Author: Reporter

The Associated Press is making some of its U.S. elections data available for free to more than 400 nonprofit news organizations in a program funded by the Google News Initiative. The small, primarily digital newsrooms are members of the Institute for Nonprofit News. While that 15-year-old group includes some national outlets like ProPublica, most of its members are smaller organizations that cover local news, most with only a handful of employees and many that operate in areas left otherwise bereft of coverage. On primary nights and the general election, AP will give these outlets ready-to-publish graphics with national and...

Wisconsin’s presidential primary on April 2 clears the way for a general election campaign that Democrats see as an opportunity unlike any in recent state history. New legislative districts adopted last month erase Republican advantages that gave the GOP dominance of the Wisconsin Assembly even as Democrats won 14 of the past 17 statewide elections. Democrats think they can now compete for a majority, but also that invigorated legislative campaigns can help turn out votes for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in November. Ben Wikler, the state Democratic Party chairman, describes the idea as “reverse coattails,”...

The resignation letter was short and direct. “I can no longer be under an oath to uphold the New Constitution of Ohio,” wrote Sabrina Warner in her letter announcing she was stepping down from the state’s Republican central committee. It was just days after Ohio voters resoundingly approved an amendment last November to the state constitution ensuring access to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care. For many, the vote was a victory after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to abortion in 2022. For Warner, a staunch abortion opponent, it meant she could no longer...

Every morning, the Rev. Karna Moskalik goes through a “grounding” routine that involves prayer, Bible reading, positive affirmations, and meditations about the best outcomes for the day’s tasks, as well as lighting a perfumed candle and walking through each space of her Lutheran church. “I always feel like work never ends, but at the same time I beefed up grounding because without it, I feel absolutely ineffective,” said Moskalik, who grew up a pastor’s daughter and has led the 700-member Our Savior’s congregation for four years in this small riverside town. That level of faith-based self-care is just what...

Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy “the beauty of the morning on the beach,” he recalled. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church.” Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades. “Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals, harming “innocent human beings,” in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches....