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Business The Wisconsin Senate approves SB 298 , a bill that would bar the Wolverine State from making rules against dogs entering businesses that sell pre-packaged food while still allowing pups to be banned from businesses that sell cooked food. It...

NM Gov Demands New Film Safety Protocols : In the wake of a tragic accidental shooting on the set of a movie being filmed near Santa Fe, New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) said Hollywood needs to adopt strict new safety protocols to protect workers...

TN Lawmakers Target COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates: By the start of Tennessee’s special session on coronavirus legislation last week, nearly 100 bills had been filed. But the ones most likely to be passed are those sponsored by House Speaker Cameron...

TN Lawmakers Move to Block State Medical Boards from Disciplining Doctors for Spreading COVID-19 Misinformation: Ahead of a special session on coronavirus legislation last week, Tennessee lawmakers prefiled a pair of bills ( HB 9020 c and HB 9028 c...

A closely watched race for the Virginia governorship is going down to the wire with the election too close to call. In this year’s other governor’s election, Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy (D) leads by double digits over his Republican...

CA Regulators Move to Ban Oil Drilling Near Homes : California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) proposed new regulations on Thursday that would ban drilling new oil or gas wells near residential neighborhoods. Under the proposal, new wells could not be closer...

OSHA Could Strip Workplace Safety Regulation Authority from AZ, SC, UT: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is poised to begin the process of revoking the authority of Arizona, South Carolina, and Utah to regulate workplace safety, due...

Nursing Home In-Room Camera Bill Advancing in OH: A bipartisan bill ( SB 58 ) passed unanimously by the Ohio Senate in May and now up for its third committee hearing in the state’s House would allow nursing home residents or their families to...

The Biden administration is steadily working to finalize the rules for its proposed COVID-19 vaccine mandate that will require at least 80 million U.S. workers to be vaccinated or test negative as a condition of employment. At the same time, a broad swath...

Business The U.S. Supreme Court rejects an appeal by trucking companies seeking to exempt drivers from a California labor law that would classify them as employees rather than independent contractors. The SCOTUS rejected without comment an appeal of...

ID Gov in Power Struggle with Lt. Gov : A simmering feud between Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) and Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin (R) became public last week when Little said he would rescind an executive order McGeachin issued in his absence that banned Gem...

AR Lawmakers Pass COVID-19 Vaccine Opt-Out Measure: Arkansas’ General Assembly passed a bill ( HB 1977 ) requiring employers in the state to allow their workers to opt-out of getting vaccinated for COVID-19. The measure failed to draw the two...

Divergent Worker Vaccination Mandate Results in NY, RI: Healthcare workers in New York have been getting vaccinated against COVID-19 at over twice the rate of adult residents of the state as a whole, since former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced a vaccine...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) continued addressing the mountain of bills on his desk last week, including a legislative package to overhaul the state’s struggling unemployment benefits system. Reforming the CA EDD The state Employment Development...

NJ Gov Unveils Return to Work Incentives : In an effort to address ongoing staffing shortages across several industries, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) announced an incentive program that will pay currently unemployed workers $500 to return to the...

CA Boosts Cal/OSHA’s Power: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation ( SB 606 ) expanding the enforcement authority of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA). The new law, effective Jan. 1, 2022, establishes...

NY Hospitals Push Unvaccinated Workers toward Vaccination with Suspensions: Hospitals in upstate New York have started placing employees on unpaid leave for failing to comply with the state’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for healthcare workers...

Newsom Signs Plethora of Workforce and Housing Measures With the attempt to recall him from office thoroughly beaten back, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) got down to more normal gubernatorial activity this week by addressing many of the scores of...

It seems only yesterday that states and local governments were pleading poverty as they counted revenue losses from a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed more than 600,000 lives in the United States and cost the jobs of 1.4 million teachers and government...

As workers migrate back to their workplaces, they will often return to an environment fundamentally changed from the one they left so many months ago. But while most long term changes are yet to be determined, there is plenty in the short term to keep...

The alteration of video and other digital content is nothing new. But the application of artificial intelligence to that pursuit has taken it to a whole new level - known as a “deepfake” - and begun to draw the attention of state lawmakers...

With no end in sight to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 is already shaping up to look a lot like 2020. There is no part of our society that has not been impacted by COVID-19. Businesses across the nation have been shuttered or reduced to a fraction of their...

CA Dems Will Explore Changing Recall Rules : California voters emphatically rejected a Republican-led effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), and now Dems are looking to revise what they call a “flawed recall system.” That system offers...

FL to Begin Fining Local Governments over Vaccine Mandates: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced at a news conference last week that the state will begin enforcing a new state law enacted in May ( SB 2006 ) that bars businesses and local governments...

Cost Cutting has Made Hospitals More Vulnerable to Pandemic: Hawaii has one of the lowest hospital bed per capita rates in the nation, at 1.9 beds for every 1,000 people. The state is now out of intensive care beds, with half of the 223 total statewide...