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Absent Federal Aid, How Bad Are State Budgets? The new congressional stimulus package does not include direct aid for states and localities. Only a few states have seen revenues increase from last year, meaning cutbacks are coming due to COVID spending pressures. Alan Greenblatt, Senior Staff Writer | December 22, 2020 | Analysis
Last week, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam revealed a two-year budget package that included no tax increases and substantial new spending. It would restore nearly half the nearly $3 billion in spending that Northam froze earlier this year, while increasing education spending by $500 million, mostly to help schools retrofit for the coronavirus pandemic. Northam’s budget even allows for more savings, devoting $650 million to Virginia’s rainy-day fund.
Pandemic backlash jeopardizes public health powers, leaders
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Hannah Recht, Michelle R. Smith and Lauren Webber
Associated Press and KHN
Tisha Coleman has lived in close-knit Linn County, Kansas, for 42 years and never felt so alone.
As the public health administrator, she s struggled every day of the coronavirus pandemic to keep her rural county along the Missouri border safe. In this community with no hospital, she s failed to persuade her neighbors to wear masks and take precautions against COVID-19, even as cases rise. In return, she s been harassed, sued, vilified and called a Democrat, an insult in her circles.
| Updated December 19, 2020
JIM WATSON via Getty Images
A scene from protests in 2016 at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Those demonstrations sparked a series of anti-protest bills.
Ohio lawmakers faced fierce blowback last winter over a bill that would escalate criminal charges on fossil fuel protesters and threaten religious organizations or nonprofits that support such demonstrations with crushing fines.
By then, the state Senate had already passed the proposal, known as SB-33. At House hearings that lasted until early 2020, however, some 171 opponents testified against the effort they said risked chilling free speech and preventing the faithful from exercising their spiritual duties at a moment when scientists credibly argue that new fossil fuel projects doom humanity to hellish global warming. Just nine spoke in favor of the bill.
How Political Donors Are Changing Statehouse News Reporting A growing share of statehouse reporting in state capitols across the country comes from conservative groups, blurring the lines between journalism and advocacy. Daniel C. Vock | November 2014
The talk radio segment started with the opening guitar riffs of Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City.” Then, over the first drumbeats of the 1987 rock anthem, came the deep, resonant voice of a male announcer, “Holding government accountable for how they spend our money, it’s Illinois Watchdog Radio: Watching the statehouse and cities across the state.”
Finally, host Benjamin Yount took the microphone. He playfully mimicked the driving sounds of the Guns N’ Roses guitar for a few seconds before launching in with his name, a Twitter handle and a number to text. Then, with a cadence common on conservative talk shows rapid succession of escalating questions, dramatic pauses a