A large-scale outage on Wednesday affected residents’ ability to call the 911 emergency number in parts of Nebraska and Texas, the entire state of South Dakota and Las Vegas, according to local authorities. In Las Vegas, calls to 911 on landline phones and mobile phones were not connecting for about two hours before service was…
Washington State recently enacted a law that includes wide-ranging workplace protections for adult dancers, who have long fought for such measures across the country. The law, known as the Strippers’ Bill of Rights, was signed by Gov. Jay Inslee on March 25. It includes anti-discrimination provisions and mandatory club employee training. Supporters of the law…
Eileen O’Neill Burke, a Democrat and retired appellate judge, defeated a more liberal candidate in last week’s primary election for the job of top prosecutor in Cook County, Ill., according to The Associated Press. The result came after more than a week of counting ballots, including mail-in votes, that were not able to be reported…
A developing storm in the Plains and Upper Midwest is expected to deliver heavy snow and gusty winds across several states into Tuesday, with blizzard conditions possible in some areas. The National Weather Service warned that travel in some areas would be hazardous and “near impossible at times” because of the forceful storm, and said…
Former President Donald J. Trump has driven all of his major primary rivals out of the race. And yet, the voting will go on. Why? For the most part, the answer is a simple one: It’s just too late for state parties to cancel elections that are already on the books. “It would be unusual…
Millions of Texans woke to wickedly cold air on Tuesday, hoping that the state’s power grid, which failed spectacularly during a deep freeze in 2021, would hold up this time. The early hours of the day were expected to pose a crucial test for the power supply. Wind chills fell below zero in cities like…
As the top elections official in Washington State, Steve Hobbs says he is troubled by the threat former President Donald J. Trump poses to democracy and fears the prospect of his return to power. But he also worries that recent decisions in Maine and Colorado to bar Mr. Trump from presidential primary ballots there could…
In the wake of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that significantly limits what the government can do to restrict guns, states led by Democrats have scrambled to circumvent or test the limits of the ruling. A few have approved new gun restrictions. Oregon even passed a ballot initiative to ban high-capacity ammunition…
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday in a legal challenge that could undo one of the most aggressive gerrymanders of legislative districts in the country, and open the door for a radical shift in political power in the state, where Republicans now have a strong grip on the State Legislature. The…
Virginia erroneously purged almost 3,400 voters from the state’s rolls, election officials said in the run-up to statewide elections on Tuesday. The administration of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, had previously said that about 270 voters had been mistakenly removed from the rolls because of an error in the state’s computer system. The state’s admission…