By FOCUS, a Leonine Company A few years after “ag-gag” bills swept the nation; a new type of agriculture protection bill is now finding favor in farm-heavy state legislatures. This time, the debate boils down to a single word and how it may be used: meat. In recent years, alternative meat products – either made […]
By FOCUS, a Leonine Company Over the last several years, the Airbnb mobile app and website has exploded in popularity, challenging the dominance of hotels and creating an entirely new front in the sharing economy by allowing individuals to monetize their apartments or empty rooms around the globe. Though known by many names, these types […]
By FOCUS, A Leonine Business Following 2008’s Great Recession, the national economy has slowly recovered by nearly every benchmark – state budgets have crawled their way back from massive cuts, unemployment has reached all-time lows, while markets have reached all-time highs. Wages, however, have not kept pace with overall economic growth since the recession, […]
By FOCUS, a Leonine Business In what has become a recurring nightmare for anyone who uses the internet these days, the global hotel chain Marriott recently announced that their online booking system was subject to a major data breach, resulting in the personal information of nearly 500 million guests being compromised. The full details […]
By FOCUS, A Leonine Business State alcohol laws are among the most rapidly changing in the country. FOCUS research shows that there have been at least 1,700 changes to state alcohol laws since 2012, amounting to roughly five changes per state per year. This rapid pace shows no sign of slowing down either, with […]
By FOCUS, a Leonine Company As more and more states prepare for the move into the retail marijuana market, including our neighbor to the north, Canada, two ballot initiatives in the Midwest could be the vanguard of the legalization movement’s march inward, away from left-leaning and coastal areas and into more traditionally conservative areas […]
By FOCUS, a Leonine Business As the opioid crisis continues to rage on across the country, two distinct approaches to combatting the problem are beginning to take shape, both coming at the state level but from different branches of state government. While state lawmakers are looking to curtail the issue through restrictions on prescriptions […]
By FOCUS, A Leonine Business In June, the Department of Labor, under a plan by the Trump Administration, announced the future adoption of final rules allowing for a major expansion of association health plans (AHPs) across the nation. Functionally, these plans will allow small businesses and self-employed individuals to band together and buy health […]
By FOCUS, a Leonine Business In May, the Seattle City Council unanimously agreed to pass a new ordinance known as a “head tax”, which would have imposed a $275 per-employee tax on businesses in the city that take in more than $20 million annually; the tax was primarily aimed at the corporate giants like […]
By FOCUS, a Leonine business In 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the Obama administration, enacted strict vehicle emissions and mileage standards aimed at increasing fuel economy for cars and light-duty trucks. The rules sought to require these types of vehicles to get at least 55 miles per gallon for model years […]
