ORLANDO, FLA. - Amendment 3 in Florida, the ballot measure that would adopt nonpartisan top-two open primaries for state executive and legislative elections, received a major endorsement from the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday. The newspaper focused on the point that Amendment 3 is opposed by both major parties and that alone is ample reason to support the amendment.

Aaron Trites says he’s always known he wanted to open his own comic book store someday. That day arrived in December 2018 when he opened the doors of Now or Never Comics in downtown San Diego, just a 20-minute walk from the Convention Center. It was better than he’s ever imagined.

“San Diego is an amazing comic book city,” said Trites. “July of last year was far and away my best month; not just for the few days of Comic-Con, it was the entire month — business was gangbusters.”

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For years, the future of San Diego’s short-term rentals has been in question, as past attempts at regulation were tantamount to a ban.

Before he was hospitalized with COVID-19, before his roommates kicked him out of their shared apartment because of his illness, before he found himself unhoused for the first time in his life, Francisco Tzul noticed people at his downtown Los Angeles garment factory start to cough. In a few days, they would disappear.

Tzul, 56, is an undocumented worker in the city’s massive garment industry, one that relies on men and women like him to produce shirts, blouses and skirts for major fashion brands so they can be sold at a premium for being made in America.

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Three of the largest wildfires ever to scorch California are burning right now. Millions are choking on ash up and down the coast, after suffering from record breaking heat storms and rolling blackouts. Amidst a global pandemic, these disasters are just the opening salvo of human caused climate change that are only getting worse.

Is affirmative action “the enemy of white people who are contractors and Americans of Asian descent who are trying to get into the University of California at Berkeley,” as one influential critic called it? Or is neglecting race as a factor in admissions denying the reality that many students endure racism as an impediment to academic progress?

Editor's Note: This article originally published on Governing and has been republished on IVN with permission from the author.

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ANCHORAGE, ALASKA. - The comprehensive reform campaign, Yes on 2 for Better Elections, released its first general election TV ad Tuesday, targeting the corrupting influence of undisclosed money in politics, also known as “dark money..”

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Before 2020, Court Jones and his wife, Debbie Burmeister, said they thrived in the arts industry, finding an abundance of work in drawing live, digital caricatures at parties and trade shows. But when Jan. 1 rolled around, the couple said their careers became complicated with the pandemic and Assembly Bill 5, a new law that limits how much work an independent contractor can perform before being classified as an employee.