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MASSACHUSETTS
Statewide ban on smoking at workplace officially begins
BOSTON - A statewide indoor smoking ban covering workplaces, bars and restaurants went into effect Monday throughout Massachusetts, and public health officials said they plan to aggressively pursue violators.
Smokers face a $100 fine for each violation, and business owners who allow smoking in their establishment face fines of up to $300.
Ian Lang, chief of staff of the state Department of Public Health, said he expected 95 percent voluntary compliance by Labor Day.
"We consider this a tremendous victory for the health of workers," Lang said of the new law. "This is a tremendous step forward."
Massachusetts joins five other states - New York, Connecticut, Maine, Delaware and California - with statewide bans.
MICHIGAN
Anti-gay marriage advocates work to amend constitution
LANSING - Supporters of a ban on gay marriage submitted nearly 500,000 signatures Monday in an effort to get a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot.
If adopted, the amendment would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Gay marriage is banned in Michigan, but opponents want stronger language to protect against potential future judicial decisions or legislative initiatives.
The group, Citizens for the Protection of Marriage, had submitted more than 475,000 signatures to state election officials. If 317,757 of the signatures are valid, the issue could be on the Nov. 2 ballot.
CONNECTICUT
City dedicates memorial to spectators killed at circus
HARTFORD - Sixty years after a fire erupted during a crowded Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus matinee, the city is dedicating a memorial to the 168 people killed when the big top burned to the ground.
An estimated 6,000 spectators - mostly women and children - fled in a panic when the circus tent, waterproofed with paraffin thinned with gasoline, caught fire.
Most of the 168 victims were found piled near an exit blocked by animal cages. Another 700 people were injured in the July 6, 1944, fire.
FLORIDA
Professor killed by husband in front of police station
OCALA - A community college professor was shot to death in front of an empty police station by her husband, who then committed suicide, police said.
Debra Allen Vazquez, 50, had driven to police headquarters to get help, but all officers were on assignment at the time, authorities said.
Vazquez had been arguing with her estranged husband on Sunday.
She drove away but Jose Vazquez followed her in his pickup truck and started to ram her vehicle to get her to stop. He caught up with her at the police station.
Jose Vazquez, also 50, was later found dead in his truck on the side of a road with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, investigators said.
MISSISSIPPI
Boy who survived attack by shark has trouble talking
OCEAN SPRINGS - Three years after he was nearly killed by a shark, 11-year-old Jessie Arbogast is "growing like a weed" but still uses a wheelchair and has trouble speaking, his aunt says.
Doctors offered little hope for Jessie after a shark tore off his right arm and bit through his thigh. The 8-year-old lost most of his blood in the July 6, 2001, attack in Florida.
A 6 1/2 -foot, 200-pound bull shark attacked Jessie as the boy frolicked at sunset about 15 yards offshore near Pensacola, Fla. His uncle, Vance Flosenzier, rescued the boy, and doctors reattached his arm.