The Latest Breaking News from JANUS

Astronomers Discover Two-Faced Star: Hydrogen on One Side, Helium on the Other

The white dwarf, nicknamed Janus, has one side helium, one side hydrogen.

Space-age thermal cloak for electric cars extends battery life without energy use

Note: Today’s newsletter is the final edition of Union Station. We are so grateful for your readership over the past five years. Want in-depth reporting about federal courts, election policy, school board politics, and more? Check out and subscribe to Ballotpedia’s other newsletters here.

The plant-eating, raptor-like dinosaur lived during a time of great transition around 99 million years ago and was named after the Roman god Janus.

Opioid drugs such as morphine and fentanyl are like the two-faced Roman god Janus: The kindly face delivers pain relief to millions of sufferers, while the grim face drives an opioid abuse and overdose crisis that claimed nearly 70,000 lives in the U.S. in 2020 alone.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed three labor policy bills on March 24, including a bill repealing the state’s 2012 right-to-work law.

Fifty-one Democratic members of the Michigan House of Representatives and all 20 Democratic senators are sponsoring companion bills that would repeal a section of law prohibiting public employees from being required to pay union fees. 

Since late 2019, Ballotpedia has tracked close to 200 federal lawsuits related to public-sector unions. Today, we’ll take a look at the state of litigation at the end of 2022 and highlight a selection of cases with recent activity in the district and circuit courts.

Note: In observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, we will not be publishing Union Station on Nov. 25. The next edition of Union Station will arrive on Dec. 2.

The Alaska Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in a case where the state of Alaska claims that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME requires annual opt-ins for union membership.