An unusual public auction was held recently at the Larimer County Fairgrounds in Loveland, Colorado. Up for bid was about 400 acres of farmland located near Denver. But the real draw was the hundreds of units of Colorado Big Thompson water - part of a...
With current interest rates making borrowing cheaper than ever, it’s never been a better time for state and local governments to invest in infrastructure. But government bond issues are at their lowest level in decades. The $140 billion in municipal...
Most folks don’t associate dumpster diving with anything good, but then Philadelphia is a world all its own. As ClickOnDetroit.com reports , Philly city officials are asking residents not to swim in dumpsters some industrious folks have turned into...
MASSACHUSETTS Gov. Charlie Baker (R) signs HB 4568 , a wide ranging energy bill that, among several things, directs utilities to procure 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind, 1,200 megawatts of hydroelectric power from sources outside the Bay State, promotes...
Court Rejects Blago Bid U.S. District Judge James Zagel rejected a request from former ILLINOIS Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) to release him from a COLORADO prison, instead reinstating his 14-year sentence on his 2011 conviction on numerous corruption charges...
Judge Approves Watered Down TX Voter ID Law U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos approved a plan last week eliminating the mandatory requirement for TEXAS voters to present an ID before casting a ballot in the November election. The change, necessitated...
The value of a dollar varies by 30 percent between some states, according to the Regional Price Parities (RPPs) - measures of how much the price of goods and services in states and metropolitan areas differs from the national average in a given year ...
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency rejects requests from medical cannabis supporters to end marijuana’s classification as a Schedule I controlled substance on par with drugs like heroin and cocaine. The agency cited the Food and Drug Administration’s...
Leaner Sales Tax Holiday Season This Year Seventeen states are holding annual “back to school” sales tax holidays this year, but many of them are scaling back those events to reduce the revenue hit. FLORIDA is cutting the length of its...
The Games in Rio will dominate global headlines until they end on August 21. Unsurprisingly, major brands hope to bask in the reflected glory of this sporting spectacle by paying to associate their logos with venues and athletes to raise visibility on...
As students descend on campuses across the country in the coming weeks, the vast majority will be Millennials. With a high school graduation rate of 72 percent and a college enrollment rate of 68 percent it’s safe to say that Millennials are on...
Okay, picking just one of Donald Trump’s gaffes to make light of is akin to eating a single potato chip: how do you stop at just one? But for the sake of brevity, let’s take a short trip back down memory lane. Really short - as in just a few...
The MASSACHUSETTS House and Senate endorse HB 4570 , legislation that would establish a 20-cent-per-ride surcharge on ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft. The measure, which also requires the companies to perform background checks on drivers they...
Citing concerns that sex offenders could use the Pokémon Go craze to lure children, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) ordered state corrections and parole officials to take steps to restrict the state’s 3,000 registered offenders under community...
Local and federal courts struck down Republican-backed voter restrictions in three states in a single day last month. A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a North Carolina law restricting the number of acceptable forms...
Thirty-four states have passed laws regulating transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft, according to Bloomberg BNA . The laws, which Bloomberg said are generally aimed at bringing TNCs into “competitive parity” with the...
Seven states - Colorado, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Tennessee, and Virginia - have passed laws this year aimed specifically at legalizing daily fantasy sports (DFS) games on sites like DraftKings and FanDuel. In addition, Kansas enacted...
The daily fantasy sports industry had a few wins this spring in its first full year of pushing to make its games explicitly legal across the country. And while the question of whether the games are legal remains unclear in much of the nation, and their...
Speaking of verbal boo boos...let’s give a nice golf clap to Nevada state Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald. During the state roll call at the July RNC in Cleveland, McDonald referred to Las Vegas as being “the most entertaining capital...
The DELAWARE Supreme Court rules that the First State’s death penalty law is unconstitutional because it allows judges, and not juries, the final say on whether to impose a death sentence. Legislation to bar capital punishment passed the Senate...
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) ordered Sunshine State health officials to provide free Zika testing for all pregnant women. Scott directed county health departments statewide to conduct the test, and also said the state would provide additional lab services...
Last month Republican attorneys general of 15 states sent a letter to U.S. House and Senate majority and minority leaders Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), Nancy Pelosi (D-California), Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Harry Reid (D-Nevada) expressing their concern...
Part of a $1.3 billion budget bailout passed by Pennsylvania lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf (D) last month was an extension of the state’s 6-percent sales tax to include digital downloads and streaming services. Nicknamed the “Netflix...
The Pokémon Go craze is about to make us all crazy. Stories abound of people hurting themselves, of players annoying the bejeebers out of everyone around them and other such nonsense. But a trio of lawmakers on Capitol Hill drew a line in the sand...
The MASSACHUSETTS Legislature overrides Gov. Charlie Baker’s (R) veto of HB 4491 , a bill that requires Bay State health insurers to cover the cost of long-term antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease (BOSTON GLOBE). ILLINOIS Gov. Bruce Rauner (R...