Author: Laura Olson
Laura Olson covers the nation's capital as a senior reporter for States Newsroom, a partner of Maine Beacon. Her areas of coverage include politics and policy, lobbying, elections, and campaign finance.
The number of coronavirus infections across the country is swelling at a perilous time for state governments, just weeks before federal support rushed through Congress in the pandemic’s early stages is set to end. The expiring provisions from the $2 trillion CARES Act and subsequent executive orders will mean reductions in unemployment benefits for those…
States Newsroom DC reporter Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. Democrats gained at least one Republican-held seat in the U.S. Senate, but also lost a seat of their own and were unable to defeat several GOP incumbents in the elections, ending up early Wednesday with an increasingly challenging path to wresting control of the chamber…
States Newsroom DC Bureau reporter Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. Democrats have a shot at winning the White House, capturing the Senate majority and keeping their hold on the House—an election result that could dramatically shift the policy agenda away from the gridlock that’s gripped the nation’s capital for years. In the Senate, the…
Across the hundreds of pages of plans that state officials sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on distributing and tracking the yet-to-be-approved COVID-19 vaccines, there are more questions so far than answers on how exactly vaccine programs will be carried out. Yet states will be on the front lines for a far-reaching…