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Though the Auditor of State hasn’t identified any government in Ohio that is improperly spending its pandemic funds, debates have sparked about whether the funds can be appropriately used on things like a new jail or improved baseball stadium.
The Mackinac Island Ferry Co., formerly known as Star Line, will replace two diesel engines with electric propulsion motors on its Chippewa vessel, then will transition the rest of its seven steel vessels to all-electric.
Ten-year-old Fabian Aguirre, a student at V.H. Lassen Academy of Science and Nutrition, regarding the challenge that it can be to learn while hungry. All students at Fabian’s Phoenix-area school are eligible to receive free meals. More than 34 million people, including 9 million children, across the country are food insecure. (Associated Press — March 11, 2023)
Pandemic assistance to families at risk of food insecurity has ended. As a “hunger cliff” looms, programs in public libraries can fill gaps.
Focusing just a small fraction of our economic development resources on supporting entrepreneurs can benefit all communities. And it’s good politics.
The idea of secession did not originate with Marjorie Taylor Greene. It has been tried before. The question we need to ask is whether we are really ready to see what a Red and Blue America would look and act like.
Before 2020, they seldom voted against certifying results. But in 2022, conservative officials in North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and New Mexico refused to do so.
The plans have a strong financial incentive to keep their members enrolled because states pay them per member, per month: The more people they cover, the more money they get.
Urban areas grew in 36 states. The New York-Jersey City-Newark urban area is the nation’s most populous with 19.4 million residents followed by the 12.2 million in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim area.
A $1.2 million study found that the state should offer 4 percent merit-based raises to make salaries more competitive. Instead, lawmakers approved select raises, including an 11 percent increase for Raúl Labrador’s office.
A variety of bills headed to the state Senate floor on Thursday, just days ahead of the 2023 legislative end. Bills on third grade success, gun shop sales and curbing college costs were passed 32-0 and head for concurrence.
The state Department of Health announced that unauthorized access to approximately 3,400 death records occurred on Jan. 20. The agency says that no death certificates were accessed or generated.
Gerald Harmon, president of the American Medical Association, regarding the fact that gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. The pandemic increased the rate of gun deaths in kids overall but also exacerbated the racial disparities among gun violence: Black children were 100 times more likely to be shot than white children between 2020 and the end of 2021; Hispanic and Asian children were 26 times and four times more likely to be shot than white children, respectively. (Ars Technica — March 9, 2023)
Nearly a dozen counties in Oregon have voted to leave Salem behind and join Idaho. Local secession movements have sprung up in multiple states due to the urban-rural political divide.
Before COVID-19, just 1,400 city restaurants had outdoor permits. Today there are 13,000 of the structures scattered across the five boroughs, and many are showing wear and tear from life on the street.
The California county is examining millions of documents to remove discriminatory language to adhere to a 2021 state law. So far only 19 property deeds have been modified. They came primarily from the 1940s and ‘50s.
House legislation would create a task force to analyze the costs of a system under which copays and deductibles are prohibited and access and benefits are prioritized. More than $277,000 will be allocated toward the study.
Advocates of the bill say that it would empower parents to take charge in their kids’ education and limit the exposure to objectionable content, while critics say it would allow discrimination against kids.
The license plate of Peter Starostecki, who is vegan, which was rejected in Maine’s effort to crack down on lewd and vulgar plates. The state determined that Starostecki’s tag could have been a reference to sex, while the motorist insists that there is no mistaking his intent. He has several tofu-related stickers on the back of his vehicle. Starostecki said the plate was his protest against eating meat and animal products. (Associated Press — March 9, 2023)
Blue states have played key roles in all the recent GOP primaries. Plus, rejecting ranked-choice voting, the Pennsylvania House has already had two speakers this year, the seats for St. Louis Board of Aldermen are particularly competitive and Mississippi considers restoring its initiative process.
A new report from the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University examines the phenomenon of wholesale real estate investors targeting vulnerable homeowners in poor neighborhoods in Philadelphia.
It would be a dereliction of duty for public treasurers and other institutional investors to ignore climate change, environmental degradation, water shortages and poor company governance.
Lawmakers in some states are pushing to make it harder for defendants to avoid pretrial detention. There are better ways to protect public safety that don’t conflict with the presumption of innocence.
Indiana lawmakers are considering changes to an absentee voting measure that would alter who may deliver absentee ballot applications and what proof of identification is required to obtain a ballot.
The results of a first-ever statewide broadband survey found that 37.2 percent of residents were unaware of the advertised speeds they are paying for and 23.7 percent reported speed dissatisfaction.
The state’s first auction for pollution allowances sold all of its nearly 6.2 million allowances, each of which represented one metric ton of greenhouse gas emissions. The settlement price was $48.50 per ton.
Jill Schlesinger, CBS news business analyst and author of The Great Money Reset, regarding the great swing in finances for many Americans over the last several years. The pandemic-induced federal aid resulted in the highest personal savings rate on record which was quickly followed by high inflation that has caused a nearly 30 percent increase in debt for millennials since before the pandemic to about $3.8 trillion. (NPR — March 8, 2023)
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