That's a fundamental truth about the federal government. State and local governments provide a lot of services to people -- schools, highways, water, sanitation and the like are all state and local responsibilities. The federal government handles a few huge benefit programs, which, as we noted, are not affected. But most of what the federal government does in domestic policy -- overseeing grants and contracts and regulating businesses, for example, remains at least one step removed from everyday life.
The Indonesian government has declared an end to the emergency response phase following the earthquake and tsunami a month ago. With large parts of Sulawesi island still in ruins, the focus is switching to rehabilitation and reconstruction. The government said geological considerations will be taken into account during the rebuild, which some have said should have happened years ago. Many residents said that they had never heard of "liquefaction" prior to the disaster, despite the government's experts having created a map six years ago that emphasised the risk of liquefaction in areas that were affected by the earthquake.
"Our evidence suggests that a local government is more likely to engage in wasteful spending when there is no local newspaper to report on that government," said University of Illinois Chicago's Dermot Murphy, one of the study's authors. "Investors find it riskier to lend money to wasteful governments, and thus the costs of financing public infrastructure projects, such as schools, hospitals, and roadways, for a local government are higher."
Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic presidential primary in Puerto Rico, placing her on the cusp of having enough delegates to claim her party's nomination. They're warning their likely presidential nominee to lay off the Latino judge presiding over a lawsuit against Trump University and unite the fractured GOP. The Islamic State group has been shooting at civilians as they try to flee the fighting between Iraqi government forces and IS militants in Fallujah, an international aid organization says. Across sewage-filled waters from Olympic city Rio de Janeiro, Niteroi quietly expands its basic sanitation network, showing a real water cleanup is possible.