In a repudiation of a major element in the Bloomberg administration's crime-fighting legacy, a federal judge has found that the stop-and-frisk tactics of the New York Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in New York and called for a federal monitor to oversee broad reforms.
Elsewhere across the country, a number of police departments have found themselves under federal court oversight, often in response to a broader range of alleged police misconduct than in the New York case.
As states, including Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky and Texas, have reduced their prison populations by referring more offenders to treatment or probation, the federal system has continued to grow and now is at least 40% over capacity with nearly 220,000 inmates
Arizona’s top elected officials decried the federal government’s decision Friday not to declare the Yarnell Hill Fire a major disaster, saying it broke a promise and was a slap to a grieving community.
Most of the bills Gov. Chris Christie signed Thursday sailed through the Legislature with bipartisan support and without inflaming supporters or opponents of gun control. But he left five weapons-related bills on his desk, including some that could prove thorny as he campaigns for re-election in November and a possible presidential run in 2016.
A federal appeals court dealt Los Angeles County a blow on Thursday in a long-running lawsuit over storm-water pollution when it issued an opinion that the county is liable for excessively high levels.
Under the new law, failing to provide an animal with food, water or other necessities would be a fourth degree crime, up from a disorderly person’s offense. If the dog dies as a result of the treatment, it would be upped to a third degree crime.
The new system has been used at least 20 times in 14 states, including Pennsylvania, Texas and Ohio. And it has worked; last month, a missing 8-year-old boy in Cleveland was found after a man received an alert on his cellphone, saw the car described by authorities and followed it until police arrived.
The top 22 cities with pedestrian deaths far greater than the national average have until Aug. 30 to apply for a total of $2 million in pedestrian safety grants from the Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Jeffrey Beard described the plan to The Sacramento Bee's editorial board three days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Gov. Jerry Brown's request to delay a court order to reduce inmates by December. The reduction is necessary to improve substandard health care in the prisons, the courts have ruled.
A man feuding with township officials in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains over living conditions at his ramshackle, trash-filled property killed three people at a municipal meeting - including at least one town official - in a rampage that blew holes through the walls and sent people crawling for cover, authorities said.
Mayor Tony Mack, who laid off 100 police officers in 2011 amid sweeping city budget cuts, sent the letter before a violent weekend in Trenton that included four homicides and brought the city's total for the year to 27. The record for homicides in Trenton is 31 set in 2005.
Governments should keep the right to start a meeting with a prayer, argue Utah’s two senators and the state’s attorney general in briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.
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