(March 26, 2025)
Chris Merril is in for Bill while he is out on vacation.  Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman will allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty again in Los Angeles, undoing one of the signature policies of his predecessor, George Gascón. Four Southern states rank in the top five nationally for their dependence on federal dollars, according to a new report. And a very northern state, Alaska, is the most “federally dependent” in the union, according to WalletHub. Southern states rank second through fifth: Kentucky, West Virginia, Mississippi and South Carolina. Amid President Trump’s push to take over the world’s largest island, the administration says it is sending the vice president to visit a military base there. Billions of dollars are potentially on the line for fire victims. For lawyers, their typical one-third cut of any future settlement could be enormous.