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Key members of the Chicago Infrastructure Trust called for school officials to provide more details on an energy efficient light project after a Tribune story Friday raised questions about why the trust would fund lights in schools that were just closed.
A Star-Ledger review of mail-in ballots reveals the Newark mayor is getting a big boost some 85 miles from home in Camden County, which already has collected more mail-in ballots than the next 13 counties combined.
A new USA TODAY/Bipartisan Policy Center poll finds that Americans by more than 2-1 say the best way to make positive changes in society is through volunteer organizations and charities, not by being active in government. Those younger than 30 are particularly put off by politics. They are significantly less likely than their parents to say participating in politics is an important value in their lives.
At a meeting in its headquarters in Paris last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released a study on whether it would be possible to test what students around the world actually learn in colleges and universities. In November, the organization will decide whether to press ahead with the new system, Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes, or Ahelo.
Hemp and marijuana share the same species — cannabis sativa — but hemp has a negligible content of THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana. Under federal law, all cannabis plants fall under the marijuana label, regardless of THC content.
In a number of high-profile cases around the country, top state officials are balking at defending laws on gay marriage, immigration and other socially divisive issues — saying the statutes are unconstitutional and should not be enforced.
A new study is being called the most detailed portrait yet of income mobility in the United States and is the first with enough data to compare upward mobility across metropolitan areas.
Last month marked the four-year anniversary of the end of the recession. While employment has returned to pre-recession levels in a few states, most are still far from recovering lost jobs.
The U.S. House on Friday passed a bill reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), known as No Child Left Behind, the first passage of major K-12 legislation in more than a decade.
Roads and bridges and utilities should be financed, built and managed as the assets they are.
David Wilkins, Florida's top child welfare and social services administrator, resigned Thursday amid an escalating scandal over the recent deaths of four small children who had a history of involvement with child-abuse investigators.
Chicago's bond rating has taken a big hit, suffering the first downgrade in the two-year tenure of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was warned by financial analysts of the need to take drastic -- even politically daring -- actions to get his city's fiscal house in order.
A federal judge extended his hold Wednesday on a new law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have hospital admitting privileges.
It marked the second time U.S. District Judge William Conley blocked the law and the second time he expressed skepticism of it in open court.
The state must temporarily halt a plan to consolidate and close almost half of its rural health centers, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
The Friday deadline was set through a new state law that makes it legal to carry concealed weapons in public. The legislation included a provision that gave local governments 10 days from its passage to enact local weapons regulations, and that clock started when the General Assembly overrode Gov. Pat Quinn's veto of the concealed carry law last week.
Although the results are preliminary - the study is still ongoing - they are a boost to a natural gas industry that has fought complaints from environmental groups and property owners who call fracking dangerous.
Heroin, which has long flourished in the nation’s big urban centers, has been making an alarming comeback in the smaller cities and towns of New England.
Last week's announcement of the nomination surprised many, as most system presidents come from campus administrations.
In a trailblazing decision that expands electronic privacy rights in New Jersey, the state Supreme Court ruled today that law enforcement agencies must get warrants if they want to track crime suspects by tracing the signals from their cell phones.
Chicago Public Schools officials announced late Thursday that 2,113 teachers and other employees would be laid off Friday, largely due to a giant pension obligation increase that’s straining the system.
After keeping his distance for three days, Florida Gov. Rick Scott met for about 30 minutes Thursday night with a group of young protesters who are occupying the Capitol to seek repeal of the state’s “stand your ground” law.
It's the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
HB 2, which was filibustered by Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, in the first special session, passed in both the House and Senate last week during the current second special session. The law, which would impose several new regulations on abortions and abortion providers, has drawn criticism from abortion advocates and incited demonstrations from both sides.
The immigration overhaul passed by the U.S. Senate could put a big squeeze on the budgets of state and local governments because it does not help states pay for costs incurred by required policy changes.
Many private insurance companies and state Medicaid agencies across the country impose sharp limitations on access to medications used in the treatment of the addiction to prescription painkillers known as opioids.
With more than 100,000 people on the brink of losing water, a couple of utility workers burrowed in on a long-shot fix. Their unlikely repair of a 48-year-old water valve was heralded Wednesday as a near miracle that averted a human and economic catastrophe for Prince George’s County. It also has led to questions about whether the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission could have been more open with the people it serves.
By a clear majority, the city’s voters say empathy is the most important trait in the next mayor, far more important than temperament, management experience, or the ability to recruit new businesses, according to a new poll by The New York Times and Siena College.
Detroit’s two pension funds today sued emergency manager Kevyn Orr and Gov. Rick Snyder in an attempt to block Orr from slashing pension benefits for thousands of current and active city workers as part of his plan to restructure the city’s massive debt.
An investigation into New Jersey’s school lunch program by the Office of the State Comptroller found “widespread fraud” among district employees and their families, who allegedly lied about their income so their kids could eat for free.
It’s not just Wal-Mart urging Mayor Vincent C. Gray to veto the “living wage” bill passed by the D.C. Council last week. Executives from six national retailers posted a letter to Gray Wednesday urging him to reject the bill, calling it “misguided” and “unfairly discriminatory” and saying it “does nothing to address the proposed goal of improving job quality and opportunity in the District.”
Thirty employees of Iowa Workforce Development, the state’s employment services agency, are receiving layoff notices this week, a situation state officials blame on federal sequestration budget cuts.
Gov. Jan Brewer said Tuesday that nothing in the death of Trayvon Martin or the acquittal of George Zimmerman of murder charges gives her second thoughts about signing Arizona's own "stand your ground'' law.
The spread of cheap, powerful cameras capable of reading license plates has allowed police to build databases on the movements of millions of Americans over months or even years, according to an American Civil Liberties Union report released Wednesday.
Twelve states are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for not complying with their public-records requests for information on the implementation of the Clean Air Act.
Nearly 70 new electric engines will service the Northeast Corridor. They are expected to be more reliable and faster than the aging fleet they replace.
A recent Brookings report evaluates their effects on the housing market.
FAA is planning a system that will radically change how it manages air travel, but skeptics say it may be taking too long.
They are competitive, creative, innovative, resilient and courageous. If those sound like core characteristics of successful entrepreneurs, they are, and we need to build on them.
Action in response to the not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman murder trial continues to sweep the nation, as lawmakers, preachers, students and others took to Washington, Tallahassee, Orlando and beyond to gear up for protests and rallies through the week.
Two weeks after being sworn in as mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti is facing the first big test of his leadership skills as he responds to outbreaks of vandalism and violence in the aftermath of George Zimmerman's acquittal in the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.
Colorado's unique program, which offers free counseling to public workers, improves employees' mental health and yields state savings.
Some cities think they do, and are moving to change parking mandates to encourage more affordable apartments.
More than a dozen states introduced legislation to pull out of the Common Core State Standards, but most bills went nowhere.
Attorney General Eric Holder took aim at Stand Your Ground laws Tuesday, saying the measures increase the chance for violence.
The spigot will run dry, toilets won’t flush and there will be no cooling shower on sweltering days for more than 100,000 people in Prince George’s County as crews wrestle to repair a major water main that serves their homes and businesses.
Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels pledged to promote academic freedom when he became president of Purdue University in January, but newly released emails show he attempted to eliminate what he considered liberal “propaganda” at Indiana’s public universities while governor
Campuses are being forced to tighten security, constrict their culture of openness and try to determine what has been stolen.
A statistics expert hired by opponents challenging Pennsylvania's voter ID law testified this morning that hundreds of thousands of registered voters do not have valid identification issued by the state Department of Transportation.
Democratic Gov. Lincoln Chafee, citing a tradition of separating church and state, on Tuesday vetoed legislation that would have authorized the issuance of license plates that say ‘‘Choose Life’’ to raise money for a Christian crisis pregnancy center that opposes abortion.
Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State, and supporters of the health care overhaul credit the online purchasing exchanges the law created.
Her election next year would be historic on two fronts: Heather Mizeur would be Maryland’s first female governor and its first openly gay governor.
Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman John E. Walsh’s decision to leave his post to lead Governor’s Deval Patrick’s political action committee fanned the flames of speculation that the Commonwealth’s chief executive might be taking a look at higher office.
Prince George’s County last month became the first in the nation to give the chief executive the authority to appoint a superintendent and school board members.
The California Supreme Court refused Monday to halt same-sex marriages while considering a legal bid to revive Proposition 8.
Information about the pensions for employees of greater Boston's transit agency has been hidden from the public. Now it's a matter of public record.
A new trend in the human services field suggests it isn't. Instead of punishing noncustodial parents, officials are trying to help them find and keep jobs.
Proponents of legalizing the recreational use of marijuana in Maine’s largest city evoked the controversial George Zimmerman verdict during a Monday news conference in Portland and said laws against pot are used to unfairly target blacks.
Lawmakers and regular Oregonians interested in tracking an issue face a common conundrum: Who exactly introduced a bill and the amendments?
A 2011 North Dakota law that outlaws one of two drugs used in nonsurgical abortions violates the state and U.S. constitutions, a state judge ruled Monday.
Jack Martin has been serving as Detroit's chief financial officer since spring 2012, when state intervention in city government began.
Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell could restore the voting rights of 10,000 nonviolent ex-felons by the end of his term — nearly twice as many as he has granted in 3½ years in office, administration officials said Monday.
State auditors examining the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's role as gatekeeper to medical marijuana use found lax regulation of physicians, unnecessarily high patient fees and a failure to oversee caregivers.
Lawyers for disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich filed a long-awaited appeal of his conviction and 14-year sentence late Monday, arguing that U.S. District Judge James Zagel's "one-sided evidentiary rulings" favored prosecutors and that the stiff sentence he imposed was based on vague and speculative evidence.
Mayor Bob Filner, facing calls for his resignation amid allegations that he sexually harassed female staff members, said Monday morning that he will not resign.
For months, Attorney General Lisa Madigan and her father, House Speaker Michael Madigan, brushed aside the notion that it would be a conflict of interest if she served as governor while he continued to run the General Assembly.
The high-profile light-rail project will link Detroit's two most vibrant sections. Financing for the $131 million line includes a huge amount of private and philanthropic support.
Across the country, at least 22 states have “stand your ground” laws, with varying degrees of requirements for when citizens may use deadly force to protect themselves. In the wake of the George Zimmerman's acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin, they are receiving fresh scrutiny.
The legislation, which awaits the governor's signature, would mark a radical departure from the traditional gas tax to fund transportation infrastructure.
Janet Napolitano, the U.S. secretary of Homeland Security and former governor of Arizona, has been named as the next president of the University of California system.
The Illinois Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of a 1995 law that requires doctors to notify parents of girls younger than 17 who seek an abortion.
Ohio's rainy day fund has hit an all-time high of $1.48 billion, following a deposit of $996 million last week from a budget surplus.
Newly passed abortion restrictions adopted in Texas is the latest in a series of state-level political fights triggering a frenzy of legal action that could determine how much access to abortion services American women have in the future.
Already well-known in political circles and extremely well-financed, Attorney General Greg Abbott formally announced Sunday he's running for governor, hoping to seize the fiercely socially conservative mantle of Gov. Rick Perry that has helped make Texas the country's largest red state.
The Washington, D.C. City Council announced last week that it will consider legislation that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.
A trial begins today to determine the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's voter identification law that requires voters have photo IDs with them in order to vote.
Some residents of Northern Colorado are moving forward with their threat to secede and form a separate state with representatives from eight counties meeting to map the boundaries.
Following a not-guilty verdict in the high-profile Zimmerman trial there were protests across the country and a lot of questions about what will come next for George Zimmerman.
Both doctors and public officials are aware of the limitations created by using body mass index to define obesity, which is now considered a disease. But no clear alternative has emerged.
The struggling Pennsylvania city is auctioning off items that were acquired for an ill-conceived Wild West museum.
Which of the 38 gubernatorial contests are neck-and-neck?
President Barack Obama called for every state to raise the legal age students can drop out of high school to 18 last year. But states haven't been quick to make any changes.
Governing looks at the seats that are currently leaning Democratic.
People who look at their cities and see extraordinary possibilities are a precious resource. Cultivating and handling them can be tricky.
A city that's growing can spend more money while keeping taxes low. But when the limits of growth are reached, it will need to reinvent itself.
President Obama's new climate action plan requires a lot of cooperation from the states, but there will be numerous challenges in getting all of them on board given the diversity of their current environmental and energy profiles.
A strategy that has been used to close abortion clinics in other states by imposing new regulations on them was approved in a contentious bill in the state House on Wednesday.
Senators scheduled a vote on a pivotal abortion bill Friday afternoon, one day after a Senate committee gave its approval on a partisan 6-3 vote
The White House late Wednesday said it would veto the 608-page farm bill because it omitted SNAP spending and did not "contain sufficient commodity and crop insurance reforms."
Corrections officials confirmed they would discipline striking inmates, who object to conditions in solitary confinement and also have grievances about prison food, rehabilitation programs and other policies.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, who’s suffering from low approval ratings and has a tough reelection battle looming next year, is facing yet another politically difficult decision: whether or not to stand up for the Keystone State’s same-sex marriage ban.
Since Utah's new law requiring drug screening for welfare applicants went into effect last August, the state has spent more than $26,000 looking for drug users among 4,400 applicants. Of those applicants, about 400 were identified after taking a written test as having a "reasonable likelihood" that they were using drugs.
In an unusually frank document, the city has laid out stark statistical descriptions of poverty in Philadelphia, accompanied by a plan to try to deal with the problem.
The mayor of San Diego apologized on Thursday for failing to respect women who worked for him after a prominent former supporter accused him of sexual harassment and urged him to resign as leader of the nation’s eighth-largest city.
In the age of mobile phone cameras and instant posting to social media, the governor seems to have moved in and out of the throngs without anyone capturing his interaction on video or film.
Now that Gov. Rick Perry isn't running for re-election, will Texas stay Republican? Which of the 38 gubernatorial contests are tilting Republican?
Two states have passed laws this month that require doctors to have hospital privileges to perform abortions. Critics say the laws will have little impact on women's health and are purely politically motivated.
Washington state Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom has proposed fining legislators $250 for each day that they go beyond the allotted time in the legislative session. Recently, the state faced the prospect of a government shutdown when lawmakers could not agree on a budget.
The number of foreclosures nationwide dropped last month to the lowest level since December 2006. But the problem is still severe in Florida, Nevada, Illinois and Ohio, due largely to the lengthy foreclosure process in those states, a new report shows.
State lawmakers from West Virginia are coming to North Dakota this summer to learn more about the state's efforts to set aside tax money generated by the oil and gas industry.
Police and city leaders in Florida say they have taken precautionary steps for the possibility of mass protests or even civil unrest if George Zimmerman is acquitted in the killing of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin, particularly in African-American neighborhoods where passions run strongest over the case.
Gov. Chris Christie cannot shut down an independent state agency charged with building affordable housing for New Jersey’s poorest residents, the state Supreme Court ruled today. The decision deals a blow to the Republican governor’s agenda and shields other independent agencies from similar power grabs.
D.C. lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday to a bill requiring some large retailers to pay their employees a 50 percent premium over the city’s minimum wage, a day after Wal-Mart warned that the law would jeopardize its plans in the city.
Attorney General Kathleen Kane is expected to announce Thursday that her office won't defend the state in a federal lawsuit that challenges Pennsylvania's ban on gay marriage, the Daily News has learned.
Bill de Blasio, a candidate for mayor, was slapped into plastic cuffs on Wednesday and driven off in a white police van from outside the Midtown Manhattan offices of the State University of New York chancellor, where Mr. de Blasio led a demonstration against the possible closing of Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn.
A Democratic state senator Wednesday called on Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) to step down over a growing gifts scandal, becoming the first elected official to directly demand his resignation.
The first salvo in a legal battle to block Colorado's new limits on gun ammunition magazines fizzled Wednesday, but sheriffs, firearm dealers and other opponents still aim to have the law declared unconstitutional.
View updated housing data for select metro areas.
States, which Education Secretary Arne Duncan says are a vital part to federal financial aid reform, are pushing ahead with their plans to make college affordable and accessible.
Lawmakers of both parties Tuesday rejected yet again his deadline for solving the state's public pension nightmare amid rising criticism that Quinn would rather pressure them through public pronouncements than get involved in the nitty-gritty of legislative negotiations.
Members voted 96-49 on the measure, which now sends the one of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws in the country to the Texas Senate, where passage appears certain.
All the public-sector management news you need to know.
In an effort to get the word out about their new health exchanges, Massachusetts and Colorado are making use of local sports teams.
Investing in sports teams and stadiums is usually a bad deal for cities. Glendale, Ariz.'s multimillion-dollar bet on its hockey team looks like one for the penalty box.
A week after state lawmakers adjourned for summer recess, Gov. John Kasich and other supporters of expanding Medicaid packed into the Statehouse yesterday to urge legislators to return to Columbus to extend tax-funded health coverage to tens of thousands poor, uninsured Ohioans.
The ACLU announced a trio of lawsuits that will test the constitutionality of state laws barring gay marriage. The suits, filed in Pennsylvania and North Carolina with another to come in Virginia, are part of a carefully crafted effort to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s recent same-sex marriage ruling striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
The world’s largest retailer delivered an ultimatum to District lawmakers Tuesday, telling them less than 24 hours before a decisive vote that at least three planned Wal-Marts will not open in the city if a super-minimum-wage proposal becomes law.
Lawmakers made Illinois the last state to allow concealed carry of firearms in two quick votes Tuesday that formalized the deepening rift between Gov. Pat Quinn and the legislature.
Tyler Olson, the youthful face of Iowa Democrats, is running for governor at a time when the Republican Party is worried about its ability to connect with younger voters.
Every year the town draws a name during its Taste of Dorset Festival, and the winner gets to be mayor.
The Texas House on Tuesday night provisionally approved tough new abortion restrictions, making good on a third attempt to pass the measure this year.
A former assistant secretary in President Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, Kayyem would bring an unconventional political profile to the race to succeed outgoing Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick.
The money to the corporation and Maureen McDonnell brings to $145,000 the amount Williams gave to assist the McDonnell family in 2011 and 2012 — funds that are now at the center of federal and state investigations.
Granting citizenship to 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States could boost state and local government coffers by about $2 billion annually, said a liberal-leaning think tank study released on Wednesday.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has asked the top managers of 35 city agencies and departments to reapply for their jobs. Executives overseeing parks, libraries, airports and a host of other city-run services are being told they will have to demonstrate how their agencies will become more nimble, technologically savvy and responsive to Los Angeles residents or risk losing their jobs.
The California Supreme Court has ruled that digital mapping files known as geographic information systems must be released under the state's public records law. The decision could make it easier for media organizations, advocacy groups and others to obtain government GIS databases.
More than a year after Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the creation of the nation's first urban infrastructure bank it has not broken ground on a single venture. The slow start is being attributed to the lack of a working model, which means building policies for how the bank will operate from scratch.
Over 700 activists have been arrested at the North Carolina capitol building for protests against the conservative agenda being enacted by the Republican-controlled legislature. Some have charged the arrests are purely political, but the activists have vowed to continue protesting what they believe is an extreme conservative agenda.
The requirements in the Affordable Care Act pertain only to private insurers, Medicare and Medicaid expansion programs.
The director of the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division is retiring, at a time when the embattled division is taking on the task of regulating the state's new recreational marijuana industry.
An insurance company that backs more than $170 million in Detroit bonds said it opposes emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s attempt to restructure the city’s finances, a rejection appearing to place the city one step closer to the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S history.
The instinct that leads many people obsessively to pursue public approval and power through winning elections is closely linked to the instinct that leads many of these same people (and let’s face it, they are all men) to sexual excess and disaster.
Hundreds of witnesses from both sides of the abortion issue tried Monday to sway a Senate committee as a sweeping abortion bill remained on a fast track in the Legislature.
Gov. Pat McCrory said Monday he wants legislators to take a closer look at abortion regulations in North Carolina before acting further on legislation that would place higher standards on clinics and more responsibilities on physicians.
After a hastily called hearing, a federal judge Monday put a 10-day freeze on a new state law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have hospital-admitting privileges.
Their complaints focus on policies that put inmates in isolation indefinitely, some for decades, if they are suspected of having ties to prison gangs.
While the nation is aging, a few select areas are not only bucking the trend but may actually be getting younger.
Gov. Rick Perry announced Monday that he will not run for re-election next year, creating the first open race for Texas governor since 1990 and making Attorney General Greg Abbott the instant favorite to replace him.
The gap between the rhetoric and the reality of sequestration is an opportunity for Washington to follow in the footsteps of state and local governments by rethinking how services are delivered.
The Michigan Supreme Court has rejected Gov. Rick Snyder’s request for an advisory opinion on whether thestate’s 3-month-old right-to-work law is constitutional.
As more schools consider arming their employees, some districts are encountering a daunting economic hurdle: insurance carriers threatening to raise their premiums or revoke coverage entirely.
Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill Friday requiring doctors who perform abortions to have hospital admitting privileges, and abortion clinics responded by immediately suing state officials over the measure.
The flip side of gay marriage is, of course, gay divorce. With the legal resumption last week of same-sex marriage in California, the state's family law attorneys are gearing up for what happens when some of those marriages fail.
California lawmakers are considering a bill requiring officials to make condoms available to state prison inmates as a way of limiting the spread of HIV and other diseases.
State officials across the South are aggressively moving ahead with new laws requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls after the Supreme Court decision striking down a portion of the Voting Rights Act.
It's looking increasingly unlikely that Gov. Perry will seek a fourth term in the Governor's Mansion.
Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as governor of New York five years ago amid a prostitution scandal, is re-entering political life, with a run for the citywide office of comptroller and a wager that voters are ready to look past his previous misconduct.
There's abundant evidence that greater Boston's transit agency could save a lot of money by contracting out bus maintenance. But thanks to a restrictive state law, that's not likely to happen.
Mayors talk a lot about lowering crime, according to a new study, but their words often carry no weight for creating change.
State lawmakers on Wednesday made official what they had been hinting at for weeks: They won't have a pension reform proposal to vote on by Gov. Pat Quinn's Tuesday deadline, but are making small steps toward a possible compromise.
