Author: Eliza

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – With the sun shining on the Anchorage Golf Course, Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed Senate Bill 9 into law last Thursday, which will implement sweeping changes to Alaska’s alcohol statutes.

“I just want to thank everyone who worked hard on this,” Dunleavy said to applause, holding up the signed bill for the cameras. “Congratulations, everybody.”

The signing ceremony was far from certain. It took over nine years and several near misses for the bill to pass through the Alaska Legislature at the end of the last legislative session.

Senate President Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna, has been the bill’s primary sponsor and said it was “an exciting moment” to see it signed into law. He explained that representatives of bars, breweries and public safety organizations spent thousands of hours negotiating a compromise agreement despite having vastly different priorities.

“This is an example of how the political process can work,”

Law enforcement personnel stand outside Robb Elementary School following a shooting on May 24 in Uvalde, Texas. When the gunman arrived at the school, he hopped its fence and easily entered through an unlocked back door, police said.

Dario Lopez-Mills/AP

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Dario Lopez-Mills/AP

Law enforcement personnel stand outside Robb Elementary School following a shooting on May 24 in Uvalde, Texas. When the gunman arrived at the school, he hopped its fence and easily entered through an unlocked back door, police said.

Dario Lopez-Mills/AP

Uvalde city officials are using a legal loophole and several other broad exemptions in Texas to prevent the release of police records related to last month’s mass shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead, according to a letter obtained by NPR in response to public information requests filed by member station Texas Public Radio.

Since the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary

McGonigle keeps its local office at 4870 Sadler Road in Innsbrook, where the Davis Wright Tremaine brand will soon be introduced. (BizSense file photo)

A niche law firm founded 12 years ago by a group of LeClairRyan attorneys has a merger in the works that will soon bring a new national law brand to Richmond.

McGonigle, a 44-attorney firm with an office in Innsbrook, is in the process of merging into Davis Wright Tremaine, which has around 550 lawyers nationwide.

McGonigle, originally known as Murphy & McGonigle, has had an office in the Richmond area since it was founded in 2010 by a group of LeClairRyan attorneys with a focus on representing clients in the financial services industry. It has since grown its lawyer ranks from 15 to 44, spread across offices in New York, Washington, DC, San Francisco and Chicago.

Texans hoping that the Lone Star State eventually breaks away from the rest of the nation to form a new country are likely to be disappointed when considering what the Supreme Court once said about their options for secession.

A case following the Civil War made it clear that the state’s seceding from the United States is an unlikely and untenable scenario. In 1868’s Texas v. White decision, the Court said leaving the Union can happen only through one of two ways: “revolution” or “consent of the States.”

“When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation…. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States,” the Court’s ruling read.

At its convention