weight of the vehicle. The bridge is partly submerged in the water. The 56-foot-long bridge was built in 1906 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has a 14 ton weight restriction. Sheriff’s officials say the semitrailer was 29 tons over that limit. The driver, who was not injured, faces an $11,400 overload fine. Officials say it will cost up to $1 million to replace the bridge. Northwood is about 200 miles northeast of Bismarck.

Ohio

Columbus: Gov. Mike DeWine has declared a state of emergency in 63 counties where severe weather caused serious highway damage last month. The 63 counties covered by the emergency declaration have had weather-related damage to roads and/or bridges after mild temperatures and significant rains in June saturated the ground. Some roads still have lane restrictions or are closed completely. The governor said in a statement Monday that the emergency proclamation allows the state Department of Transportation and local governments in the 63 counties to access federal emergency relief funds to help fix the damage.

Oklahoma

Edmond: First-degree murder charges have been filed against two people in the shooting death of the manager of a medical marijuana dispensary. Oklahoma County court records indicate charges were filed Monday against 38-year-old George Stewart Watson and 37-year-old Lyndsi Mae Mayabb. The records do not list an attorney for either defendant. Authorities say they are charged in the death of 24-year-old Andrew Sawyer English, the manager of a medical marijuana dispensary in Edmond, whose body was discovered by police in his home on June 27 with three bullet wounds in his back. Investigators tracked the suspects to St. Augustine, Florida, earlier this month, where Mayabb told detectives that Watson allegedly shot English after learning she had a relationship with him. Edmond Police spokeswoman Jennifer Wagnon said Tuesday that the suspects have waived extradition.

Oregon

Astoria: Wildlife officials have proposed new regulations to avoid entangling whales in commercial fishing gear used by the state’s Dungeness crab industry. The Daily Astorian reports state fishery officials presented recommendations to avoid unwanted whale interactions to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission during a June meeting. Officials say there were 12 cases of entangled whales as of July 16, half associated with commercial fishing and a third with commercial crabbing. Fisheries say recommendations include new gear identification tags and equipment cleanup requirements before the season’s end, eliminating a two-week, postseason grace period. Commercial fishermen say they can clean up earlier, but other changes could be contentious. Officials say Oregon has also applied for a federal permit allowing fishermen to take a small number of whales each year while fishing.

Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh: Scores of police officers, officials and members of the community gathered to pay their respects to an off-duty Pittsburgh police officer shot to death in a street confrontation more than a week ago. Relatives of 35-year-old Officer Calvin Hall were among those speaking during Tuesday’s service at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood. Hall’s sister remembered her brother as “the rock of our family.” His father performed a song he wrote and dedicated to his son. Hall died last Wednesday, three days after he was shot three times in the back during a street dispute in the Homewood neighborhood as a party was going on. Charges were announced against a suspect Monday afternoon as a viewing for the slain officer was being held.

Rhode Island

Newport: A developer wants to demolish the former Newport Grand slots parlor and build hotels, apartment buildings, offices and retail space. The Carpionato Group says Tuesday it wants to create “Newport North End,” a $100 million mixed-use development project at the site. The project would include two six-story hotels, two six-story apartment buildings, offices and medical, retail and restaurant space. The project needs approvals from the city and state. The slots parlor closed nearly a year ago, when the Twin River Management Group relocated its gambling operations in the area to the new Tiverton Casino Hotel. City officials said then they expected to lose roughly $800,000 in annual property taxes and casino revenues. The Carpionato Group says its project would generate $1.5 million in tax revenue for Newport.

South Carolina

Columbia: Highway crews are closing a lane on the main highway north out of downtown Columbia as they prepare to build a bridge. The state Department of Transportation said the lane closure on state Highway 277 north bridge over Interstate 77 will continue until Thursday. Crews are preparing to build a $25 million bridge to carry the freeway from downtown Columbia to I-77 north. DOT engineers say the current bridge is getting old and its intersection with I-77 doesn’t match current safety standards. Crews hope to finish the new bridge by August 2020. They say they will have to temporarily close I-77 next year when they tear down the old bridge.

South Dakota

Sioux Falls:The leader of Jefferson High School will be hired a full year before the Sioux Falls School District’s newest high school even opens, school officials announced Monday. The searches for the new high school principal and the new Ben Reifel Middle School principal will happen somewhat concurrently, Superintendent Brian Maher said during the district’s annual school board retreat. Both schools are projects tied to a $190 million bond passed in 2018 to help address overcrowding, and both buildings are expected to open by fall 2021. The high school search will begin in January or February and conclude by March or April, he said.

Tennessee

Johnson City: East Tennessee State University researchers have developed a device to measure environmental preferences of salamanders that live in southern Appalachia. ETSU says plethodontid salamanders are threatened by climate change, shrinking habitats and fungal infections. ETSU biomedical sciences doctoral student Trevor Chapman calls the salamanders a crucial link in the local ecosystem. He says they’re one of the most abundant vertebrate species, are eaten by most creatures that prey on small organisms and they prey on almost any invertebrate or vertebrate they can fit in their mouths. With the help of faculty, Chapman made a four-chambered device that varies temperatures, moisture levels and other factors to monitor the behavior of salamanders within. Chapman sets the chambers at different levels and sees over 24 hours which chamber the animal will stay in longest.

Texas

Corpus Christi: A south Texas state park has reopened for overnight camping nearly two years after Hurricane Harvey battered the coastal area. The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department on Monday announced Mustang Island State Park has overnight camping available after Harvey delayed a scheduled restroom replacement project. Superintendent Scott Taylor says the staff of Mustang Island State Park is excited to again be able to offer camping to visitors from around the world. Mustang Island is in the area where Harvey made landfall in August 2017. Camp officials say the bathroom renovations included major plumbing and electrical work. Additional Harvey repairs are ongoing to the park’s headquarters and maintenance shop.

Utah

Cedar City: Officials are considering whether to preserve a painted image of a Native American and the name “Redmen” on a water tank or allow it to be changed. The Spectrum reports the Cedar City Council reviewed last week two competing resolutions on the Leigh Hill water tank. One measure would designate the tank as a city marker, keeping the image and name of the former Cedar High School mascot. The second measure would allow schools to decide what goes on the tank and a second water tank in town. Under the second measure, representatives from the town’s two high schools would submit proposals for the tanks to the city council. The council is scheduled to vote on the resolutions next week.

Vermont

Bakersfield: The community has dedicated a memorial pavilion to a U.S. Marine killed overseas. NECN.com reports the community honored Lance Cpl. Lucas Williams at a dedication service Friday. Williams was killed in a Humvee wreck during a training exercise in Kuwait in 1998. He was 19 years old. The late soldier’s mother, Rosalie, has been holding youth programs in her son’s name for nearly two decades and has always wanted a permanent structure for where they can be held. She says the memorial pavilion will now be that place for children and the community to gather. Williams says this pavilion would have been Lucas’s wish and that she was “determined to make his wishes come true.”

Virginia

Richmond: The state Department of Health says the number of people in the state needing medical treatment for heat-related illnesses has nearly doubled compared with last July. Data released Sunday show just over 1,000 people visited emergency departments or urgent-care for heat-related illness since the beginning of the month, up from just below 600 during the same period last year. Parham Jaberi, the state’s chief deputy commissioner for public health and preparedness, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch the numbers describe a serious public health threat. Jaberi said there have been four heat-related deaths in the state within the past week, including an infant left in a car. She said the three others were older than 69 and included a woman doing yard work and a person sitting in a car.

Washington

Bainbridge Island: A no-contact advisory for the city’s eastern shoreline north to Indianola has been lifted following a large spill at a Seattle sewage treatment plant. The three-day advisory was posted by the Kitsap Public Health District on Friday following a spill of 3 million gallons of untreated sewage from King County’s West Point Treatment Plant. King County reported the spill was a combination of stormwater and wastewater and said the problem was caused by a power surge early Friday. Workers responded by sending the water into Puget Sound through an emergency outfall pipe for about 30 minutes, in order to prevent flooding in the plant, King County said. The state’s Department of Ecology said backup pumping systems failed during the power disruption and said it is investigating the incident as a violation of the state’s water quality permits for the facility. Following the investigation, the state could levy fines and administrative orders against the county, Ecology spokesman Larry Altose said.

West Virginia

Wheeling: Officials say a suspension bridge will remain closed for another month so crews can make needed repairs and improvements. The Wheeling Suspension Bridge has been closed since a charter bus weighing well over the 2-ton weight limit crossed the span on June 29 and compromised its integrity. The Intelligencer reports state highway officials say along with making structural repairs, the state plans to put a hard barrier at the bridge’s entrances, which would stop vehicles such as dump trucks and tour buses from crossing it. Wheeling Police Department spokesman Philip Stahl has said the driver of the bus was cited for the overweight vehicle and failing to obey a traffic control device.

Wisconsin

Madison: The state Department of Natural Resources is asking wastewater treatment plants to test for polyfluoroalkyl pollution. The substances, also known as PFAS, are man-made chemicals that have been used for decades in products such as firefighting foam, nonstick cookware and fast-food wrappers. Research suggests PFAS can decrease female fertility, increase the risk of high blood pressure in pregnant women and lower birth weights. DNR officials said Monday they have started sending letters to 125 municipal wastewater plants asking them to sample and analyze water flowing in and out of the facilities for PFAS compounds. The DNR picked the facilities because they’re more likely to receive wastewater from businesses that use PFAS. The DNR plans to use data from the sampling to build a plan to reduce PFAS entering the facilities.

Wyoming

Cody: State wildlife officials encourage people who enter the backcountry to carry bear spray, but they declined to make it a requirement. The Cody Enterprise reported Monday that the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission took no action last week on a petition submitted by seven conservation groups earlier this year. The conservation groups had asked the state to consider a bear spray mandate, aiming to reduce the number of grizzly bear deaths from encounters with hunters. Hunters defensively killed 15 grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in 2017. Bonnie Rice of the Sierra Club says bear spray is a proven tool in preventing injury to people and bears. Grand Teton National Park requires elk hunters to carry bear spray when they’re in the park each fall.