Gov. Sarah Palin announced today that she will resign in a few weeks. Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will take over July 26. Palin said that "once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional 'lame duck' status in this particular climate would just be another dose of 'politics as usual,' something I campaigned against and will always oppose."

Gov. Mark Sanford used his own cash and connections to pay for secret trips to see his Argentine mistress, according to a State Law Enforcement Division review of travel records. The review found no criminal wrongdoing or evidence to suggest that the governor misused public funds, SLED Director Reggie Lloyd said.

California churned out its first batch of IOUs in nearly two decades amid grumbles from bankers, growing public outrage and scant progress in resolving the state's widening budget deficit. The state controller's office fired up a pair of printing presses and began rolling out nearly 29,000 IOUs totaling more than $53 million.

Two former Republicans congressmen have filed paperwork to formalize their 2010 campaigns challenging incumbent Democratic governors. Scott McInnis of Colorado is taking on Bill Ritter Jr., who is seeking a second term, and Mark Neumann of Wisconsin is challenging James E. Doyle, who is expected to run for a third term.

State governments so far are using almost all of their stimulus transportation dollars to build and improve roads and highways while devoting only about 6 percent to public transit systems, according to a 50-state study by Smart Growth America, which said transit projects could create 31 percent more jobs than new road construction.

A potential corridor for passenger trains between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area has become part of a federal initiative to modernize rail networks and develop high-speed service between cities. But that announcement may doom a 30-year-old proposal to build a magnetic levitation, or "maglev," train from Anaheim to Las Vegas if U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada gets his way.

Boston residents who report broken sidewalks and burned-out street lights are getting faster action from City Hall, thanks to a new $5 million computer tracking system that has improved response time to citizen complaints, according to city tracking data. Other cities, including Baltimore, Chicago and New York, implemented similar systems and saw similar results years ago.

Gov. Charlie Crist ran afoul of the state constitution when he refused to fill an appeals-court seat because all of the potential picks submitted to him were white, the Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously. The court said Crist must make the selection from the list of six names that he was given by the judicial nominating commission.

In the latest attempt to increase pressure on state senators locked in a leadership stalemate, state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said he will withhold paychecks from them. He also said he had withheld more than 250 travel vouchers worth $560,000. Senators' base pay is $79,500 a year, and some are also paid tens of thousands extra for leadership posts.

State and local-government police and firefighter unions filed twin class-action lawsuits against the state, arguing that a new law designed to curb pension abuse illegally strips them of benefits guaranteed by the state constitution and federal law. Public-safety employees have been rushing to retire before the new rules took effect.