Crime & Courts News

DE: Board of Parole asks finance committee to restore funding

Crimes and Courts News - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 09:50
The state's embattled Board of Parole asked budget drafters Thursday to reinstate its dedicated funding stream next fiscal year, allowing the panel to pay for administrative help and maintain its independence from the Department of Correction.

GA: Ga. House expects vote on $18.6B state budget

Crimes and Courts News - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 09:50
Georgia would spend $300 million on a toll highway meant to alleviate congestion in metro Atlanta and assist farmers who say they are struggling to find enough workers following the state's crackdown on illegal immigrants under an $18.6 billion budget plan proposed Thursday by House lawmakers.

KY: Panel passes bill to verify worker legality

Crimes and Courts News - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 09:50
A bill requiring state and local governments, schools and businesses with government contracts to use an online federal program to verify that employees aren't in the country illegally passed the House Labor and Industry Committee on Thursday.

KY: Wide-ranging bill would clamp down on prescription drug abuse

Crimes and Courts News - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 09:50
Doctors and others who prescribe narcotic painkillers in Kentucky would be required to use the state's prescription-drug monitoring system under wide-ranging legislation introduced Thursday to combat prescription-drug abuse.

KY: A sea of drugs

Crimes and Courts News - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 09:50
The summit Wednesday at the University of Kentucky on prescription drug abuse and addiction captured the severity and extent of an appalling problem.

MS: Killer to fight return to Miss.

Crimes and Courts News - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 09:50
A convicted murderer who left Mississippi after being pardoned by former Gov. Haley Barbour seems poised to fight attempts to force him to return from Wyoming.

MS: Bill on reporting sex abuse OK'd

Crimes and Courts News - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 09:50
Supporters say a bill that passed in the Mississippi House on Thursday is aimed at stopping sexual abuse of minors, including cases involving underage girls who are impregnated by men age 20 or older.

NH: Judge rejects law seeking to reform state pensions

Crimes and Courts News - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 09:50
The ink was barely dry yesterday on a Merrimack County Superior Court decision saying it is illegal to ask longtime state employees to contribute more from their paychecks for their pensions before talk of a possible appeal began.

VT: Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee hears warrant testimony Feb. 3, 2012 | Comments

Crimes and Courts News - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 09:50
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee got a peek Thursday at search warrants for two of the state's highest-profile homicide cases in the last 32 years as they grappled with trying to ensure public accountability for court-ordered searches.

US: Obama opens door to offshore wind power along mid-Atlantic coast

Stateline.org - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 07:55
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced plans Thursday to open four new wind-leasing regions for wind farms along the mid-Atlantic coast. States look forward to a positive economic impact.

MO: Missouri economic development chief resigns

Stateline.org - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 07:55
Gov. Jay Nixon's choice to run the Missouri Department of Economic Development resigned Thursday after the state Senate refused to approve his nomination.

IN: Indiana legislators on 'super' break

Stateline.org - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 07:55
After enacting one of the most controversial laws in state history, the Indiana General Assembly did not meet Thursday and is taking Friday off, too.

LA: Proposed business tax breaks could produce 10,000 jobs, Gov. Bobby Jindal says

Stateline.org - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 07:55
Gov. Bobby Jindal unveiled a four-bill legislative package of business incentives Thursday that he said could bring 10,000 jobs to the state "in the next five to 10 years."

US: Gallup -- More states trended Republican in 2011

Stateline.org - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 06:50
The number of states with a clear Republican advantage doubled in 2011, part of a larger trend of states shifting into the GOP column, according to new Gallup data.

US: States seek currencies made of silver and gold

Stateline.org - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 06:50
NEW YORK -- Worried that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. dollar are on the brink of collapse, more than a dozen states have proposed using their own alternative currencies of silver and gold.

WA: National forces likely to lead on gay-marriage referendum effort

Stateline.org - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 06:50
With same-sex marriage virtually assured in Washington state, opponents seeking to undo it are looking ahead to summer and fall, and to a campaign they say will draw on the resources of national organizations that have waged and won these kinds of fights.

OR: Without timber money, budgets face buzzsaw

Stateline.org - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 06:50
GOLD BEACH, Ore. — With this year's expiration of a federal program designed to compensate Oregonians for declining timber sales, counties statewide are losing an allotment that has totaled $2.6 billion since 2000.

CA: High-speed rail tapped state funds for unusual lobbying contract

Stateline.org - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 06:50
In an extremely unusual use of taxpayer money, the leaders behind California's $99 billion high-speed train quietly hired a lobbyist to sway the Legislature -- the same politicians who appointed them to build the project in the first place.

ND: Nickname supporters make final push

Stateline.org - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 06:50
A leader of the petition drive to restore UND's Fighting Sioux nickname through a statewide vote said Thursday that "we're in striking distance" of the 13,500 signatures needed by Tuesday's filing deadline.

AK: Alaska Dems go against Supreme Court on spending

Crimes and Courts News - Fri, 02/03/2012 - 06:45
Alaska Democratic lawmakers Wednesday proposed a move toward amending the U.S. Constitution to ban unlimited third-party spending in campaigns.
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