Alternet: “The State Board of Elections has reached a settlement agreement with Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s political committee, Friends of Mark Robinson, that includes a fine of $35,000 for hundreds of campaign finance violations committed during the 2020 election cycle. The fine follows a nearly four-year investigation prompted by a February 2021 complaint by veteran government watchdog Bob…

Politico: “A trailing candidate in a very close election for the North Carolina Supreme Court asked that court on Wednesday to step in and prevent election officials from counting in his race over 60,000 ballots that he argues weren’t lawfully cast. Jefferson Griffin, a Republican member of the Court of Appeals, filed the intervention request…

WFAE: “The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will review South Carolina’s effort to disqualify Planned Parenthood from providing non-abortion services to Medicaid patients. Among those services are providing cancer screening, birth control and physical exams. The court will restrict itself to a single question in the case: The justices agreed to take up the…

Alternet: “A Texas school district has banned the Bible In response to a state law prohibiting schools from carrying “sexually explicit” material. Irate parents are now speaking out against the ban. The Christian Post reported Thursday that Canyon Independent School District Superintendent Darryl Flusche sent an email to parents informing them that the “full text” of the Bible would…

Courthouse News: “Florida anti-abortion activists brought their challenge to a protest-free zone at a women’s health clinic to the 11th Circuit on Tuesday, asking the three-judge panel to overturn a federal judge’s refusal to block a vehicle safety ordinance. The Clearwater, Florida, City Council passed the ordinance last March in response to increasingly tense protests…

NY Times: “The House Ethics Committee secretly voted this month to release an investigative report into the conduct of former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. The panel’s vote, which was reported earlier by CNN, paved the way for the release of the report after House members…

The Real News Network: “Five incarcerated people in Alabama are fighting to push forward a lawsuit, Stanley v. Ivey, challenging the state’s power to punish prisoners who resist forced labor. Despite a state constitutional provision abolishing slavery that was passed in 2022 by referendum, Montgomery County Circuit Court dismissed the plaintiffs’ lawsuit, arguing Governor Kay Ivey…

NY Times: “The Texas attorney general opened a new front in the contentious battle over access to abortion this week by suing a New York doctor for sending abortion pills into Texas. It appeared to be among the first attempts to stop the mailing of such medication into states that ban abortion. The lawsuit from…

NY Times: ““We have to prepare for the worst-case scenario,” Jaime told him. “There’s a chance we could lose everything.” “Isn’t that a bit dramatic?” Sky asked. “How? Help me understand.” Jaime muted the football game on TV and began to explain his new reality as an undocumented immigrant after the election of Donald Trump,…

NY Times Magazine: “In eastern Kentucky, a region plagued by poverty and at the heart of the country’s opioid epidemic, the burden of addressing this treatment gap has mainly been taken up by addiction-rehab companies. Many stand more like community centers or churches than medical clinics, offering not just chemical but also spiritual and logistical…