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After facing costly heating bills this winter, a new report says consumers shouldn’t expect relief for the summer months, as electric prices and temperatures continue to rise. (Photo by Dave Cummings/New Hampshire Bulletin) After facing costly heating bills this winter, consumers shouldn’t expect relief for the summer months, according to new projections for household utility costs.  The National Energy Assistance Directors Association projects the average electricity cost to cool homes between June and September will reach $778 this summer. That’s a $61 — or 8.5% — increase from last year and nearly 37% higher than in 2020. The association, which represents state employees administering federal energy assistance programs, attributes the increase to warmer temperatures and higher electric prices. “Families are squeezed from both directions,” Mark Wolfe, the association’s executive director, said in a news release. “They are paying more for electricity, and they need more of it to s...

“I voted” stickers rest on a counter at the Pennington County Administration Building during early voting on Jan. 19, 2026, for a municipal election in Rapid City, South Dakota. (Photo by Seth Tupper/South Dakota Searchlight) The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision gutting the federal Voting Rights Act could upend American politics and trigger a new rush to redraw congressional districts. The  opinion released on Wednesday, in a case called Louisiana v. Callais, holds sweeping consequences for how states and local governments draw district lines at all levels of government, from Congress to school boards.  Louisiana, whose congressional map is at the center of the case, may even  suspend an upcoming primary election  so state lawmakers can pass a new map. Other states are also weighing new gerrymanders, either this year or before the 2028 election.  Gerrymandering refers to drawing political maps for the purpose of gaining some form of unfair advantage — whether partisan or racial or to ...

Federal immigration officers were at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on March 23, 2026 during the Department of Homeland Security shutdown to help with airport security. On April 30, 2026, Congress finally passed a bill funding most of the department for the rest of the year. (Photo by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder) WASHINGTON — The U.S. House approved a bill Thursday that will fund almost every agency in the Department of Homeland Security for the next five months, sending the measure to President Donald Trump weeks after the Senate unanimously approved it.  Once the bill becomes law, it will end the shutdown that began in mid-February and has at times stalled paychecks for federal employees throughout much of the department, including those at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration.  The voice vote to pass the  DHS appropriations bill finally marks an end to the annual government funding proce...

A crowd gathering at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 9, 2025. The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday gutted a key portion of the Voting Rights Act, passed after law enforcement attacked civil rights marchers on the bridge on March 7, 1965, an event known as Bloody Sunday. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector) Think of the millions of Alabamians who lived, loved and died under an apartheid government, a regime that lasted nearly a century, presiding over lynchings and mass disenfranchisement. And now think of the thousands of men and women who fought, who spent decades battling to bring democracy to Alabama. It’s a long list. There’s Jackson Giles , a postal worker making $500 a year who in 1903 took Alabama’s disenfranchisement all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. There’s Amelia Boynton Robinson , who registered Black voters in Selma in the 1930s. There’s Arthur Madison , who had his law license stripped for daring to organize voter registration efforts i...

Kevin Warsh, U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee for chair of the Federal Reserve, testifies during his Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs confirmation hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on April 21, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve was one step closer to the job Wednesday after North Carolina Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis cast the deciding vote to advance Kevin Warsh’s nomination to the full Senate. Lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs voted 13-11 along party lines to move Warsh to the next step. The potential turnover at the top of the Fed, which sets monetary policy, comes as Americans see higher costs hit their pocketbooks, particularly  soaring prices at the gas pump, as the U.S.-Iran conflict disrupts worldwide energy supplies. Tillis had withheld his support until the Trump administration announc...

John Hamm, the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, speaks during a budget hearing at the Alabama Statehouse on Jan. 29, 2026 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. Hamm announced his retirement Tuesday. He will be replaced by Greg Lovelace as commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector) Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm announced his retirement Tuesday amid ongoing violence in state prisons and within days of the department suddenly canceling a $1 billion healthcare contract with a Tennessee company. Gov. Kay Ivey announced Hamm’s departure in a news release on Tuesday, saying ADOC Deputy Commissioner Greg Lovelace will succeed him and serve through the end of her term in January. Ivey said Hamm, who became commissioner in 2022, deserved “a ton of credit for our progress across the spectrum.” GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE “Tackling challenges that come with any correcti...

A Trump administration proposal would end gender identity protections for people in federally funded housing and shelters. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor) A Trump administration proposal would end gender identity protections for people in federally funded housing and shelters.   The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed rule would remove references to “gender” and “gender identity” from agency regulations and replace them with “sex,” defined as a person’s biological classification as male or female. That would repeal an Obama-era rule that ensured housing programs are open without regard to gender identity. The new rule also would allow owners or operators of shelters and other facilities that permit single-sex or sex-specific facilities “to require reasonable assurances and evidence to confirm the sex of an individual seeking service.” “Through these revisions, the rule would ensure equal access to qualifying facilities would be prov...

James Comey speaks onstage at 92NY on May 30, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images) The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday obtained a second grand jury indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, long a target of President Donald Trump’s anger for overseeing an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. A grand jury indicted Comey related to a photo he posted on social media of seashells arranged to read “86 47.” The grand jury was located in the Eastern District of North Carolina, where Comey was vacationing when he took the photo last year. Trump supporters have interpreted the photo as a threat against the president, since “86” is a slang term for removing something and “47” could be seen as a reference to Trump as the 47th president. Comey has said the photo wasn’t intended as a call to violence and deleted the post. A federal grand jury in Virginia previously indicted Comey in September, accusing him of lying to Congress and...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks during a press conference at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, April 28, 2026. Standing center is Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and at right is Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom) WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to make changes to a Senate-passed bill that would end the shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, a move that will further delay funding and prolong the stalemate that began in mid-February.  The holdup could again interrupt paychecks for workers at the Transportation Security Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency, both of which are part of DHS. Huge backups in airline security lines resulted in March when TSA officers  went without pay for weeks until the administration scrambled to reprogram funds. Johnson, R-La., has chosen not to negotiate potential tweaks in the funding bill with Senate Democrats...

An exhibit dedicated to Emmett Till, a child from Chicago lynched in Mississippi in 1955, seen on display Monday at the Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery, Alabama. The exhibit provides details on Till's life in Chicagoin Chicago and his trip to Mississippi where he was murdered after purchasing refreshments at a convenience store. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector) The Southern Poverty Law Center will host an exhibit on Emmett Till, whose murder in 1955 helped spur the modern Civil Rights Movement. The exhibit, designed and created by the Emmett Till Interpretive Center and the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, features five components and provides details about life for Blacks living in the Jim Crow era in the South, Till’s life in Chicago and his trip to Mississippi where he was murdered days after he bought refreshments at a convenience store. “I know from growing up for most, as we still talk about it in our schools, in our communitie...

In an aerial view, a immigrant family from Haiti walks towards a gap in the U.S. border wall from Mexico on Dec. 11, 2021 in Yuma, Arizona. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday will hear oral arguments on the Trump administration’s efforts to strip temporary legal status from 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, a move that could open them up to deportation. The case has the potential to have an impact on multiple lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to end protections for more than 1.3 million immigrants from all over the globe with Temporary Protected Status, granted because they hail from countries deemed too dangerous for return.  The effort to end TPS designation is part of President Donald Trump’s broader  efforts to curtail immigration and strip legal status for people , opening them up to his mass deportation drive.  “The decision will have the capacity to impact everyone with TPS,” José Pa...

The U.S. Supreme Court on April 9, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared likely to allow law enforcement to continue seeking warrants for the location history of cellphones near crime scenes, even as the justices wrestled with how far the government must go to protect Americans’ privacy. Some of the justices appeared to be searching for a middle ground  during oral arguments in a case out of Virginia challenging what is known as a geofence warrant that was used to catch a bank robber. Several justices asked skeptical questions of both sides, though no one voiced explicit support for prohibiting such warrants altogether. As smartphones have become ubiquitous, along with apps that track users’ movements, the high court is once again wading into how the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, applies in the digital era. The justices’ decision, of tremendous interest to state a...

Families, friends and advocates walk to protest prison conditions at the front of the Alabama Department of Corrections on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. The Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts will audit a prison facility in the state amid mounting frustration from lawmakers over the Alabama Department of Corrections' management of its facilities. (Beth Shelburne for the Alabama Reflector) Several Alabama legislators hope an upcoming audit of the Alabama Department of Corrections will pull back the curtain on an agency engulfed in violence and consuming an ever-larger share of the state budget. The audit from the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts, an arm of the Legislature, is part of a pilot initiative to investigate the conditions in one facility that has yet to be named. The Examiners department regularly audits the books of state agencies, but this specific audit stems from legislation filed by Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Tuscumbia, because of susta...