Nation
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Phoenix, AZ, USA. Details emerging from Arizona’s new budget — approved by state lawmakers late Thursday (March 11) — are staggering. More than 310,000 adults and 47,000 low-income children will lose health insurance under the plan, which reduces spending by about $1.1 billion, eliminates full-day kindergarten and, according to The Arizona Republic, slashes funds “that were one of the last best hopes for the state parks system to stay afloat.”
Arizona was listed just behind Californ... |
03-13-10
Word count: 401
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Washington, DC, USA. While running for governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell promised he would raise money by handing over the state-run liquor stores to private interests. Once elected, the pledge made its way into his state of the state address.
“As I travelled this great commonwealth over the last year, I didn’t run into anybody who thought selling Jack Daniels whiskey or Grey Goose vodka was a core function of government,” he told lawmakers on January 18th.
The basic idea had tractio... |
03-12-10
Word count: 1083
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Washington, DC, USA. In Michigan, where many enterprises are struggling to survive, the renowned University of Michigan is in the midst of a construction boom and hiring spree.
Michigan State University, on the other hand, plans to lay off faculty and cut programs, blaming state funding that is lower than it was a decade ago.
Flagship universities in other states, including Colorado, Virginia, Vermont and Wisconsin, are also prospering, while their lesser-known counterparts suffer from vani... |
03-11-10
Word count: 1154
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Washington, DC, USA. Indiana soon could join at least 11 other states and allow residents to bring their guns to work, as long as they are stored out of sight in their cars. But a shooting in Portage, Ind., last week — in which a state worker frustrated over a poor performance review retrieved a gun from his car and fired at coworkers — is causing opponents to ramp up their pressure on Governor Mitch Daniels to veto the bill.
“This is further evidence that guns and the workplace simply ... |
03-11-10
Word count: 339
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Washington, DC, USA. Sixteen states raised their cigarette taxes last year to generate more revenue, and the trend shows few signs of slowing down in 2010. Georgia, Kansas, South Carolina and Utah are among the states that could force smokers to pay more as they try to balance their budgets.
Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist will lead a rally on the steps of the Georgia Capitol today (March 9) to protest a legislative plan to raise cigarette taxes by $1 per pack, to $1.37. The event is sponso... |
03-10-10
Word count: 394
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Washington, DC, USA. If the United States Senate followed the rules of the New Jersey General Assembly, it wouldn’t take 60 votes for Democrats to overcome a Republican filibuster. It would take 75, or a three-quarters vote, one of the highest such thresholds of any legislative body in the nation.
So why don’t filibusters grind business to a halt in New Jersey as they do in the United States Senate? The answer is right there in the Assembly’s rulebook. Along with the three-fourths requi... |
03-09-10
Word count: 1118
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Washington, DC, USA. In the final days of Minnesota’s legislative session last year, the governor invoked a rarely used authority granted more than 70 years ago that allowed him to rescind $5.3 million of already allocated program funds. He did so to help balance the state budget.
But six low-income people whose state supplemental diet plan went away with that cut sued the state.
The case has now found its way to the state Supreme Court, which will decide the constitutionality of the gov... |
03-08-10
Word count: 1315
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Hanover, NH, USA. After remaining stable for 2 decades, the average hours worked per week by physicians decreased by about 7 percent between 1996 and 2008, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The proposed expansion of health insurance coverage and reform of the delivery system, combined with recent forecasts of physician shortages (particularly in primary care), have catapulted issues related to the adequacy of the physician workforce high up on the... |
03-07-10
Word count: 1233
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Champaign, IL, USA. The debate over why firms pay cash dividends has simmered for 50 years, siphoning money from business-building investments and creating added tax burdens for the shareholders who collect them.
New research has uncovered a surprising springboard for thousands of smaller companies and banks that share profits with investors instead of sinking everything back into the business. A key trigger, according to findings in the Journal of Finance, is simply whether those firms are b... |
03-06-10
Word count: 1050
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Washington, DC, USA. The funeral home director in Pennsylvania and hair dresser in Michigan may soon have something in common with the yoga instructor in Missouri and limo driver in New York. Their customers may have to pay a state sales tax. With tax revenues at a historic low and federal stimulus dollars drying up, states are eying adding a sales tax to some of the 180 services that states could be taxing but most don’t, ranging from pet grooming and dating services to dental and legal ser... |
03-04-10
Word count: 1615
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Washington, DC, USA. While Governor Rick Perry celebrated his commanding victory over U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary in Texas, Florida Governor Charlie Crist delivered his final State of the State speech to lawmakers in Tallahassee.
The two events seemed to crystallize the opposite ends of the GOP, and the two Republican governors’ divergent campaign fortunes.
In Texas, voters’ “yes” to Perry was an emphatic “no” to Washington, a... |
03-04-10
Word count: 480
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Washington, DC, USA. Six weeks have passed since Mass. Attorney General Martha Coakley lost a special U.S. Senate election. The woman who would have been the Dem's crucial 60th vote stays away from a question that grows louder each day in the nation’s capital: whether Democrats should try to pass comprehensive health care reform legislation with only 51 votes.
“I’m going to leave that to others to decide,” Coakley said Monday (March 1), declining to weigh in on the “budget reconcili... |
03-03-10
Word count: 470
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Washington, DC, USA. With energy legislation bogged down in Congress, state governments are increasingly courting renewable energy companies with stringent new rules mandating that a share of their state’s electricity come from renewable sources. The mandates, known as “renewable portfolio standards,” require that utilities either produce renewable energy themselves or buy it from green energy producers. Although the fine print varies from state to state, the standards share a similar go... |
03-02-10
Word count: 1356
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Sacramento, CA, USA. Naming a new lieutenant governor in California has been no easy task. At one point last month, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic leaders of the Assembly fought over whether the Assembly had actually approved Schwarzenegger’s pick for the post.
Schwarzenegger intended to swear in Republican state Sen. Abel Maldonado, despite Democrats’ claims that his nomination had been rejected, primarily for being too conservative. The governor even threat... |
03-01-10
Word count: 1831
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Washington, DC, USA. When President Obama hosted the nation’s governors at a dinner last week, he gave a toast that captured the difference between a chief executive — state or federal — and a member of Congress. “It’s hard to be overly ideological as a governor,” Obama said, “because the fact of the matter is the rubber hits the road with you. You guys can have all kinds of abstract thoughts but when families come to you looking for help, when communities have been devastated, ... |
02-28-10
Word count: 1138
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Washington, DC, USA. A tax battle is brewing in Washington state, where Democrats have proposed the first general sales-tax hike in 27 years — suspending a voter-approved initiative in order to do so. Minority Republicans, unable to stop the plan, instead have used delaying tactics to shine an election-year spotlight on Democratic tax proposals, which are meant to address a $2.7 billion budget shortfall.
The first specifics of Democratic tax-increase proposals came to light this week. Senat... |
02-25-10
Word count: 356
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Washington, DC, USA. Governor Jennifer Granholm’s 2006 State of the State address was an adventure in optimism. “In five years,” she said, “you’re going to be blown away by the strength and diversity of Michigan’s transformed economy.” The five years are almost up, and to most Michigan residents, the only things blowing away are jobs, mortgages and income.
Now, begins the race to succeed Granholm, but the word race is a misnomer. Prospective candidates are asking themselves a re... |
02-24-10
Word count: 1749
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Washington, DC, USA. Like a married couple who argue about dipping into their savings to pay off their credit card bills, some governors and legislatures are fighting over whether it’s “raining” hard enough in their states to drain rainy day funds.
Faced with historic revenue drops, states have tapped their rainy day funds in fiscal 2009 and 2010 at levels not seen since the 2001 recession to help close budget gaps totaling some $290 billion. The decision to go to these funds has renewe... |
02-23-10
Word count: 1468
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Durham, UK. Are you happy with your working hours? Does your boss have the final say-so?
There is increasing evidence that negotiating flexible working might be beneficial for employees' health if the emplyees are allowed to have input into their own working patterns.
A study in the Cochrane Systematic Reviews presents data from multiple sources that may throw some light on potential health benefits associated with current trends towards more flexible working in the UK and Europe.
The Coc... |
02-22-10
Word count: 1247
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Washington, DC, USA. Since legislatures convened last month, at least 16 states are weighing changes to their worker pension plans. Employees, retirees and unions say they will contest some of the proposals.
He has been on the job for only a month, but already Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has done all states a favor by elevating the crisis facing public pension systems across the country. While other governors were declaring snow emergencies last week, Christie proclaimed New Jersey ... |
02-20-10
Word count: 1578
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