States News Service was a Washington, D.C.-based news agency that operated from 1973 to 2004, providing regional newspapers without their own capital bureaus with coverage of the federal government. Founded by Leland J. Schwartz (b. 1949) and Howard Abramson, the service began as the Connecticut News Service after Schwartz quit his job as a press aide to Senator Lowell Weicker, disheartened that his handouts were being printed as news. Its key strategy was to focus on the local angles of national stories, such as reporting on a nuclear plant "green grunge" issue for Connecticut papers or the closing of rural post offices for the Erie Morning News, and it was prized for hard-hitting coverage of local members of Congress rather than reprinting press releases. The agency gained early notoriety by breaking the story that Connecticut Governor Thomas Meskill would resign for a federal judgeship, a claim initially denied but eventually proven true. By 1978, it had grown to ten reporters and expanded into new states, charging clients between $75 and $300 a week—far cheaper than a salaried D.C. correspondent. Later, it diversified into document retrieval and an "hourly newspaper" called The Latest News before ceasing operations in 2004.