Honolulu’s City Council passed a pair of bills that will impose some of the toughest regulations on the island of Oahu’s vacation rental industry in decades. Bill 89, approved unanimously, will allow the permitting of as many as 1,715...
On May 29 Riviera Beach, Florida, a city of roughly 35,000 people near West Palm Beach was hit by a ransomware attack that took down all of the city’s computer networks, along with its water utility pump stations. “Anything that was...
At least 189 bills dealing with independent contractors have been introduced in state legislatures this session, according to LexisNexis State Net’s legislative tracking system . Fifty of those measures have been passed by one or both chambers of...
When San Francisco-based Lyft driver Roosevelt Thomas recently got a message from the company urging him to sign a petition opposing California Assembly Bill 5 – which would turn rideshare drivers from independent contractors into employees –...
Analytics experts from Fortune 500 companies, along with other top data practitioners, will converge on Las Vegas this month—and that's not the only stop on the Predictive Analytics World tour, now in its 10th year. Washington DC, London and...
With the legislative session in its usual summer lull, California Sen. Scott “Salmon Salad” Wilk and Asm. Tom “Turkey Burger” Lackey have taken on a new goal: losing weight. As Wilk announced on his Facebook page, he and Lackey...
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey was mad, mad, mad! Angry! Perturbed! Vexed! That commie pinko lefty wussbomb Nike had crumbled to PC pressure and cancelled plans to produce sneakers bearing the iconic Betsy Ross version of the American flag. But Nike bailed after...
If feelings of being disrespected were currency, America wouldn’t need a single other consumer product to remain the richest country on the face of the earth. Case in point comes from the town of Needles, a tiny town in the Mojave Desert area of...
Back in the 70s’s, Chicago news icon Mike Royko famously dubbed then-California Gov. Jerry Brown “Governor Moonbeam” for the brash young governor’s appeal to young progressive voters, or what Royko called “the moonbeam vote...
Seattle City Council Votes Unanimously The SEATTLE City Council votes unanimously to enable the construction of more and larger backyard cottages in all neighborhoods. Council members also endorsed removing requirements that property owners live on...
After decades of false dawns, the age of artificial intelligence (AI) is finally upon us. AI has talked its way into consumer consciousness via Alexa and Siri, while unprecedented access to big data sources and the cloud computing power needed to analyse...
Federal Court Upholds Kentucky Law A federal court upholds a KENTUCKY law requiring doctors who perform abortions to first complete an ultrasound and attempt to show and describe the image to the patient, as well as to play an audible heartbeat of...
California Senate Health Committee Held SB 347 The CALIFORNIA Senate Health Committee holds SB 347 , a bill that would have required sugar-sweetened beverages to contain a warning label advising consumers of their associated health risks like diabetes...
PA governor Signs SB 712 PENNSYLVANIA Gov. Tom Wolf (D) signs SB 712 , a budget bill that has a provision which bans state and local governments from regulating or banning single-use plastics until the completion of two government studies on the matter...
OR Senate Approves HB 155 The OREGON Senate approves HB 155 , which would strengthen the authority of the state’s teacher licensing agency to investigate educators who engage in sexual misconduct. The measure, which passed both chambers unanimously...
OR Senate Approves HB 2005 The OREGON Senate approves HB 2005 , which would grant workers up to 12 weeks of paid time off that they could also use to recuperate from their own serious illness, care for new adopted or foster children, or deal with domestic...
PRITZKER ISSUES IL TRANSGENDER STUDENT EO ILLINOIS Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) issued Executive Order 19-11 , aimed at protecting the Prairie State’s transgender, nonbinary and gender nonconforming students. The governor’s directive creates...
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed legislation ( AB 20 ) that greatly expands the Garden State medical marijuana industry. The bill Murphy signed takes several actions , including: increasing to three the number of ounces allowed to legal marijuana...
The contentious cap-and-trade bill that caused Oregon Republicans to flee the state last month is dead, but the resolve of Democratic Gov. Kate Brown is anything but. In a press conference last week, Brown said she is exploring the possibility if implementing...
FL ENACTS FINANCIAL LIMIT ON FELON VOTING FLORIDA Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill last month requiring former felons to pay all court fees, fines and victim restitution they owe before being allowed to vote. That requirement would potentially disenfranchise...
Georgia’s Administrative Office of the Courts was hit by a ransomware attack that forced officials to shut down all court websites on July 1. “Everything is shut down until they tell us to turn it on,” said Michelle Barclay, a...
TAXPAYER DOLLARS USED TO BLOCK VOTER APPROVED CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW IN MO Attorneys representing the Association of Missouri Electrical Cooperatives (AMEC) and the American Democracy Alliance, a 501(c) group, received $508,000 in MISSOURI taxpayer dollars...
A study released this month found that the town of North Topsail Beach, located on an island off North Carolina’s southeastern coast, could save $57.6 million over the next 30 years by buying 347 properties at risk of damage from storm surges, flooding...
Seven states suffer from weak governance, according to a report released last week by credit-rating agency Moody’s Investor Service. What earned those states - Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin...
At least two cities, Philadelphia and San Francisco, and one state, New Jersey ( AB 591 ), have passed legislation requiring businesses to accept cash, according to the online and print business magazine Fast Company and LexisNexis State Net’s local...