TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey lawmakers voted Monday to advance a measure that could make it easier for government agencies to withhold documents under the state’s open records law, casting it as a modernizing bill that would cut back on profiteering businesses.  Committees in the Democratic-led Senate and Assembly approved the fast-tracked legislation that […]

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Dana Holladay-Hollifield has worked as a nurse in Alabama for years, but never was her pay as low as it was at Huntsville Hospital. She wondered what executives at the not-for-profit facility made, so she filed a public records request to find out. The hospital is governed by a public board, […]

PHOENIX (AP) — A nationwide review of procedures by The Associated Press and CNHI News revealed a patchwork of complicated systems for resolving open government disputes that often put the burden of enforcing transparency laws on private citizens.  The review, timed to Sunshine Week, found that fewer than a third of states have offices that […]

BOSTON (AP) — Microsoft said Friday it’s still trying to evict the elite Russian government hackers who broke into the email accounts of senior company executives in November and who it said have been trying to breach customer networks with stolen access data.  The hackers from Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service used data obtained in […]

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska law enforcement officers must obtain a warrant before using aircraft to scope out the area around a person’s home with binoculars or cameras with zoom lenses, the state’s highest court ruled in a decision released Friday. The Alaska Supreme Court ruling comes in a case that dates to 2012, when […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday endorsed legislation that could lead to the popular video-sharing app TikTok being banned in the United States, a move that comes amid growing concern in Washington about keeping Americans’ data out of China’s hands. The legislation that passed through the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously […]

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas moved closer Thursday to requiring abortion providers to ask patients why they want to terminate their pregnancies and report the answers to the state. It would join other states with Republican legislatures that ban most abortions even though Kansas voters have affirmed abortion rights. The House approved, in an 81-39 […]

NEW YORK (AP) — Several New York City employees were arrested Thursday for their alleged role in a scheme to steal the identities of homeless shelter residents and defraud a pandemic-era relief program.  Manhattan prosecutors brought charges against 18 people, including five employees of the city’s homeless services agency, an NYPD officer, an MTA worker, […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Much of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union on Thursday night will focus on comparing his vision for America with that of the Republican Party, setting up an election-year contrast that Biden hopes will pay dividends in November. But he’ll also focus on areas that he and White House aides believe […]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Police in Tennessee identified those killed in a fiery small plane crash next to Interstate 40 on Monday as a family of five from Canada.  The pilot was Victor Dotsenko, 43, and the passengers were his wife Rimma, 39, and their three children, David, 12, Adam, 10, and Emma, 7, Metro […]

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Workers had expressed concerns about bending or bowed beams and structural issues before a steel airport hangar under construction in Idaho collapsed in January, killing three people and injuring nine others, a newspaper reported. Some employees told the site’s supervisor of their worries a day before the privately owned and partially […]

A Microsoft engineer is sounding alarms about offensive and harmful imagery he says is too easily made by the company’s artificial intelligence image-generator tool, sending letters on Wednesday to U.S. regulators and the tech giant’s board of directors urging them to take action.  Shane Jones told The Associated Press that he considers himself a whistleblower […]