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Due to the physical and mental effects of marijuana varying from person to person, a police officer cannot offer an opinion on whether an individual was "high" in court cases involving a driver accused of operating under the influence of marijuana, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said in a ruling issued Tuesday.
When Iowa passed sweeping property tax reform four years ago, state officials projected commercial taxpayers would save $218 million this year. Lawmakers also promised to fully reimburse local governments for the revenues they stood to lose.
Republican efforts in Congress to “repeal and replace” the federal Affordable Care Act are back from the dead. Again.
Gov. Gina Raimondo said she and a number of philanthropic organizations have raised $170,000 to cover the renewal fee for all Rhode Island residents who are eligible to renew their Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status.
Republican governors are getting into the "news" business.
President Donald Trump and Republican leaders have joined a revived push to roll back the Affordable Care Act as lawmakers faced a critical deadline next week and efforts to reach a bipartisan compromise appeared to collapse.
In the term that starts Oct. 2, the justices will hear cases that could drastically alter the country's political, financial and social landscape.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and administration officials today announced plans to reinstate federal work requirements for "able-bodied" adults without dependents for eligibility in the federal food stamp program.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach's use of private email for a presidential commission could bring him into conflict with a 1-year-old state law meant to increase government transparency.
A state appeals court panel on Tuesday joined a federal appeals court earlier this summer in upholding Wisconsin's right-to-work law, finding that it is not an unconstitutional taking of property from unions.
A hint: In states, it all starts with the top of the ticket.
The state's way of governing may be causing some of its capital city's financial problems.
When Stephanie Petitt was arrested for violating probation for prior drug and robbery convictions, she learned two things: She was 16 weeks pregnant, and she would probably deliver her baby while incarcerated at an Oklahoma prison.
The City of Houston and Mayor Sylvester Turner filed a petition Friday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision that came down earlier this summer, concluding that states did not have to provide publicly funded benefits to same-sex couples, according to a news release from the city.
Maine's largest city will no longer celebrate Columbus Day as a municipal holiday.
Phil Murphy, the Democratic Party's nominee for governor, committed on Monday to providing free community college to residents, seizing on a progressive but costly proposal that would place New Jersey among a handful of states picking up the cost of tuition.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced in a Saturday press release that he is directing two agencies ― the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration and the Florida Department of Elder Affairs ― to implement emergency rules for all assisted living facilities and nursing homes.
Hillary Clinton’s defeat last year sparked an intense debate about the role of gender in American politics, but the presidential race overshadowed a deeper structural challenge for Democrats: They have a scarcity of female officeholders in state capitals.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Monday approved up to $3 billion in subsidies for a flat screen plant, binding the state's economic hopes and his own political future to the investment proposed by an Asian electronics giant.
A last-ditch Republican push to roll back the Affordable Care Act appeared to pick up momentum Monday even as opposition from leading patient advocates and health care organizations mounted, setting the stage for another potentially dramatic Senate vote on the future of the 2010 law, often called Obamacare.
A couple of other states are considering similar bills. It was an uphill battle -- even in one of the most pro-immigrant states.
Sometimes you have to be the bad cop. Throwing out stereotypes about millennials is a good idea, too.
Most Pennsylvanians avoided the big budget hurt when the state ran out of money Friday to cover $2.5 billion in bills amid a months-long budget stalemate in the state Capitol.
State agencies including the State Police won't be allowed to ask a person about his or her immigration status in most cases, under an executive order issued by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo Friday.
In a ruling with national significance, a federal judge in Chicago on Friday blocked the Trump administration's rules requiring so-called sanctuary cities to cooperate with immigration agents in order to get a public safety grant.
State Rep. Victoria Neave agrees that everyday Texans shouldn't have to pass around a figurative hat to help rape victims get justice; footing the costly bill to test sexual assault kits should be the job of government, she says.
A federal review of the Milwaukee Police Department has been halted with the retooling of a program once focused on improving trust between police and communities.
Police made more than 80 arrests downtown Sunday night after violence erupted following hours of peaceful protesting.
Built directly on the Atlantic Ocean in Summerland Key, Bob Chapek's home stood in the crosshairs when Hurricane Irma slammed into the islands.
California will not legalize safe injection sites for drug users this year after a state bill failed to pass the Senate on the last day of the legislative session Friday.
It turns out that the city of College Park did not have enough votes after all to grant voting rights to noncitizens, officials said Saturday.
Average premiums for individually purchased health insurance will grow around 15 percent next year, largely because of marketplace nervousness over whether President Donald Trump will block federal subsidies to insurers, Congress' nonpartisan fiscal analyst projected Thursday.
While Texas and Florida recover from hurricanes, other communities are looking at what they can do to prepare for flooding and other disasters. We talked to an expert in disaster planning to get her advice.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced Friday she won't run for re-election in 2018.
Former St. Louis police Officer Jason Stockley was found not guilty Friday of murdering a man while on duty.
Although many governors oppose the latest repeal bill, it has some of what they've asked for.
Robert Suttle clearly remembers telling his boyfriend that he was HIV positive the night they met. But after they split, three quarrel-filled months later, that became a point of contention: His “ex” pressed charges against him.
With the U.S. no longer is part of the Paris climate accords, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett believes it is time for cities to take the matter of reducing carbon emissions into their own hands.
Gov. Rick Scott is again weathering criticism over global warming in the wake of Hurricane Irma, and won't say if he believes man-made climate change is real.
The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that Americans either carry health insurance or pay a fine remains the law’s most unpopular feature. Nevertheless, a bipartisan group of governors is insisting that the so-called individual mandate remain in place — at least for now.
Louisiana's Bill Cassidy and the three Republican U.S. Senate colleagues backing his Obamacare repeal-and-replace plan framed the measure they unveiled Wednesday as Republican's "last shot" at scrapping the sweeping 2010 Democratic health insurance law.
After 81 years, Gen. Robert E. Lee's patrol along Turtle Creek has ended.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey says she plans to sue Equifax after a data breach at the company affected up to nearly 3 million state residents.
A Maryland city voted Tuesday night to enfranchise noncitizens, the latest in a growing effort to expand immigrant voting rights.
In transforming its public-education structure and bureaucracy, Indianapolis is showing that there is more than one route to excellence.
It's no longer illegal in Minnesota to disturb a public meeting, the state Supreme Court has ruled, reversing the conviction of a Little Falls woman who was charged with disorderly conduct for protesting before the City Council.
A new report documents what environmental advocates say has been happening for decades: The federal government fails to protect Americans from potentially cancer-causing chemicals. And they have little hope that will change anytime soon.
The companies that top the rankings have something in common: workplace practices that confirm employees are valued.
Seattle City Council President Bruce Harrell took the oath of office to become mayor Wednesday, as Ed Murray, disgraced by allegations of child sexual abuse, ended his time at City Hall.
To see what free speech looks like in 2017 at the birthplace of the famed movement, consider the elaborate preparations underway for a talk Thursday by a conservative writer.
Hawaii said Tuesday that it aims to be the first state to have marijuana sales handled without cash, saying it wanted to avoid robberies and other crimes targeting dispensaries.
Hundreds of homeless people living on the street will find shelter in three large industrial tents with beds, showers, restrooms and hand-washing stations by the end of the year under a plan announced Wednesday by San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer.
The Democratic legislator who posted on Facebook that she hoped President Donald Trump would be assassinated was formally reprimanded Wednesday by a vote of her Senate colleagues.
A new chapter is beginning for the state's largest public school system.
Stranded without power in the wake of Hurricane Irma, thousands of South Florida seniors have found themselves trapped -- in healthcare facilities, affordable housing apartments and planned retirement communities -- without access to elevators, air conditioning, telephones and even medical devices.
In the end, it was the two-year accumulation of events that fell like an avalanche on Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts.
Obamacare's fate remains unknown, but at least one thing is certain: The law has led to a record number of people having health insurance.
In a mild upset, New Hampshire House Democrats took back a seat from Republicans following a special election Tuesday.
Oklahoma teacher Jacob Rosecrants become the third special election Democrat to flip a seat previously held by a Republican.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
Two months after the campaign managers for Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney helped launch an effort to help campaigns prevent future cyber attacks, four secretaries of state have signed on to work on their project.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio easily defeated a field of longshot Democratic primary opponents Tuesday night, setting up a general election race against Republican Nicole Malliotakis.
The U.S. Department of Justice will not bring charges against Baltimore police officers in connection with the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray from injuries sustained in police custody in 2015, the agency confirmed Tuesday.
A divided U.S. Supreme Court blocked two lower court rulings late Tuesday that had required Texas to redraw certain congressional and state House districts after the lower courts ruled the district lines unconstitutional.
State and federal environmental regulators issued a blanket waiver on Monday for Florida electricity companies to violate clean air and water standards without penalty for the next two weeks.
Government reform advocate Mike McCabe on Tuesday joined an increasingly crowded Democratic field to challenge GOP Gov. Scott Walker next year.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette officially joined the Republican race for Michigan governor Tuesday night, promising that if elected he would cut state income taxes, push Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and bring the state more and better-paying jobs.
Gov. Cuomo signed legislation on Monday granting unlimited sick time to any government employee in New York who became ill from working at the World Trade Center rescue and recovery effort.
Fueling concerns about the impartiality and seriousness of President Donald Trump's voter fraud commission, members heard testimony Tuesday from a gun rights advocate who suggested using the background-check system for gun purchasers to determine the eligibility of Americans to vote.
For five months, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray rejected calls for his resignation amid allegations he sexually abused teens decades before entering politics.
It's hard to fix a problem you can't see. So Maryland made its lack of healthy food options very visible.
The nation's median household income rose 2.4 percent last year, with significant increases in 30 states.
Past rulings have "made politicians think there are no boundaries around what they can do." A Wisconsin case may lead to some limits.
Federal inmate 40892-424 has his voice back.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is prepared to spend millions of dollars more to make sure backers of Cook County's controversial soda pop tax don't suffer defeat in next year's elections, a spokesman for the former New York mayor said Monday.
As a mighty hurricane, Irma inspired fear. As a tropical storm, it is spreading soggy distress _ and continuing peril _ across a growing swath of the American Southeast.
Mexico has yanked its offer to send aid to Texas, saying it has its own natural disasters to take care of.
As part of its tough stance against illegal immigration, Texas has been one of the few states requiring state agencies to use a federal system known as E-Verify to check job applicants.
The Bevin administration asked constitutional officers and cabinet secretaries Friday to cut spending in most state agencies by 17.4 percent this fiscal year to address an expected $200 million budget shortfall.
The Donald Trump administration's rules requiring cities to cooperate with immigration agents in order to get a public safety grant could lead to other strings on federal money tied to administration priorities, a city attorney argued Monday in the court fight between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Continuing its role as a leading counter-force to Trump administration policies, California filed a lawsuit Monday challenging as unconstitutional the president's plan to rescind a program that protects young immigrants from deportation, with officials warning the state will be hardest hit by the change.
It's one of the ways states are trying to address growing concerns about the cybersecurity of voting.
A massive telecom project intended to connect emergency workers and law enforcement across every state and territory on a unified broadband system is coming to Alaska.
Cities still haven't recovered from the recession, and a new report concludes that they might instead be sliding into another fiscal contraction.
When Houston-based epidemiologist Winifred Hamilton spent a few days in the field last week collecting samples of the abundant floodwater Tropical Storm Harvey had left in its wake, she was able to practice the health safety advice she had urged her fellow Houstonians to follow.
More than half the states with sales taxes are using a temporary amnesty program to corral scofflaw online businesses into their tax systems, just in time to reap sales taxes from the upcoming holiday shopping season.
Efforts by Republican lawmakers to scale back Medicaid enrollment could undercut an aspect of the program that has widespread bipartisan appeal — covering more children, research published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs suggests.
New York will extend its open enrollment period for ObamaCare plans, citing concerns about an earlier deadline set by the federal government.
In a calamitous northward sweep from the Everglades to the Florida Panhandle, a weakening but still monstrously powerful Hurricane Irma battered a string of cities on the state's palm-fringed west coast Sunday before advancing toward Georgia and the Carolinas.
History suggests that social services will be in high demand for months. Are caseworkers in Texas and Florida prepared?
The thin, long piece of paper slides slowly out the voting machine, the internal mechanism guiding it making a sound similar to a copying machine.
While Houston and part of Texas is overflowing with water and flooding, hundreds of thousands of acres in western Montana are engulfed by wildfires.
Terminally ill people do not have a state constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, New York's highest court ruled Thursday.
A golden sunrise ushered in a picturesque bright day Thursday, making conditions ideal for a dip in the ocean. But the sands of South Beach were eerily bare.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner announced plans Thursday to borrow $6 billion to work on paying down Illinois' massive backlog of unpaid bills, but he warned that he'll try to trim state spending in order to pay for the new debt costs.
The Vermont Department of Taxes has a bit of an awkward question for you.
Letters are being sent to more than 17,000 former Missouri state employees asking if they want to cash in early on their pensions.
In the 37 years that Dr. Ernest Marshall has been performing abortions in Kentucky, he has seen more than a dozen clinics close in the state. He is now facing off against the governor in a legal fight that will decide whether Kentucky becomes the first state in the nation without an abortion clinic.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced a formal review Thursday of Obama-era guidelines that spurred universities to more aggressively investigate campus sexual assaults -- a policy she criticized as unfair and coercive.
Thursday marked the first day of school for New York City's 1.1 million public school students -- and the start of free preschool and free lunch for any pupil who wants, no questions asked.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has a problem — and not much time to solve it.
When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, it hit one of the country's biggest gateways for refugees -- a population that has already had to rebuild their lives and will now struggle to do it again.
Santa Monica is convinced that it can and should. It's putting a lot of effort into aligning services around that goal.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
Newark, N.J., Mayor Ras Baraka hopes so. Right now, the major employers there mostly hire people and buy business supplies and services outside city limits.
"It clearly shows that something is going wrong in that system when a grandmother is raising her hands like she might be shot," says author and professor Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve.
Angela Paxton, the wife of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, has officially launched a campaign for Texas Senate.
Mandatory evacuations of vast swaths of coastal South Florida began Wednesday as anxious residents continued to watch and wait -- and watch, and wait -- for the massive storm to roll closer.
A group of Democratic-led states is leading a legal challenge to President Trump's planned repeal of a program allowing nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States -- and just as in the court fight over the president's proposed travel ban, the challengers want to use his ethnic broadsides against him.
A key Senate committee Wednesday launched a set of hearings intended to lead to a short-term, bipartisan bill to shore up the troubled individual health insurance market, but a diverse group of state insurance commissioners united around some solutions that were not necessarily on the table.
Clark County commissioners voted unanimously today to ban the possession or advertisement of legal marijuana at McCarran International Airport and other properties overseen by the county's aviation division.
A coalition of parents and public-education advocates gathered enough signatures to let voters decide whether Arizona moves forward with or rejects a massive expansion of the state's school-voucher program.
Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich has joined the legal fight against gerrymandering, the political map-drawing process geared toward creating congressional and statehouse districts that sharply favor one party over the other.
The chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party Tuesday condemned a Facebook post from a Charlotte Republican mayoral candidate who listed one of her qualifications as being "white."
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd is threatening to jail wanted people seeking shelter due to Hurricane Irma.
After decades of avoiding the pollution they cause, New York's Suffolk County is finally taking on the issue.
Predictions for their widespread adoption and the impacts they will have vary wildly. It will be up to government to sort out the issues.
Successful efficiency efforts have several important things in common, as three case studies illustrate.
Politics and finances are largely to blame. But some say it's a trend not worth worrying about.
President Trump's decision to abandon existing protections for young men and women in the United States without legal status drew a sharp rebuke from the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown and other California officials Tuesday, with some suggesting the state take its own extraordinary efforts to keep those immigrants from being deported.
Miami-Dade County plans to order evacuations for Miami Beach and much of the mainland coast in advance of Hurricane Irma's menacing track toward South Florida.
Democrats have been throttled by Republicans in the all-important battle for state legislative chambers the past decade. Now they're trying to turn the tide with the launch of a new super PAC.
Oregon has kicked nearly 55,000 people off its Medicaid program, after the state found they no longer qualified or failed to respond to an eligibility check.
A federal court ruled Tuesday that a weakened Texas voter identification policy used in the 2016 presidential contest can remain in place for upcoming November elections, the latest twist in a years-long court battle over the state's controversial voter ID laws.
California lawmakers Tuesday gave final approval to designating a section of the 134 Freeway as the President Barack H. Obama Highway in honor of the 44th president of the United States.
With insurance premiums rising and national efforts at health reform in turmoil, a group of 50 state bureaucrats whom many voters probably can’t name have considerable power over consumers’ health plans: state insurance commissioners.
Although the disaster spurred federal, state and local authorities to put immigration enforcement on pause, many undocumented people are still fearful and likely to be left behind in the recovery.
Federal statistics on numbers of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) participants for each state.
California and several other states will exempt themselves this year from a new Trump administration rule that cuts in half the amount of time consumers have to buy individual health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
President Trump ordered an end on Tuesday to the Obama-era program that protected young immigrants from deportation. The decision could disrupt some local economies.
Iowa has revoked overtime eligibility for about 2,800 state workers, a move critics say could cripple government services if employees leave for the private sector and better jobs.
Many governments hope so, as they add benefits like napping pods and kid-friendly workplaces to keep employees happy.
Under smoky skies just north of the Columbia River, a weary-eyed crowd gathered around Hood River County Sheriff Matt English.
The U.S. needs hundreds of millions of dollars to protect future elections from hackers — but neither the states nor Congress is rushing to fill the gap.
Continuing a dramatic reversal on voting rights under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Justice is asking a federal appeals court to allow Texas to enforce a photo voter identification law that a lower court found discriminatory.
Few places need the federal government right now more than Texas does, as it begins to recover from Hurricane Harvey. Yet there are few states where the federal government is viewed with more resentment, suspicion and scorn.
Gov. Greg Abbott estimated Sunday that Texas will ultimately need between $150 billion and $180 billion in federal aid to rebuild in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.
Breann Johnson stopped using heroin on Mother’s Day this year, determined to end her 13-year addiction. Days later, she began three months of residential treatment in Riverside, Calif. — all paid for by California’s Medicaid program.
The California Supreme Court decided Thursday that data from millions of vehicle license plate images collected by the Los Angeles police and sheriff's departments are not confidential investigative records that can be kept from public disclosure.
After a monthslong legal fight, Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala on Friday walked back her ban on pursuing the death penalty, saying a panel of seven assistant state attorneys will review all future first-degree murder cases and seek capital punishment when appropriate.
Low-income Americans still connect to the internet at far lower rates than wealthier households.
The woman's body, slight and petite, was revealed as floodwaters receded, washed up against the green metal fence surrounding her apartment complex.
A judge on Wednesday ruled that a 2016 law barring towns, cities and counties from requiring employers to provide additional employee benefits is unconstitutional.
President Donald Trump has insisted for months that “Obamacare is already dead.”
A federal judge temporarily on Thursday blocked a Texas law that would limit second-trimester abortions in a ruling that came one day before the regulation was to take effect.
Gov. Paul LePage has told legislative leaders that he will call an emergency legislative session to amend a food sovereignty bill that the federal government has criticized as unlawful.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. _ the controversial, Stetson-wearing official who rose to national prominence with his no-holds-barred conservative rhetoric _ resigned his office Thursday.
The Houston area continued its slow crawl out of crisis Thursday as swollen waterways began to drain and hundreds of thousand of victims of the flood started looking toward a recovery that could last for months, if not years.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
