Archive
Kasich and Hickenlooper released a bipartisan set of recommendations on Thursday, but observers predict their influence will only go so far.
The White House said this week that it also aims to cut red tape. Many state and local officials like the idea of less regulations but fear less funding.
There is plenty that local officials can do to avert the kind of deadly violence that erupted in the Virginia city.
Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday said his support for former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio shouldn't be read as a slap in the face of the state's Latino voters.
Philadelphia is suing Attorney General Jeff Sessions in federal court over his attempt to withhold grant money from "sanctuary cities."
The Indiana Supreme Court said it cannot force the Indiana Department of Child Services to comply with caseload limits — even though those limits are required by law.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Wednesday blasted U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz as "disgraceful" for defending his opposition to a federal relief package Congress passed in 2013 in response to Superstorm Sandy, even as Cruz pushes for federal aid now amid the flooding and wreckage wrought by Hurricane Harvey in Texas.
The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to eliminate Columbus Day from the city calendar, siding with activists who view the explorer as a symbol of genocide for native peoples in North America and elsewhere.
Houston is built on what amounts to a massive floodplain, pitted against the tempestuous Gulf of Mexico and routinely hammered by the biggest rainstorms in the nation.
State Rep. Jason Spencer is apologizing for suggesting a former Democratic lawmaker could "go missing in the Okefenokee" for saying it's time to remove Confederate memorials in South Georgia.
Georgia has joined a 23-state coalition in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a New Mexico community's decision to allow a Ten Commandments monument on its city hall lawn.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is working with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on its investigation into Paul Manafort and his financial transactions, according to several people familiar with the matter.
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the implementation of the "sanctuary cities" ban Senate Bill 4, a ruling that marks a major victory for opponents of the controversial law that has been a rallying cry for Republican lawmakers across Texas and the nation.
The biggest rainstorm in U.S. mainland history made a second landfall on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday, cutting a devastating path across southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana -- even as the sun began to emerge in Houston and some residents returned to their waterlogged homes.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday the state is accepting Mexico's offer to provide assistance in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, including vehicles, boats and food.
Local governments are no longer as willing to take on the risky business of building a ballpark.
The government is building a nationwide network that helps first responders communicate better during emergencies. To succeed, most states must opt in.
Budget cuts and political retaliation, they say, are endangering their jobs and their ability to uncover information.
Seattle offers a case study on whether cities can gain population without gaining traffic.
In broken communities, the focus should be on social capital -- not just the economy.
Its big and small, Democratic and Republican cities are going green. Other states want to know how.
More flexibility could make it easier to adopt industry-backed reforms. It could also let conservatives enact policies that Obama rejected.
The 2016 election may have opened the door for third parties. This is most apparent in Utah.
It's hard to tell who's in charge of what in American government these days.
In 1977, the GOP faced an identity crisis. It eventually found a winning formula and returned to power.
Several ban their employees from traveling to other states for work because of policies they deem discriminatory.
The city went almost a decade without a single corruption scandal. What's its secret?
Most U.S. cities abandoned it in the mid-20th century.
The state’s split legislature passed more than 400 bills, some of which address longstanding issues.
Many have gotten themselves into a fiscal squeeze paying bills they ran up decades ago. View data for dozens of cities.
Previous attempts to address the state's pension crisis haven't gone far enough. This time around, past, present and future employees could take a hit.
Hurricane Harvey's winds and floodwaters have created emergencies at chemical facilities across the Houston area, from an Exxon Mobil roof collapse at its massive Baytown complex to the risk of an explosion at a chemical plant northeast of Houston.
The parallels between Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Katrina are stark. Look no further than the severe and destructive flooding that both storms have left along the Gulf Coast and the sheer number of evacuations due in part to a respective lack of preparation.
Democrats and Republicans in the Illinois Senate came together Tuesday to approve legislation revamping how state money is distributed to local schools, ensuring more of the state's education funding is steered toward poorer districts.
Chicago police Officer Marco Proano claimed he was just doing his job when he fired 16 shots at a stolen car filled with teenagers on the South Side, wounding two.
City officials in Houston imposed an overnight curfew to guard against opportunistic crimes as Tropical Storm Harvey continued to deluge southeast Texas on Tuesday, breaking the record for the most extreme rainfall on the U.S. mainland.
With Republican efforts to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act stalled, tentative bipartisan initiatives are in the works to shore up the fragile individual insurance market that serves roughly 17 million Americans.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday put on hold a lower court ruling that invalidated two of Texas' 36 congressional districts.
Gov. Matt Mead lamented the $100 million that Wyoming left on the table by choosing not to expand Medicaid, and he expressed concern for the state’s hospitals while discussing health care with the Star-Tribune recently.
Public officials and reporters alike adopt the myth that bigger is better. That’s not always the case.
The once-antiquated practice is making a comeback -- and saving states money. But it's not without hurdles.
Houston is the nation's fourth largest city. While all urban areas present unique evacuation challenges, some are bigger than others.
A federal memo calls for feminine hygiene products to be free for inmates, energizing a movement that began in state prisons and local jails.
Technology, declining ridership and changing demographics have spurred cities across the country to redesign bus systems that are more convenient. It's no easy task.
Connecticut is home to many wealthy residents. Its state government, on the other hand, is feeling the consequences of what some call "two decades of bad decisions."
It's called blockchain. Some say it will have a bigger impact than the internet.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on Monday morning sent a clear message to members of Houston’s immigrant community who might fear seeking help during Hurricane Harvey because of their legal status.
Mark Hutton, a Wichita businessman and former state representative, is joining a growing Republican field in the race for governor.
In response to growing concerns about child sexual abuse, Tennessee lawmakers enacted a law encouraging schools to provide prevention education to teachers and students.
Just like that, the 2020 retail campaigning for president began right here in a strip-mall campaign headquarters Monday, when Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti showed up for what he called “the most important race in the country.”
Gov. Bruce Rauner Monday signed into law one bill that would protect immigrants who are in the country illegally from being detained solely because of their immigration status and another that would automatically register many Illinoisans to vote.
As Texas grapples with unprecedented flooding due to Tropical Storm Harvey, "catastrophe teams" from insurance companies are moving in to assess damage to hard-hit areas, the Insurance Council of Texas said.
As cities across the country are tearing down and relocating Confederate monuments, a county in southern Alabama on Sunday unveiled a new one.
President Donald Trump said Monday that he expected Congress to act in a swift, bipartisan manner to approve the necessary funding to help Texas recover and rebuild after the Harvey disaster.
A new study suggests governments are missing out on cost savings by not enrolling enough people in their programs.
To this day, Galveston, Texas, gets millions less in federal funding because of a 2008 storm. It's a cautionary tale of how long it takes to financially recover from disasters.
President Trump signed an executive order on Monday, marking the administration's latest departure from its predecessor's policing policies.
Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed a bill Friday that would have raised Illinois' minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022, arguing it would hurt businesses and ultimately reduce jobs.
Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday signed into law a bill setting guidelines for companies that operate daily fantasy sports leagues in the Garden State and imposes a 10.5 percent tax on the companies' winnings.
The Defense Department will let California National Guard members keep more than $190 million in disputed enlistment bonuses and other payments _ far more than previously acknowledged _ after the military spent six years trying to recover the money from veterans who had served at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The California Supreme Court largely upheld a measure Thursday passed by voters to speed up executions but severely diluted a key provision aimed at ending a backlog of appeals.
In the latest move by states to curtail abortions, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has signed an executive order to stop giving state money to any doctor or group affiliated with providing abortions.
To President Donald Trump and many of his supporters, Joe Arpaio is a national hero whose aggressive pursuit of people in the country illegally and cooperation with federal immigration authorities should be a model for cities and counties around the country.
CareSource has agreed to step in and offer health insurance in Paulding County, Ohio, the last county in the country that faced the prospect of lacking a single Obamacare carrier in 2018.
Bobby Lopez first tried calling 911 at about 3 a.m. Sunday.
People across southeastern Texas scrambled to find shelter Sunday as Tropical Storm Harvey continued to drench the state, dropping up to 24 inches on Houston in 24 hours, flooding bayous and rivers, and unleashing one of the worst natural disasters in Texas history.
A coastal North Carolina city ranks first in the nation in opioid abuse. Now it wants to become an innovation hub for battling the crisis.
A judge’s last-minute demand for new ridership projections for a light rail line in the Washington suburbs could make investors think twice about working with the government.
City leaders on Tuesday approved a set of oil and gas regulations that exceed what the state requires of energy-extraction firms, setting the stage for potential legal challenges as tensions between Front Range communities and drilling companies mount.
A three-judge federal court panel in San Antonio on Thursday struck down portions of the state's redistricting plan for state House districts and ordered state lawmakers to redraw nine legislative districts due to "intentional discrimination" by race.
Officials with Connecticut and the eight other Northeastern states that are part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) announced Wednesday that they have tentatively agreed to more stringent air pollution restrictions through 2030.
Six weeks after helping Democrats revamp California's landmark climate change policy and facing a torrent of anger from conservative critics, the Republican leader of the state Assembly agreed Thursday to step down and allow a rural Northern California lawmaker to lead the GOP's fractured caucus.
Five governors will testify in front of the Senate Health Committee next month on ways to fix ObamaCare.
Following a series of political misfires during the past month, Gov. Bruce Rauner on Thursday tried to reset his administration by parting ways with his recently rebuilt press staff after a weeklong flap over a school funding cartoon some lawmakers deemed racist.
Legislation to prevent law enforcement officers from retiring, collecting a pension and then returning to active police duty to earn a second pension was signed into law Thursday by Gov. Bruce Rauner at the Naperville Municipal Center.
A rally that some are calling a gathering of right-wing supporters this weekend in San Francisco could have attendees watching their every step.
While Democratic AGs go on the offensive, their Republican counterparts are urging Trump to get even tougher against Obama-era policies.
New York City prides itself on being the epicenter of progressive politics -- and yet, it has one of the nation's worst gender gaps in city politics.
California recently outlawed the practice, but it's unlikely to change immigration officers' behavior. The legislation highlights the tactic's murky legality.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
New York City is taking an innovative approach that relies on street-level "violence interrupters" to curb crimes involving weapons. Chicago's been doing it for years.
The accelerating move away from punitive detention recognizes a critical factor: Adolescent brains are different.
Some states are taking the war on opioids into veterinarians’ offices, aiming to prevent people who are addicted to opioids from using their pets to procure drugs for their own use.
It's official: State Sen. Van Taylor, R-Plano, is running for Congress.
In the 41 years since Florida reinstated the death penalty, a white person convicted of killing a black person has never been put to death.
The sight of white supremacists marching through the heart of the University of Virginia, carrying flaming Tiki torches and shouting “Jews will not replace us!” — followed by the killing of a counterprotester at a rally in downtown Charlottesville the next day — may put the brakes on state efforts to strengthen campus free speech protections.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a high school's refusal to allow a football coach to kneel and pray at midfield after every game, wearing school attire and in view of students and spectators.
A month after a bruising political battle to extend California's cap-and-trade program, the state received a big vote of confidence in the policy's future.
A federal judge Wednesday tossed out the Texas voter ID law, saying changes recently adopted by the Legislature fell short of fixing a law that was drafted to intentionally discriminate against minority voters.
Racism was behind an Arizona ban on ethnic studies that shuttered a popular Mexican-American Studies program, a federal judge said Tuesday.
The city of Los Angeles sought Tuesday to join a legal battle against President Trump's Department of Justice over conditions requiring police to cooperate with immigration enforcement officials in order to qualify for anti-crime funding.
The dream of eliminating the influence of large, private donors from the election equation is pretty much dead. Now campaign finance reformers are shifting their focus.
The state's budget cuts target "colonias," makeshift subdivisions of mostly poor people outside city limits.
The two Seattle police officers who fatally shot Che Taylor last year have filed a defamation lawsuit against City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, alleging she falsely declared they had committed a "brutal murder" before they were cleared of wrongdoing by an inquest jury.
More than 60 former state attorney generals are urging President Trump to follow the example of an Alabama official who once famously told the Ku Klux Klan to "kiss my ass."
The Republican-controlled Senate completed the override of six of Gov. John Kasich's budget vetoes on Tuesday, the first successful overrides of an Ohio governor's veto in nine years.
Gov. John Kasich says a bipartisan health-care plan he's been working on with Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is nearly finished.
At Southwark Elementary, there is one counselor for 800 students, many of whom have behavioral and emotional challenges.
Some doctors in California felt uncomfortable last year when a new law began allowing terminally ill patients to request lethal medicines, saying their careers had been dedicated to saving lives, not ending them.
A state program that helps criminal offenders obtain clemencies is gaining some major reinforcements.
Gov. Eric Greitens called off an execution on Tuesday so the state could make sure it sentenced a guilty man to death.
A SEPTA Norristown High Speed Line train ran into an unoccupied train early Tuesday inside the 69th Street Transportation Center in Upper Darby, injuring 42 people, officials said.
States and localities say direct loans aren't as much of a hassle as issuing bonds. That may be true, but they're also riskier.
The El Paso City Council narrowly voted against creating a municipal identification card program amid concerns that the measure would lead to the border city being perceived as the kind of "sanctuary" jurisdiction that has been the target of President Donald Trump and Texas' Republican leaders.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — the cowboy-hat wearing Republican known for wading deep into partisan and cultural divides — is furious with the Six Flags amusement park chain, calling its decision to take down the Confederate flag and four others that had flown over the park part of a “militant, anarchist movement sweeping our country, destroying and attempting to sanitize our nation’s history.”
Fifteen years into a nationwide push to provide every student with an equal education, Minnesota schools have grown more segregated and the state's nation-leading academic achievement gap refuses to close.
Justice Department lawyers say Miami-Dade had nothing to fear over losing federal transportation funds if the county didn't back President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown earlier this year, writing in a court filing that only security and crime-fighting federal aid would be withheld from "sanctuary" communities.
Demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, interrupted and blasted City Council members during their first meeting since violent clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters.
The parent of Jewel-Osco was sued Friday for allegedly applying Cook County's new sweetened-beverage tax to purchases made with federal food stamps, transactions that are supposed to be exempt from the penny-per-ounce tax.
Airbnb travelers in South Dakota will pay a little more starting Sept. 1.
The recruiting tactic may grow as baby boomers leave more job vacancies.
The Trump administration is working with like-minded sheriffs from around the country on a plan to channel illegal immigrants from local jails into federal detention, according to several sheriffs involved in the discussions.
Foxconn Technology Group's plans for a sprawling manufacturing facility pose an array of environmental challenges, ranging from the way it will handle chemicals to the impact a plant of its size will have on the surrounding watershed.
Three days after a federal court ruled that Republican lawmakers drew congressional districts to intentionally discriminate against minority voters, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the decision and protect districts in Travis and Bastrop counties from having to be redrawn.
Missouri state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal apologized on Sunday for a Facebook post that hoped for the assassination of President Donald Trump, saying, "I made a mistake."
The statues of four people with ties to the Confederacy, including Gen. Robert E. Lee, were being removed from their pedestals on the UT-Austin campus Sunday night, the university announced.
As many as 63 million people – nearly a fifth of the country – from rural central California to the boroughs of New York City, were exposed to potentially unsafe water more than once during the past decade, according to a News21 investigation of 680,000 water quality and monitoring violations from the Environmental Protection Agency.
A federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday that Arkansas can block Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, two years after the state ended its contract with the group over videos secretly recorded by an anti-abortion group.
President Donald Trump says the North American Free Trade Agreement has been a disaster. “It’s been very, very bad for our companies and for our workers,” he said at the Wisconsin headquarters of an automotive manufacturer this spring.
As part of a new initiative, eight governors agreed to meet with inmates, crime victims and corrections staff to better understand how their criminal justice policies impact people.
The wait for drug test results can bring the criminal justice system to a slow crawl. There's a faster test, but few are using it.
Texas ran afoul of the Voting Rights Act by restricting the interpretation assistance English-limited voters may receive at the ballot box, a federal appeals court found.
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled the city of Tucson can no longer destroy firearms that have been confiscated by police or turned in by citizens.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has joined 49 other state attorneys general in asking Congress to change federal law so that state and local prosecutors can pursue charges against child sex traffickers.
NYU School of Law will launch a new center, financed by Bloomberg Philanthropies, aimed at helping state attorneys general fight any federal moves to roll back renewable energy, environmental protections and climate policies.
Louisiana's Public Safety and Corrections officials are reviewing the sentences of 16,000 inmates who could have their prison time shortened as criminal law changes take effect Nov. 1. That's around 45 percent of the 35,500 people the state has locked up now.
Under the cover of night, a work crew removed the statue of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney from the grounds of the State House, ending the monument's 145-year perch on the prominent spot in Annapolis.
"Training in 'the sticks,' sticks," says one medical professional. But first, rural areas have to get doctors there.
Redesigning a government website should be about more than attractiveness and easy navigation. It's a chance to reengineer underlying processes.
Kansas' privatized Medicaid system, KanCare, came in last among 36 states' managed care Medicaid programs in a customer satisfaction survey conducted by the firm J.D. Power.
The Christie administration Wednesday issued a rebuke to President Donald Trump’s bid to open Atlantic Ocean waters to offshore drilling.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
It's not just an environmental issue, and for the first time, researchers have calculated global warming's potential economic impact on each county.
The wealthy are increasingly seeking their state's highest office. Winning has been the easy part.
Our voting systems are a difficult marriage between ancient and modern tools. Keeping the proper balance is tricky but crucial.
This city has opened a new front in its effort to give black newborns the same chance of surviving infancy as white babies: training “doulas” to assist expectant mothers during pregnancy, delivery and afterward.
Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday weighed in on the renewed debate over Confederate monuments in Texas, saying that removing them "won't erase our nation's past, and it doesn't advance our nation's future."
A health plan will be offered on Nevada's exchange in 14 rural counties that had lost their only carrier for the coming year.
The Michigan Capitol is going “green and clean” with a new geothermal heating and cooling system that officials say will be the largest of its kind at a state government building in the country.
President Trump will hold a rally Tuesday night, Aug. 22, at the Phoenix Convention Center, administration officials announced Wednesday.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions commended Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez for shedding his jurisdiction's "sanctuary city" status on a day when Gimenez ripped President Donald Trump for his "ambiguity" about blame for the deadly violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Racial violence in Charlottesville has re-energized efforts to scrap Confederate statues and memorials, but many Southern states are moving in the opposite direction, enacting laws that protect and retain the tributes in an apparent backlash to the growing call to take them down.
The Trump administration, faced with increasing pressure from Republican members of Congress, backed away from causing an immediate crisis in health care marketplaces and agreed Wednesday to continue making payments to insurance companies that are widely viewed as critical to keeping the industry stable.
States are failing to use millions of dollars meant to retrain and employ coal miners and other workers in struggling fields.
Not only is President Donald Trump wrong to create a false moral equivalency between white supremacists and counter-protestors, he is diminishing the presidency itself, said Ohio Gov. John Kasich on a TV talk show today.
Health policy experts say other conservative states often follow Missouri's lead on abortion measures. This year, the state passed several never-before-seen regulations.
If President Donald Trump were to follow through on his threats to cut federal cost-sharing subsidies, health insurance premiums for silver plans would soar by an average of 20 percent next year and the federal deficit would rise by $194 billion over the next decade, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.
King County Elections certified the results of Seattle's mayoral primary Tuesday, stamping as official an outcome made clear last week -- Jenny Durkan and Cary Moon will advance to the Nov. 7 general election.
