Latest news with #A.B
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Nevada Becomes the 21st State To Strengthen Donor Privacy Protections
On Thursday, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) signed Assembly Bill 197 into law, prohibiting state agencies from demanding or releasing personal information of nonprofit supporters—actions that could potentially chill speech or violate the right to privacy. With the bill's passage, Nevada becomes the 21st state to strengthen First Amendment protections for donors, volunteers, and members of nonprofit organizations. The A.B. 197, which was cosponsored by Assemblymembers Shea Backus (D–Las Vegas) and Gregory Hafen (R–Pahrump), clarifies that state governmental entities cannot require nonprofit organizations that have applied for or received a 501(c) tax-exempt status from the IRS to disclose personal information of their supporters, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and donation details. Only certain exceptions apply, such as when such information is required under federal law or a court order, in which case the state must keep the individuals' personal information confidential. Anyone harmed by a violation of this law may bring a civil action against the state and seek damages. Nonprofit donor privacy is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment, as was first determined in the Supreme Court's unanimous National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Patterson ruling. The 1958 decision blocked the Alabama state government from forcing civil rights organizations to release personal, identifying information of supporters, thereby preventing threats, harassment, and intimidation of individuals for their beliefs. The right was reaffirmed and further clarified in the Court's 2021 Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta opinion, which struck down a mandate from former California Attorney General Kamala Harris requiring nonprofits to provide certain donor information to remain registered with the state. The Nevada bill passed through both chambers of the Legislature with an overwhelming majority and only one vote against it. Even more strikingly, nonprofits from across the political spectrum, such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, Americans for Prosperity, Nevada Right to Life, and Planned Parenthood Votes Nevada, supported the measure. "Americans are fed up with the abuse of their privacy and First Amendment rights. No one should face threats, doxing, or retaliation simply for supporting a nonprofit organization," said Heather Lauer, CEO of People United for Privacy Foundation, a national privacy rights organization, in a press release. With the passage of A.B. 197, Nevada joins 20 other states across the political spectrum that have passed similar legislation since 2018. In a time of hyper-partisanship and regular free speech violations—especially from the federal government—it's encouraging to see some state governments still honoring the constitutional protections enshrined in the First Amendment. The post Nevada Becomes the 21st State To Strengthen Donor Privacy Protections appeared first on
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
PatientRightsAdvocate.org Calls on Nevada Gov. Lombardo to Support Hospital Price Transparency Bill
A.B. 343 would turn Trump executive order into state law CARSON CITY, Nev., May 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- (PRA) is urging Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo to sign A.B. 343, major legislation to deliver hospital price transparency to Nevadans that was passed out of the Nevada Legislature earlier this week. If enacted, the bill would require Nevada hospitals to post all actual prices of available services online, so patients can see upfront prices before care, as well as provide tools for patients to seek recourse when they have been overcharged. It would codify the federal Hospital Price Transparency Rule first enacted in January 2021 under President Donald J. Trump and since expanded in February 2025. "A new era for Nevada patients is on the horizon, and now it's up to Governor Lombardo to make healthcare history for his state," said PRA Founder and Chairman Cynthia Fisher. "This monumental legislation will protect Nevadans from hospital overcharges, surprise bills, and hidden fees with guaranteed access to upfront, actual prices in exact dollars and cents. Complete price transparency will be transformative to lower the costs of care and coverage for families, employers, unions, and Nevada's entire healthcare market." According to a new poll conducted by Echelon Insights, 96% of Americans agree that healthcare consumers should know the upfront price of their care. Meanwhile, according to PRA's Seventh Semi-Annual Hospital Price Transparency Report, only 35% of Nevada hospitals reviewed are fully complying with the federal price transparency rule. Of the 2,000 hospitals reviewed nationwide, just 21% were found to be in full compliance. "We applaud Nevada lawmakers, especially the bill's sponsor, Assembly Speaker Yeager, for responding to not only the urgency but also the popularity of this commonsense issue," added Fisher. "The fight for real prices is a nationwide movement that is growing each day, from the nation's capital to state capitals. Governor Lombardo can help Nevada join states like Ohio and Oklahoma that each enacted similar bills this year codifying President Trump's price transparency rule to put patients first. We strongly encourage Governor Lombardo to seize the opportunity at hand and sign A.B. 343." About PRA (PRA) is a leading national healthcare price transparency organization dedicated to ushering in systemwide transparency through advocacy, testimony, media, legal research, and grassroots campaigns. PRA believes that the availability and visibility of actual, upfront healthcare prices will greatly lower costs for patients and employers through a functional, competitive healthcare marketplace. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Patient Rights Advocate Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Rent Control Delayed but Not Dead in California
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week's stories include: California lawmakers delay a bill to tighten the state's rent control law. Neighborhood activists in Roanoke, Virginia, sue to stop missing middle reforms. Arkansas passes accessory dwelling unit reform. California Rent Control Bill Pulled The California Legislature will not be tightening the state's rent control law this year. This past Tuesday, Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D–San Jose) pulled his bill, Assembly Bill 1157, which would have capped statewide rent increases at residential properties to the lesser of 2 percent plus inflation or 5 percent. Current state law allows rent increases of up to 10 percent. Kalra's bill would have also expanded California's statewide rent control policy to single-family homes and condominiums. Kalra's bill isn't fully dead. KQED reports it will be considered next year in the latter half of the California Legislature's biennial session. A.B. 1157 had passed the Assembly's housing committee. It was just a few years ago that California became the second state in the country (after Oregon) to adopt statewide rent controls. Kalra's bill naturally attracted the opposition of the state's landlords and real estate interests. Some of the YIMBY groups that had supported California's 2019 rent control law came out against Kalra's bill as excessively restrictive. Nevertheless, rent control's popularity as a solution to high rents is growing. Just last week, the Washington state Legislature approved a statewide rent control measure. Despite the rehabilitation of rent control's image, it remains as bad an idea as ever. Arkansas Legalizes ADUs Last week, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law House Bill 1503, which requires municipal governments to allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on single-family properties. Under the new law, property owners can build an ADU that's 75 percent of the size of the primary dwelling or 1,000 square feet (whichever is less). Local governments will be required to approve these units without requiring public hearings or special permits. H.B. 1503 also prohibits local governments from imposing minimum parking standards, certain aesthetic design features, and owner-occupancy requirements. Impact fees are capped at $250. All told, it's a pretty clean, thorough ADU legalization that precludes any number of local regulations that could typically make ADU construction impractical. It's proof that this kind of YIMBY reform is becoming more science than art. Another Lawsuit Challenges Missing Middle Reform in Virginia On the local front, neighborhood activists in Roanoke, Virginia, are suing to overturn the city's "missing middle" reforms. Back in March 2024, Roanoke passed zoning reforms that allowed ADUs, duplexes, and triplexes in single-family neighborhoods. As has happened in other Virginia communities that have adopted similar reforms, the zoning changes immediately provoked a lawsuit from critics who argued the City Council didn't give the proper public notice before voting on the changes. As the Roanoke Rambler reports, the city attempted to cure that procedural violation by repassing its zoning reforms in September 2024. Plaintiffs, however, continue to argue that the new reforms irrationally increase density, which does nothing for affordable housing but does increase traffic, noise, and the like. The Rambler notes that only a few dozen units legalized by the 2024 zoning reforms have been approved by the city. That's to be expected. In localities that legalize missing middle housing, the typical result is a slight increase in new duplexes, triplexes, and ADUs being built. Critics are factually correct when they say that this small increase in construction will have a minimal impact on aggregate home prices and rents. Nevertheless, missing middle units are typically cheaper than the single-family home that would be built instead. In that way, they do provide some more affordable options in desirable neighborhoods. Homebuyers and renters benefit from the additional choice. Property owners benefit from the additional ability to develop their properties. Roanoke is currently attempting to get the lawsuit challenging the zoning reforms dismissed. In September 2024, a judge struck down Arlington, Virginia's missing middle reforms in response to a similar lawsuit. Quick Links The New York Times covers the Trump administration's plans for building housing on federal lands. Pittsburgh's planning commission recommends that the City Council require that new apartment buildings include money-losing below-market-rate units. The White House budget proposal includes major cuts to federal housing programs. An ambitious zoning reform package is reportedly dead in the Minnesota Legislature. Could the California Environmental Quality Act stop Trump's plans to reopen Alcatraz? The post Rent Control Delayed but Not Dead in California appeared first on
Irish Times
29-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Work abroad can help boost your Irish state pension
There is a lot of useful information in your articles about making UK voluntary contributions to qualify for or improve a UK state pension, but one point I have not seen mentioned concerns people who do not currently qualify for an Irish state contributory pension and who are in danger of missing the minimum 520 contributions needed to qualify for a state pension (contributory) by the time they reach 66 (or potentially 70 under the new rules). Also, for those who will not meet the minimum requirements for an Irish state pension under any circumstances, I suspect the receipt of income from a UK pension will be taken into account when assessing their entitlement to an Irish non-contributory pension. In such cases the purchase of UK voluntary credits may have little or no net value. Mr A.B. As you say, there was a quite intense focus on buying back entitlement to a UK pension on these pages recently in advance of a deadline earlier this month. But, for most people, a bigger issue may be how they can make up any shortfall in the Irish state pension. READ MORE Getting a fix on the issue is not helped by the Irish regime going through a transition at the moment. Once that is complete, the system will be quite straightforward: you will need 40 years of PRSI contributions to secure a full pension. If you are looking at your PRSI record, which is available from the Department of Social Protection, that is 2,080 weekly 'stamps'. Anything less than that, you will be in line for a 'pro rata' pension. The percentage of the full pension rate you get will be determined by how far short of the 2,080 target you are. So, if you have 1,600 paid and credited contributions over your working life, you would have 76.9 per cent of the 2,080 contributions needed for a full pension, and so you would get that fraction of the full state pension. With the pension worth up to €289.30 in today's terms, that person would receive a weekly payment of €222.47, which is 76.9 per cent of €289.30. The old system, yearly averaging, basically required you to divide your total number of weekly PRSI payments by the number of years you worked. If the outcome was 48 or higher, you get the full pension. Anything below that and the pension drops in a series of bands. The downside was if you started working early then you could work well over 40 years and still not have a full pension. In either case, you must have a minimum of 10 years of weekly contributions – 520 – to be eligible. In the decade-long transition that runs up to 2034, they will compare the total contributions outcome and a blended approach of the two to see which gives you the better outcome and that is what you receive. But what if you are shy of the magic 2,080, but you did work elsewhere in Europe or beyond? It depends on where you worked. If it was in a country within the European Union or the European Economic Area, then social insurance from those employments can be added to your Irish record to help you secure a pension here or boost it. If it was within certain other countries – notably the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan or South Korea – Ireland operates a bilateral agreement that allows social insurance payments there to help boost your Irish record using a specific pro-rata formula. First, they calculate a 'notional pension', which is what your pension would be if all the Irish and non-Irish contributions were treated the same. So you simply add all your social insurance weekly contributions in Ireland and, say, the UK. You then divide this number by the number of years you have worked to give you a yearly average. If that gives you 48 or over, your 'notional pension' is the €289.30 above. Below that, the rate drops in bands. That is only the first step. You then use the following formula – (A x B) / C – where A is the notional pension rate, B is the number of your reckonable Irish contributions and C the total number of contributions between Ireland and, in this instance, the UK. So, if you have, say, 1,200 Irish PRSI stamps and 416 stamps from eight years worked in the UK over a 39-year career, you get your notional pension rate by adding 1,200 and 416 and dividing by 39. That gives you 41.4, which is rounded up to 42. That's worth €283.70. You then take this notional rate (283.70 and multiply it by your 1,200 Irish contributions before dividing that sum by your 1,616 stamps across both countries. So, 283.70 x 1,200 = 340,440 / 1,616 = €210.66 which is rounded up to €210.70. As it happens, in this case, relying only on your 1,200 Irish stamps over that 39 year working life, the yearly average would have been just over 30 and the pension payment would have been €260.10. As you are better off under this calculation, that is the pension, you'll receive. The fewer Irish stamps you have, the more likely the pro-rata formula will help you. On your second point, you are quite correct. People who will be relying on the non-contributory state pension – people who do not have enough PRSI stamps for a contributory payments – will be subject to a means test. And that means test will, in general, include all your cash income. However, there are exceptions. One of these is any payment from the Department of Social Protection. And, related to that, there is an exemption for social welfare payments from other EU member states and, critically, from the UK that are deemed equivalent to an Irish social welfare payment. That would seem to indicate that your UK state pension income would not be taken into account. However, the EU regulation on which this exemption is based – Regulation 883 of 2004 – apparently also rules out overlapping payments. My understanding is that, and I am not clear what that might mean in the circumstances you outline. Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street Dublin 2, or by email to with a contact phone number. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Yahoo
MANDEL: Bathtub Girl killer, now 37, wants 'second chance'
Once dubbed the Bathtub Girl killer, she's spent more than eight years in her uphill quest to be licensed as an Ontario lawyer – and she's tired of waiting. Convicted as a youth of drowning her alcoholic mom when she was 15, 'A.B.' went before the Law Society Tribunal this week and asked to be immediately licensed due to 'inordinate delay' and abuse of process by the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) as they seek a 'good character' hearing. 'The LSO should do the right thing and let me proceed directly to licensing. This would stop LSO's eight years (and counting) of wasting taxpayer and annual lawyer fee monies. This would ensure the YCJA (Youth Criminal Justice Act) is respected, so others with a youth record have a real second chance when they have put in the work to improve themselves – like I have,' wrote the law graduate, her identity protected under the YCJA. 'The YCJA (Youth Criminal Justice Act) exists to give youths a second chance without being punished for their mistakes made as children. I was 15 at the time of the offence and am now 37. Instead,' she wrote in her affidavit. 'the LSO is trying to legalize destroying the reputation of any youth before the youth can even begin their career as a lawyer. That is malicious and improper.' The infamous murder has been the subject of a book by the late great Bob Mitchell as well as a movie adaptation. On Jan. 18, 2003, after months of carefully planning their plot and giddily discussing it online with friends, the sisters – 16 and 15 at the time – plied their alcoholic mom with vodka and slipped her Tylenol 3s laced with codeine. As their 43-year-old mother lay sleepily in her bath, the older girl put on gloves and gently – to avoid telltale bruising – held her underwater for four minutes until she stopped twitching. MANDEL: Has Bathtub Girl killer been cleared to practise law? BATHTUB GIRLS: Younger of two sisters who killed mom in 2003 now an articling student for Toronto criminal lawyer Top court upholds conviction in bathtub murder conspiracy They almost got away with it. But flush with $133,000 in insurance money, the sisters couldn't stop blabbing about their crime. And a year after the drowning was ruled an accident, one of their friends went to Peel Regional Police. Both girls were sentenced to the maximum youth term of 10 years – six in secure custody. A.B. was paroled after four years due to her good behaviour and completed her sentence in 2014. To her credit, she completed an undergrad degree, went to law school, articled and passed her bar exams. But the single mom is still waiting to be called to the bar. In her 2016 application, she responded to a question that an Ontario judge would later rule was 'misleading and unlawful' – and disclosed her youth record for murder. That triggered an LSO 'good character' investigation, a request for her youth records in 2019 and her referral to a hearing in 2020 that's been delayed by legal wrangling over guaranteeing her anonymity. She went to court in 2023 to revoke her permission for the LSO to access her youth record after she complained their investigator used it to reveal her identity and conviction to witnesses as she probed them with 'gossipy' questions. In August 2024, Justice Bruce Duncan – the same judge who presided over her trial and sentencing – agreed and ruled the law society has no business even considering her past since her youth conviction is considered erased. 'AB is conclusively deemed never to have committed the offence,' Duncan said in his ruling at the time. While the Law Society is appealing, A.B. brought her motion Thursday to skip the good character hearing completely – a move strongly opposed by the Law Society. 'The need to assess character is significantly heightened when an applicant has been involved in first-degree murder – the most serious of crimes,' LSO lawyer Nadia Musclow told the tribunal. 'A significant amount of the delay in this matter is attributable to the applicant herself and the various steps she has taken to avoid the licensing hearing.' It's a charge A.B. denies, accusing the legal regulator of 'fighting her every step of the way' so she'll finally give up – something she vows not to do. 'Had I known that waiting for licensing would be like Waiting for Godot, I would have never applied to be a lawyer,' she wrote. 'That is a sad message for LSO to send to those with a youth record, who have valuable and unique experiences to contribute to the practice of law.' The tribunal has reserved its decision. mmandel@
