BLUEFIELD, W.Va. — A West Virginia attorney has been disbarred after he attempted to barter his services in a woman’s divorce case for sex, the Bluefield Daily Telegraph reported. The mandate from the West Virginia Supreme Court annulling McGinnis E. ...

HELENA, Mont. — Montana lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow victims of domestic violence to secretly record phone calls or interactions with the perpetrator and use the recordings as evidence in court. Under Montana law, it is illegal ...

RALEIGH, N.C. — Domestic violence protection orders issued by North Carolina judges to keep apart people in abusive or frightening dating relationships must be granted in same-sex cases as well, a divided state appeals court panel ruled in late December. ...

LANSING, Mich. — A program that seeks community-based alternatives to the practice of locking up youth offenders or placing them in rehabilitation facilities outside their homes has come to communities in Michigan. The nonprofit Youth Advocate Programs is working with ...

CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire has “unnecessarily warehoused” foster care teens in institutional and group care facilities instead of with families and has not acted in their best interests, according to a federal class-action lawsuit filed by several legal groups ...

DOVER, Del. — The Zimmerman family is complete. That’s how Mike Zimmerman sees it, after he and his wife, Becka, finalized their adoption of Aidann and Camron last week. “What’s been missing is found, and our family is complete,” Mr. ...

INDIANAPOLIS — The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to take up an Indiana case seeking to reverse a lower court’s ruling that allows both members of same-sex couples in the state to be listed as parents on the birth certificates ...

TOPEKA, Kan. — Employees of one of the largest foster care management providers in Kansas falsified documents to show visits with families that never took place, the state’s child welfare agency said Friday. The Kansas Department for Children and Families ...

SEATTLE — The Washington state agency that investigates child abuse said it has received 59% fewer reports of misconduct per week this school year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The state Department of Children, Youth, and Families also ...

SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico’s child welfare agencies on Thursday will jockey with other state departments for slim funding as they present their spending requests to state lawmakers to continue funding childcare and child protection efforts. From emergency internet ...