Why a fund for young innovators is challenging California’s intrusive reporting mandate
There are thousands of venture capital firms competing to find promising tech startups, but remarkably few cater specifically to young college dropouts. In 2015, Michael Gibson and Danielle Strachman cofounded 1517 Fund with a specific mission in mind: to invest in young, renegade dropouts and "sci-fi scientists" developing tomorrow's breakthrough ...
Federal court hears oral argument on whether HISA’s private enforcement regime is constitutional
Philip Serpe walked horses at the Meadowlands Sports Complex as a teenager without pay and spent his high school evenings volunteering at the track. He won his first Grade 1 race at 28, trained three Grade 1 horses, and built a reputation at some of the top tracks in the country. Now he is serving a two-year suspension from his successful thorou ...
California architect did everything right—and the Board of Architecture fined him $29,000
When Jeffrey Hagen, a California-based architect, agreed to help a longtime client with a Las Vegas project, he did everything by the book. He drew up preliminary plans, submitted them to the city for a permit, and applied for reciprocity with the Nevada State Board of Architecture, truthfully disclosing that he was already working with a client an ...
City demands $600,000 for advertising a rental
When the medical team finally gave 82-year-old retiree Sandra May clearance to leave the hospital, she should have been able to focus on her recovery. Instead, she returned home to the news that her local government had slapped her with nearly $600,000 in fines—over a simple website error. Sandra May is a Hawaii homeowner who rents out a p ...
AL.com : Alabama wants to license birth centers as hospitals. That’s absurd.
Here's a bureaucratic puzzle: What do you call a small, home-like birth setting staffed bymidwives, designed specifically to offer low-intervention, low-cost maternity care to healthy mothers with low-risk pregnancies? If you're the Alabama Department of Public Health, apparently the answer is: a hospital. That's the absurd regulatory position a ...
Arizona court strips agencies of the right to supply their own facts in court
Under Arizona law, when a government agency asserted something as fact, courts were required to accept it, as long as any evidence supported it—even a shred, even if the weight of the evidence pointed the other way. That standard, known as substantial evidence review, gave agencies something no ordinary litigant enjoys: the ability to lose on the ...
One mother’s fight to restore merit-based admissions in NYC’s Specialized High Schools
Every November, students vying for a spot at one of New York City's eight Specialized High Schools take the admissions exam that will determine their academic trajectory. The notoriously rigorous Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT) spans three hours and assesses a student's abilities in English language arts and mathematics. Admissi ...
How agencies make law without making law
"Nonbinding." In government parlance, it means a document doesn't carry the force of law—that it's guidance, not a mandate. So why did an agency "guidance document" carry enough legal weight to prevent a family-owned Alaska business from moving its pipe storage operation to a larger lot—land bordered by a junk car dealer, a scrap metal deale ...
Washington ranchers get their day in court—to fight for their day in court
The King family has worked the same stretch of Central Washington for more than 70 years, running cattle across Grant and Douglas counties on land they've ranched since the 1950s. On May 21, a Grant County Superior Court judge heard oral argument on whether the Kings are entitled to defend that legacy before a jury—or whether Washington State ...