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Washington state’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has known since the 1970s that the Interstate 5 bridge that recently collapsed after being clipped by a truck hauling an oversize load had been struck repeatedly in the past by similar big rigs.
Questions about Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s plan to pursue “significant” cuts to pensions and to reduce the city’s spending on retiree health care were front-and-center at a meeting Thursday morning between Orr’s advisers and city union leaders.
And local and state jurisdictions’ ability to deal with the problem has been hobbled by, among other things, the drug’s murky legal status.
The Republican leadership believed it had enough votes from Republicans and rural Democrats to approve a $500 billion farm bill that, in addition to setting agriculture subsidies, would have cut SNAP benefits sharply over the next decade.
A first-of-its-kind audit shows that about 190,000 firearms were reported to police as lost or missing in 2012. The data may inform current debates about whether people should have to report missing guns.
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) told reporters the chamber was expected to vote on a bill this week that picks up only a small piece of Corbett's proposal: moving all new employees into 401(k)-style plans.
House Democrats' last-ditch effort to extend health insurance to more than 60,000 low-income Mainers failed in the Legislature, when they fell three votes short of overriding Gov. Paul LePage's veto of Medicaid expansion.
The states are appealing directly to workers and businesses in Minnesota, asking them to head for the border. With Minnesota lawmakers recently hiking the cigarette tax, creating a higher top-tier individual income tax and expanding the sales tax to a handful of industries, a fresh round of interstate wooing ensued.
The U.S. Supreme Court sent the University of Texas case back to the lower courts Monday without ruling on the general merits of affirmative action.
A proposal to expand and reform Medicaid in Michigan remains stalled in the state Senate.
The scope of the changeover shocked some party insiders.
Gov. Pat McCrory’s signature Wednesday repealed a landmark law that had allowed convicted murderers to have their sentences reduced to life in prison if they could prove racial bias influenced the outcome of their cases.
At issue is Assembly Bill 76, a budget bill on Brown's desk that proposes making key provisions of the state's Public Records Act optional for local governments.
As Congress weighs cuts to the food-stamp program, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and 17 other mayors are urging Congress to restrict the use of food stamps to buy soda and other sugary drinks.
The same man who has repeatedly staged news conferences to publicly shame tax deadbeats - was delinquent on his gas bill and received a three-day shutoff notice from Philadelphia Gas Works.
It's been almost exactly one year since a Centre County jury found Jerry Sandusky guilty of child sex abuse crimes against children. At first blush, some may wonder why stronger laws have yet to be enacted.
The smartphone application, online forms, an interactive map and a telephone hotline will catalog and track cases where people believed they were racially profiled by officers from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and other departments.
The Houston Astrodome, an iconic stadium that’s fallen into disrepair since it was shuttered four years ago, could see new life as a giant convention center and exhibition space under a plan recommended by a county board on Wednesday.
States have collectively awarded $64 billion in 'megadeals' after many pursued top employers more aggressively in recent years. View award totals for each state.
A budget bill awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown's signature would make it optional for local governments to comply with several key provisions of the California Public Records Act.
Though advocates hoped the long-fought-for legislation would finally pass this year, the IRS scandal and the immigration bill have pushed it to the back burner and it continues to face an uphill battle.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Wednesday a federal law that prevented the federal government from recognizing gay marriages in states where they're legal, but declined to rule on the constitutionality of state bans on same-sex marriage
All the public-sector management news you should know.
Lacking agreement on a comprehensive plan to reduce a pension debt that's approaching $100 billion, the state's Democratic leaders are opting to line up in punt formation. They expect to approve a conference committee of lawmakers from both parties to spend weeks looking for common ground on the issue.
The new estimates are good news for consumers and advocates for the Affordable Care Act.
After Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee joined the Democratic Party in May -- his second switch in six years -- we looked back at how other politicians have fared since a switch.
A state Senate panel advanced legislation that would require out-of-state law enforcement agencies to notify New Jersey authorities before conducting counterterrorism operations within its borders.
When Amazon expands, state and local governments practically line up to offer to pay the company to move.
Indiana House Democrats won’t recoup any of the more than $233,000 in fines levied against them over their legislative walkouts in 2011 and 2012, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
Seven congressional Democrats from Washington are pressing the U.S. Department of Justice to honor the state’s new recreational-marijuana law — the delegation’s first collective public statement on the issue.
A spokesperson for the administration said that responses from the administration could be gleaned from reports by The Associated Press or through document requests using the Freedom of Access Act.
State officials predict rapid progress in budget negotiations after two forecasts on Tuesday gave the Legislature an additional $320 million to spend over the next two years.
State Senate President John Morse is the target of a recall for his leadership on the party's passage of tougher gun control laws in this year's legislative session
The U.S. Department of Education will allow some states that have gotten waivers from pieces of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to postpone using student growth on state tests as a factor in personnel decisions for up to one additional year —until the 2016-17 school year.
Barack Obama’s near-complete absence from more than 25 percent of the states, from which he is politically estranged, is no surprise, in that it reflects routine cost-benefit calculations of the modern presidency. But in a country splintered by partisanship and race, it may also have consequences.
Supporters and opponents of capital punishment agree: The current death penalty is expensive, inefficient, and arbitrary. Some state legislatures have reacted to those faults by abolishing the death penalty, while others are trying to speed it up.
A new report gives the next mayor of New York City a set of innovative reforms that have proven effective and scalable in other cities.
Gov. Pat Quinn has signed signed sweeping legislation to regulate horizontal hydraulic fracturing Illinois, which includes some of the tightest restrictions on oil and gas companies in the nation.
A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court blocks proof-of-citizenship requirements on federal voter registration forms, but leaves open the possibility of amending the form to include Arizona's stricter standard for verifying citizenship.
The U.S. teacher training system is badly broken, turning out rookie educators who have little hands-on experience running classrooms and are quickly overwhelmed by the job, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.
The director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said on Monday he will step down at the end of July to go to the private sector after heading the agency for four years.
In Arkansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, the vast majority of the counties where fracking is occurring are also suffering from drought, according to an Associated Press analysis of industry-compiled fracking data and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s official drought designations.
Under President Obama’s health care law, it is becoming clear that the millions of people purchasing policies in the exchanges will find that their choices vary sharply, depending on where they live.
Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill into law Friday aimed at accelerating the pace of the death penalty process in Florida, which could make the governor the most active executioner in modern state history.
A growing challenge for fire commanders attempting to slow and contain dangerous fires is a continued shortage of large air tankers that are available to them.
In a 5-4 decision the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that crime suspects need to speak up if they want to invoke their legal right to remain silent. The ruling highlights the limited reach of the famous Miranda decision.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill Friday that would block local governments from enacting mandatory paid-sick-time measures, such as the one pending in Orange County.
Why cities and their leaders could wind up mattering more than Washington.
As data dragnets and information breaches dominate the news, states are scrambling to cash in on a rapidly expanding business sector by offering tax incentives to firms that protect sensitive information from outside attacks.
Gov. Rick Perry has signed a bill that will subject Texans applying for unemployment benefits to a drug test if their responses to a screening questionnaire indicate possible drug use.
California's monthly report on jobs and unemployment includes a county-by-county breakdown that shows a sharp east-west economic split with cities along the coast recovering well from the recession while inland cities remain mired in deficits and high unemployment.
The state legislature has delayed debate on an amendment banning gay marriage in the state while it waits to see the outcome of the pending Supreme Court ruling. But barring a sweeping decision by the court, both sides expect the fight over the proposed change to the state constitution to continue.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has tried to curb soda consumption, ban smoking in parks and encourage bike riding, is taking on a new cause: requiring New Yorkers to separate their food scraps for composting.
The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations.
Hydropower could play a larger role in New England’s energy mix as five of the region’s states, including Massachusetts, move to import more of it -- most likely from Canada -- and at least one has passed a law that could allow electricity from large-scale hydroelectric dams to be classified as green as wind or solar energy.
Constituents frequently contact their Congress members with questions or requests for help with Medicare, Social Security and other government programs. But when it comes to Obamacare inquiries, some GOP lawmakers say they won't assist constituents or will forward the calls to the Obama administration.
Seven months after Washington voters legalized recreational pot, supporters are growing increasingly aggrieved over the dearth of effort by the state’s congressional lawmakers to reconcile the state law with the federal prohibition against marijuana.
Lacking adequate state funding and using a draconian budget passed by the Philadelphia School District last month, some schools may be forced to cut all support staff including nurses, aides, counselors, and security monitors and still be short money for books. Mayor Michael A. Nutter is seeking an additional $304 million in extra revenue from the city, the state and teachers' givebacks, but thus far has failed to come up with the money.
Gov. Brian Sandoval’s signature Tuesday means filmmakers will now be granted transferrable tax credits in a move he hopes will bring jobs and a new industry to the state.
California's bullet train agency won a key legal ruling Thursday, obtaining an exemption from regulatory oversight by the federal Surface Transportation Board for construction of the first segment of the rail system that would run 220 mph trains from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
Following in Chicago's footsteps, the city's emergency manager wants to send retired public employees to Obamacare’s health insurance marketplaces to buy coverage -- a plan that's likely to face lawsuits.
Gov. Rick Snyder signed a 2013-14 state budget that doesn't address two of his major priorities -- expanded Medicaid coverage and raising more than $1 billion in extra revenues for repair and maintenance of state roads and bridges.
About a dozen states face similar petitions pending at the EPA, most filed by citizen groups that say state regulators are not doing enough to enforce the Clean Water Act.
The controversy surrounding the National Security Agency's online spying program, PRISM, has some state and local open-data proponents concerned it will negatively impact their image.
Gov. Rick Scott heads overseas again on Friday, this time to Paris as the leader of a trade mission aimed at bringing more aerospace jobs to Florida.
A complex legal dispute over mineral rights in Virginia’s coal country has become the latest battleground in the state’s bitterly fought gubernatorial race, with Democrats accusing Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II of improperly siding with out-of-state energy companies against Virginians who say the firms cheated them out of natural gas royalties.
A three-judge appellate panel has rejected a challenge to Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to call a special election to fill the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s seat in October, three weeks before the regularly scheduled November election.
The Department of Corrections has fired State Parole Chief Tim Hand in the wake of the murder of corrections chief Tom Clements, whom officials believe was killed by a parolee.
Regarding school funding, Council unanimously passed a new $2-per-pack cigarette tax as part of Mayor Nutter's plan to help the school district close a $304 million budget hole.
Rich Harvey, the commander of the federal incident-management team that took over firefighting duties early Thursday, estimated containment at 5 percent.
Whether it was exhaustion, resignation or a decision to save the fight for another day, the bitter tirades that dominated the budget and Medicaid fight on Wednesday and into Thursday morning were replaced by hugs and handshakes.
In his veto message, Gov. Brian Sandoval said the universal background checks provision "imposes unreasonable burdens and harsh penalties upon law-abiding Nevadans, while doing little to prevent criminals from unlawfully obtaining firearms."
Across the country, states and districts are increasingly funneling public funds to religious schools, private nursery schools and a variety of community-based nonprofit organizations that conduct preschool classes.
Immigration reform could save states money and boost the economy, said former governors Haley Barbour and Jeb Bush at a recent forum.
Louisville, Ky., is showing how a performance metrics initiative can transform a government's operational culture.
After 30 municipalities passed laws requiring residents to tell police when their guns disappear, the legislature is reconsidering a statewide proposal that failed in 2008 to do just that.
Teacher education programs have long set a low bar for students seeking to enter the profession. That is finally beginning to change.
In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has sided with Oklahoma over the Tarrant Regional Water District of Texas in a case that could have national implications for water supplies.
Despite some positive developments, it seems the SEC and IRS are cracking down on the municipal bond market.
Most of the 45 states that adopted the Common Core State Standards haven’t updated their high school graduation requirements to comply with the new K-12 academic standards, according to a new report.
A new report forecasts that most states will end the fiscal year in the black. But it may be too early to celebrate.
While much of the debate over Obamacare has centered on some states' refusal to implement the law, at least three are going beyond what the law prescribes.
Officials across Texas are scrambling to reverse the federal government’s decision not to free up more funds to help rebuild the town, where a fertilizer plant explosion killed 15 and destroyed schools and homes.
The initiative needs 259,213 valid signatures by July 3, 2014, to qualify for the November 2014 ballot.
In the first of what is likely to be a string of national endorsements, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said he is endorsing Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s candidacy to replace U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg.
The vote moves Arizona one step closer to becoming the 21st state to expand Medicaid.
The votes defied the normal political alliances, with most Democrats backing the Republican governor, and most Republicans voting to reject his veto.
The projects will have to pass through an array of government agencies, billions of dollars in financing must be secured; and of course the mayor is leaving office at the end of the year, and there is no guarantee that his successors will embrace all of the components.
The trend — coming at a time of heightened privacy concerns after recent revelations of secret federal surveillance of telephone calls and Internet traffic — is expected only to accelerate after the Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding a Maryland statute allowing the authorities to collect DNA samples from those arrested for serious crimes.
New Census data shows most regions are seeing their age 65 and older population climb. But for some jurisdictions, the growth has been far more pronounced than others. View new demographic data for states and counties.
Map shows counties growing oldest the fastest.
A remarkable book provides leaders with a practical, simple framework, based on the latest brain research, for turning an organization to a new direction.
In creating its health-benefit exchange under the Affordable Care Act, California has gotten off to an encouraging start
On behalf of seven Dallas-area students, Texas Appleseed, Disability Rights Texas and the National Center for Youth Law will ask the Justice Department to declare that the state's process of prosecuting truancy as a crime is unconstitutional.
The law, signed by Gov. Robert Bentley in April and set to take effect next month, requires every doctor who performs an abortion at a clinic to have staff privileges at a local hospital.
With the legislature headed into a second special session and no budget yet approved, the governor is making plans for a possible government shutdown should the current state budget expire without a new one.
Some denounced the governor’s decision to call a special session as unnecessary and antagonistic, while many avoided the floor and instead sat in the gallery. Others left their respective chambers in protest.
Both federal and state lawmakers passed on similar proposals.
The city's new program has had technical errors of a magnitude never experienced by bike-share programs in other major American cities.
A coalition of tea party groups sent an open letter to Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday, saying he risks losing their support for re-election for his embrace of Medicaid expansion as part of the federal Affordable Care Act.
The Kansas school board has approved new multistate science standards for public schools that treat evolution and climate change as key concepts to be taught from kindergarten through the 12th grade.
NE D.C.’s state-of-the-art Educare, funded both publicly and privately, celebrates its first birthday.
More than 3,600 people were evacuated as a wildfire in east central Colorado burned quickly through dry timber Tuesday.
The ways we produce and distribute energy are going to change, with end users empowered much as in the world of computing. What we can't predict is when that will happen.
Ethics experts say questionable ties between nonprofits and politicians are on the rise, but state scrutiny is often ineffective.
The Colorado Department of Human Services and The Denver Post prove that the relationship between government and media doesn't have to be adversarial.
The long-term plan is the first of its kind since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office and aligns the entire district with the rigorous Common Core Curriculum by the 2014-15 school year.
New York City is more than halfway toward its goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2030, and has a new plan to prepare for future extreme weather events.
For a fourth consecutive legislative session, a proposed statewide ban on smoking in public workplaces fell short, as critics argued that such a ban could unconstitutionally curtail businesses’ freedom.
Metro area map shows jobs requiring science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills.
Gov. Rick Perry has asked the legislature to consider the funding of transportation infrastructure projects during their current special session.
Gov. Jerry Brown and top lawmakers have reached agreement on some of the most contentious issues in the state budget, granting the governor significant victories on the redistribution of school money and expectations of revenue.
With just seven days left in the legislative session, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will introduce a bill calling for public financing of elections and limits on "soft-money" donations to political parties.
A bill that passed the Washington House and is now in the Senate would require Oregon customers -- as well as those from Alaska, Montana and other states that shun the sales tax -- to pay full tax on all their purchases. Under the proposal, they could eventually get a refund by sending a form to the state.
Former White House chief of staff Bill Daley plans to announce Tuesday that he's forming an exploratory committee as he weighs a Democratic primary challenge to Gov. Pat Quinn.
The Rutgers-Eagleton survey found that more than half of New Jersey voters have a positive opinion of Newark Mayor Cory Booker.
The Arizona House could consider Medicaid expansion as early as today, less than 24 hours after Republicans in a key committee defeated Gov. Jan Brewer’s top legislative priority.
Numerous states have battled over expanding Medicaid under Obamacare. But in Mississippi, it’s playing out in a way that threatens the entire program, not just the 300,000 who could get covered if the state expanded.
The law says magazines about marijuana must be sold behind the counter at stores where people under 21 are allowed to enter. On Monday, Lawyers for the state joined attorneys for marijuana-themed magazines and booksellers and filed a joint request for an order declaring the law unconstitutional.
A year after the city drew new attention for soaring gun violence and gang bloodshed, killings this year have dipped to a level not seen since the early 1960s.
Massachusetts legislators are considering a substantial increase in the state minimum wage for the first time in four years, setting up a showdown between advocates backing low-wage earners and business activists, both still struggling from the slow economy.
A new Brookings report finds that there are far more STEM employees in the United States than previously estimated -- and the demand is growing. View maps and data for metro areas.
Many cities and counties are tied to state pension systems. That can be a liability, but it also can be an asset.
New research shows that despite a threefold increase in people and cars in the last 50 years, California's strict vehicle emissions standards have managed to significantly clean up the state's air.
California, New York and Texas are in need of billions to fix aging water systems over the next two decades, according to a federal survey that placed them at the top of a national list of water infrastructure needs.
Wisconsin not only wants to join the more than handful of states that give families tax breaks for sending their kids to private schools, its lawmakers are proposing what would be the most generous tax deduction of them all.
Tennessee is asking its 1,600 IT employees to reapply for their jobs. The state may learn from Colorado and Hillsborough County, Fla., which have both overhauled their workforces in this way.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is making another jobs raid, this time in New York City. His visit will be supplemented with a $1 million television advertising campaign in the city promoting Texas' pro-business environment.
Gov. Pat Quinn and his aides now must sift through them and decide what gets signed into law and what is returned to the legislature with an outright veto or changes.
Amid the spring uproar over the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny, the political world has largely overlooked a fresh innovation in the world of outside spending: nonprofits organized around broad issues of public interest that actually function to advance the ambitions of a single potential candidate.
The public works funding list is light on bridge projects, but the span on Interstate 5 that fell into the Skagit River last month hangs over any talk of infrastructure.
Council members say the committee will examine procedures related to licenses and permits, construction and demolition, building maintenance and safety, and workers' certification.
The measure would allow cops — without a warrant — to thumb through a cell phone to determine if a driver was talking or texting when an accident occurred.
In the coming months, the states plan to write contracts for social service programs that taxpayers would pay for only if they prove to be successful. The initial outlays for the programs would be financed by private investors, who would reap a profit years later if the programs work as promised.
These varying definitions have become a baroque example of redundancy and duplication in Washington. They mean extra costs for taxpayers — and extra hassle for small-town officials — as separate offices ask them the same question in up to 15 different ways.
Such jobs account for 20 percent of all positions in the U.S., far more than the 4 percent to 5 percent of jobs previously estimated
A new report shows that no one devised a plan for how 8.5 million Americans who qualify for health insurance subsidies but don’t have checking accounts will pay their premiums.
Many public employees have waited years for salary increases, and recent surveys indicate pay freezes are continuing to persist. The implications have been far-reaching, from hindering employee retention to hurting morale.
Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is summoning lawmakers back to the Capitol for a special session June 19 to try to break a stalemate over the state's massive public employee pension debt that triggered two downgrades from major credit rating agencies this week.
While the federal government began to feel the effects of the sequester, localities have added jobs in recent months.
A federal judge Thursday dismissed a lawsuit and concluded there was no legal basis for the governor to challenge the sanctions assessed against Penn State University last year in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
The Rockefeller Foundation is awarding $100 million to cities willing to create chief resilience officers to prepare for and recover from disasters, which have increased in frequency and intensity due to climate change.
U.S. relations with China are important to states, many of which have seen exports to China triple and, in some cases, quadruple in the last 10 years. Those trade relationships are sure to be discussed by President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping at meetings starting today.
When the state auditor tried to subpoena records from a private firm using public money, the governor and legislature moved to stop him.
Nearly three-quarters of Americans say same-sex marriage has reached the point in which it is certain to become legal, according to a newly released poll from the Pew Research Center.
Despite a contract requiring unions representing state workers to reimburse the state for deducting voluntary contributions to political action committees, no such payments have been made, according to a sworn affidavit obtained by the Tribune-Review.
The plan to carve off the northeastern corner of the state — Weld, Morgan, Logan, Sedgwick, Phillips, Washington, Yuma and Kit Carson counties — and form the state of North Colorado was hatched at a Colorado Counties Inc. conference earlier this week.
The state Board of Education voted unanimously to approve Gov. Chris Christie's plan to seize control of the state's lowest performing school district starting June 25, the last day of school this year.
A spokesman said that the public safety commissioner believes investigators should follow every lead, including those from psychics, but he said the department isn’t using psychics “as some sort of philosophy."
New Hampshire is posthumously emancipating 14 slaves who fought in the Revolutionary War and had asked state lawmakers for their freedom more than 200 years ago.
