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Gov. Jerry Brown sought Thursday to bolster his position as America's de facto climate czar, urging the world to defy President Trump and join him in San Francisco next year for a "climate action summit."
The Trump administration has picked the head of the Georgia Department of Public Health to run the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With a heat wave continuing to bake California and the rest of the West, wildfires forced nearly 8,000 people to dash for safety Sunday as flames destroyed homes and threatened thousands of structures across the state.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who made a career of promoting local control of education, has signaled a surprisingly hard-line approach to carrying out an expansive new federal education law, issuing critical feedback that has rattled state school chiefs and conservative education experts alike.
As cities push to become more environmentally friendly, transportation planners are being asked to consider how both traffic and water flows through their streets.
“Reduce, reuse, recycle” is a life that many try to live, yet struggle to define.
Hiring ex-addicts is a key part of Kentucky's strategy for combating the opioid epidemic and its impact on families.
Mayor Ryan Stovall has no regrets.
Blair Milo is used to being underestimated because of her age and gender. She doesn't let it stop her from running a city.
Erwin, Tenn., was struggling. Then its mayor did something many public officials usually don't: She listened to young people.
After long fighting Texas' voter ID law for discriminating against Latino and African American voters, the U.S. Department of Justice declared the latest revision of the controversial state law now satisfies President Donald Trump's administration, according a filing in federal court Wednesday.
A federal judge in Honolulu today denied an emergency motion by the state of Hawaii to clarify what constitutes a close family relationship in the rules of President Donald Trump's partial travel ban.
The minimum wage in St. Louis will revert to $7.70 an hour on Aug. 28, with Gov. Eric Greitens announcing on Friday that he will allow a bill blocking the city's increase to become law without his signature.
Oklahoma City police are investigating an Uber driver's complaint that a state senator "made advances on her during transit," The Oklahoman has confirmed.
The Ohio House on Thursday handed Gov. John Kasich the first veto overrides of his administration, but it did not attempt to undo his veto of a budget provision to freeze enrollment in the Medicaid expansion he's fought to defend.
Eighteen states on Thursday sued Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, alleging she unlawfully delayed new federal regulations designed to protect student loan borrowers from being ripped off by for-profit colleges and other schools.
The attorneys general of New Mexico and California jointly filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the U.S. Department of the Interior, saying the agency, under the Trump administration, has illegally postponed requirements for companies to comply with methane regulations enacted under the Obama administration.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
New research shows immigrants ultimately make state and local governments more money on average than native-born Americans.
Washington state is now among a handful of states that guarantee paid family leave, after Gov. Jay Inslee’s signing Wednesday of a bipartisan plan approved by the Legislature.
An 18-year-old U.S. citizen spent an extra night in a Miami-Dade jail based on a flawed and illegal request from immigration authorities, according to a lawsuit seeking to overturn the county's new policy to hold inmates sought for deportation.
Until he stepped aside from his real estate business to become a senior White House aide, developer Jared Kushner was a major player in the gentrification of Jersey City, where former railroad yards and waste sites are being transformed into luxury housing.
Comparing the state income tax hike he'd vetoed a day earlier to a "two-by-four smacked across the forehead," Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday warned lawmakers not to override him and said he would do "everything possible" to try to make sure they don't.
Judges have broad authority in refusing to lighten the sentences of "three-strikes" inmates, despite recent ballot measures aimed at reducing the California's prison population, the state's highest court ruled Monday.
Kris Kobach defended his attempt to obtain a nationwide collection of voter information in both a court filing and a White House statement as criticism continued to grow over his request.
To minimize the impact on services from future spending cuts and economic downturns, governments need to take a proactive, multi-year approach.
Its ports and freight system account for a significant portion of its air pollution. Will aggressive new state and regional efforts once again serve as a model for the nation?
New estimates show areas of the country experiencing large increases in housing units.
Human tragedy comes with the badge -- but help dealing with it often doesn't.
Child abuse victims often are frightened and intimidated if they have to testify about their experience in a courtroom.
Arguing that California is at a crucial crossroads, Republican David Hadley is announcing a bid to be the state's next governor. The former assemblyman, who voted against Donald Trump in the fall, is a social moderate and fiscal conservative whose 2018 candidacy could galvanize the GOP establishment in a state where it is at a significant disadvantage.
Illinois lawmakers are one crucial step away from ending the record state budget impasse following a flurry of activity on Independence Day that saw the Senate override Gov. Bruce Rauner's vetoes of a tax hike and spending plan.
Hope soared at the State House just after 10 p.m. Monday when Gov. Paul LePage and Democratic House Speaker Sara Gideon struck a deal for a bipartisan budget bill and an end to Maine's three-day government shutdown.
Lawmakers in Trenton late Monday broke through the impasse that had kept them from adopting the state budget, triggered the shutdown over the weekend, and frayed tempers among the public.
Forty-four states have refused to provide certain types of voter information to the Trump administration's election integrity commission, according to a CNN inquiry to all 50 states.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval may as well be the Senate’s 53rd Republican.
A mural on the wall of an elementary school here proclaimed, “All the world is all of us,” but the hundreds of people packing the auditorium one night were determined to stop a low-income housing project from coming to their upscale neighborhood.
Minneapolis became one of the first cities in the nation to adopt a $15 minimum wage Friday in a move meant to set an example for the rest of the state and boost the local economy.
The Maine Legislature's special budget panel endorsed a two-year budget late Sunday, setting up a high-pressure round of Monday floor votes on Day 3 of a state shutdown, but risking another impasse with Gov. Paul LePage over hiking the lodging tax.
Cub Scouts being kicked out of a campground in New Jersey may be the most visible sign of budget problems in American states.
Florida's updated "Stand Your Ground" self-defense law is unconstitutional, a Miami judge ruled on Monday.
"Well, I'm sorry, they're not the governor."
The number of drug-overdose deaths in Kentucky has climbed the past four years, culminating in an all-time high of 1,404 in 2016. It is hoped that a new law restricting opioid prescriptions, which takes effect Thursday, will reverse the trend.
Gov. Paul LePage said Friday that he won't sign a state budget package endorsed Thursday night by a special panel, ensuring a partial shutdown of state government at midnight.
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday said that while same-sex marriage is legal nationwide, the "reach and ramifications" of the rights of gay couples have yet to be determined.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, who dropped his bid for re-election last month, endorsed former U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan in the race Thursday.
Indiana's top doctor could soon become the nation's surgeon general.
Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno announced her resignation Thursday, another sign of the lack of progress at the Capitol as Illinois teeters toward a third year without a comprehensive spending plan.
A voter-approved gun-control law due to take effect Saturday, banning the possession of magazines that can hold more than 10 cartridges, was blocked Thursday by a federal judge, who said it would violate Californians' right to defend themselves.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo declared a state of emergency for the MTA on Thursday and pledged the state would "commit an additional $1 billion" to the agency's capital plan as part of an effort to expedite improvements to New York City's embattled transit system.
President Trump's commission investigating alleged voter fraud in the 2016 elections has asked states for a list of the names, party affiliations, addresses and voting histories of all voters, if state laws allow it to be public.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and officials from nine other states on Thursday urged the Trump administration to end an Obama-era program that’s allowed hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants to live and work in the country without fear of being deported.
Baltimore is already rationing its use.
It's the first city to set water rates based on income.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
It needs to move beyond 'admin stuff' to champion radically improved workforce management.
That’s how long it took to build one of America’s most ambitious public works projects, and that’s how long its bicentennial will be celebrated.
California's cap-and-trade law, which requires companies to buy permits to emit climate-changing greenhouse gases into the air, survived a legal challenge Wednesday when the state Supreme Court turned down an appeal by business groups.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality sued the City of Flint today over the City Council's foot-dragging in approving Detroit's Great Lakes Water Authority as its long-term drinking water source.
The 6-foot-tall stone monument engraved with the Ten Commandments _ a capstone of sorts to years of debate in Arkansas over the separation of church and state _ was erected with little pomp on the lush grounds of the state Capitol.
The former Texas trooper who stopped Sandra Bland on a Waller County roadside in 2015 had the criminal charge against him dismissed Wednesday, stirring painful emotions from Bland's family members who had hoped the case would go to trial.
Charlotte's Citizens Review Board has determined that there was "substantial evidence of error" in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police's decision that the fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in September was justified.
Washington, D.C., this week will become the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to offer a driver’s license reading “X,” instead of “M” or “F.”
A Ramsey County judge has ordered the state of Minnesota to continue funding the state House and Senate through Oct. 1, ensuring that the Legislature can keep operating amid its legal battle with Gov. Mark Dayton.
Paul Massey, the millionaire real estate businessman who had sought to win the New York City mayoralty in the mold of Michael Bloomberg, unexpectedly dropped out of the Republican primary race Wednesday after flailing for months in the polls.
Cities that faced bankruptcy not long ago have made remarkable recoveries -- all on their own.
Many cities and towns are struggling to keep up with the latest technological advances. But in a few places, their bigger peers are willing to help.
You can’t run public agencies like private companies, but you can borrow ideas from them.
Birth rates are at a historic low. If they don't rebound, the effects will be felt outside the family.
Unlike most places, Portland, Ore., offers easy living and shopping -- and it’s paying off for the city.
Sometimes a person and a city just aren’t right for each other.
“Zero waste” and “circular economy” are often used interchangeably.
Most states can't meet baby boomers' demand for staying out of nursing homes.
A lot of what fosters it is out of their control, but a little audacity goes a long way.
Mike Stack is under investigation by the state’s inspector general. The results could impact the 2018 election.
The state's lawmakers have until the end of the week to pass a budget -- something they haven't been able to do in years. If they don't, the consequences are dire.
The city of El Paso voted on Tuesday to join the growing list of local governments that have filed a legal challenge in hopes of stopping Texas’ new immigration enforcement law from going into effect.
Gov. Doug Burgum proclaimed a statewide fire and drought emergency on Monday evening. He also ordered that all state agencies maintain high levels of readiness.
It was a surprise to many when the U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday it will hear New Jersey's challenge to the federal ban on sports betting.
Canada’s relationship with the western states took top billing at the 33rd annual Western Governors’ Association meeting Monday in Whitefish.
The Chicago police investigation of the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald unfolded like hundreds of others had before it, with an officer who claimed he fired in fear of his life, fellow cops who backed up his story and supervisors who quickly signed off on the case as a justifiable homicide.
The Legislature and Gov. Paul LePage have repealed part of the minimum wage law enacted by voters in November 2016 by restoring the tip credit for Maine businesses that employ tipped workers.
GOP governors opposed to the Senate healthcare bill’s changes to Medicaid are exerting influence on their home-state senators, making it more difficult for Republican leaders to net the 50 votes they need to pass the legislation.
Among the places testing new ways to keep low-risk offenders out of jail, Charleston, S.C., stands out.
Aldermen choose how to use infrastructure dollars from a preapproved list of projects. The result: A big spending gap between neighborhoods.
The state has more tax agencies than most -- and one in particular is badly mismanaged.
Native Americans who live on the reservation in Utah are used to having to fight for basic government services. But they’d at least like roads that can reliably transfer patients to the ER and kids to school.
From education to gay rights, New York's governor has racked up a long list of liberal accomplishments.
By putting the burden on the companies, Chicago is keeping its costs low while providing an efficient framework and better mobility.
The current drug crisis is different from previous ones. Some say it requires a new mode of thinking.
One of the most dangerous small cities in the country, an hour outside Chicago, is paying officers to live where their relationship with residents is most broken.
There will be no Camelot in Connecticut in 2018: Ted Kennedy Jr. declared Monday that he is not running for governor.
It's one of the core questions in the debate over minimum wage: Does pushing the pay floor to $15 lead businesses to cut hours and jobs?
The U.S. Conference of Mayors has come out in opposition to House and Senate GOP proposals to allow "concealed carry" gun license holders to carry weapons into other states that allow it.
Richard Spencer's white nationalist think tank broke Virginia nonprofit laws by failing to register in the state and by not telling prospective donors it had lost its tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service, according to an investigation by state regulators.
Senate Republicans’ legislation to overhaul the Affordable Care Act would leave an additional 22 million people without health care coverage over the next decade and cut the federal deficit by $321 billion, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis released late Monday.
Gay couples who are married are entitled to have both their names listed on their child's birth certificate, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday.
Drug abuse is overwhelming the child welfare system at unprecedented rates. Solutions are slowly emerging, but they aren't always adopted.
They're too expensive for many low-income families, but courts recently ruled that the federal government can’t regulate their cost. States still can.
Georgia's highest court has determined that a state law allowing taxpayers to steer some of what they owe the state to private schools instead does not violate the state constitution.
California's concealed-weapons law, a virtual ban on carrying a hidden handgun on the streets of San Francisco and most other urban areas, survived a U.S. Supreme Court challenge by gun groups Monday.
In what some are calling a landmark ruling for religious freedom, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided in favor of a Columbia, Mo., church that had been denied state assistance to improve its playground.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is not happy with Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, who on Friday called a proposed California universal health bill "woefully incomplete" and killed it for the year.
Even in cities that have tried to address the problem, babies are still dying at high rates for a developed nation.
Westchester County, N.Y., is using debt forgiveness as an incentive for finding employment and paying child support. Will it work?
The Department of Justice on Friday sided with Texas in the lawsuit against its recently passed sanctuary cities ban, lending significant if unsurprising support to boosters of the law.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced on Sunday that he is running for Ohio governor, putting him in contention against two other statewide officials and a U.S. congressman seeking the Republican nomination in 2018.
U.S. mayors spent a long day in Miami Beach giving and taking advice about what to fix in their cities, how to convince voters it's a good idea and -- best of all -- how to pay for it.
The Howard County, Md., government website was hacked Sunday with messages supporting the Islamic State, part of a larger attack on local government websites around the country.
When Sue Krentz was growing up in southern Arizona, about 30 miles from the Mexican border, migrants would wander into the front yard of her parents' modest ranch house and ask to sweep the steps or mow the lawn.
Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb removed a party official from his post Thursday after a recording surfaced of him making offensive remarks about the shooting of U.S. Rep Steve Scalise.
Other studies have found no significant effect in the number of crashes since the first three states legalized marijuana sales.
There are certainly challenges, says Pennsylvania's physician general, but "eventually people will just judge us based off our qualifications and the work we do."
A St. Croix River private property dispute was settled Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a Wisconsin family that wanted to sell shorefront land to finance improvements on an adjacent cabin.
Almost three years after a death-row prisoner agonized on a gurney for nearly two hours during a botched execution, Arizona can legally resume executions — if the state Department of Corrections can find the drugs to do so.
As Gov. Chris Christie openly pushes his agenda focusing on treatment and prevention of opioid abuse, his administration is quietly expanding the effort to the legal front.
Mississippi's Republican leadership praised Thursday's ruling by a three-judge panel of the United States' 5th Circuit Court of Appeals re-instating the state's controversial 2016 legislation that opponents said would lead to discrimination against gays and other groups on religious grounds.
California has its own travel ban. The new law took effect in January, banning state employees and officials from using tax money to go to states with laws it deemed discriminatory in regards to gender identity or sexual orientation -- starting with Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Thursday unveiled a bill that would dramatically transform the nation’s Medicaid program, make significant changes to the federal health law’s tax credits that help lower-income people buy insurance and allow states to water down changes to some of the law’s coverage guarantees.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
Hackers backed by the Russian government targeted voting systems in 21 states last year in an effort to undermine confidence in the principle of free and fair elections, U.S. security officials testified on Wednesday.
Aaliyah Palmer was at a party when a man pulled her into a bathroom for sex.
Newly released Census data show different shifts in millennial, Generation X and baby boomer populations across states.
The largest city in Texas will join San Antonio, Dallas, Austin and other local governments in a lawsuit against the state’s new immigration enforcement law.
Missouri sued three large drug companies Wednesday for allegedly hiding the dangers of prescription pain pills, which are blamed for a nationwide epidemic of drug abuse and overdose deaths.
Calling the $4.225 billion West Virginia budget bill “a travesty” that he can’t possibly sign, Gov. Jim Justice announced Wednesday he will let the bill become law without his signature.
Former Milwaukee Police Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown was found not guilty Wednesday in the on-duty fatal shooting of Sylville Smith that set off two days of violent unrest last year in parts of the Sherman Park neighborhood.
Pennsylvania's highest court said Tuesday the public should have access to dash camera video footage unless the police agency can prove it amounts to criminal investigative material and may be redacted.
The electronic signs above Colorado highways offer a warning to drivers who reach for their cellphones: “New texting law fines increased to $300.”
The Iowa Supreme Court issued an order Monday that bans weapons in all 99 courthouses and justice centers across the state.
New York state moved to end child marriages on Tuesday, raising the legal age to 18 from 14 to tackle the issue of underage marriage that is permissible across the United States.
“Pedestrian scrambles” surged in popularity half a century ago. Some places are bringing them back.
Governors and legislatures are keeping spending growth at its lowest level since the recession to make sure they're prepared for the next one.
State help is on its way to the town of Torrey, which has run out of water following a water main break.
he New Jersey Supreme Court decided unanimously Tuesday that the public is entitled to view electronic data kept by local government agencies.
The movement to “ban the box” is often touted as a way to help ex-convicts find employment after incarceration.
Kansas City's struggle with increasing violent crime is ringing alarms all the way to the top of the U.S. Justice Department.
A hacker, angry that the police officer charged with killing Philando Castile was found not guilty, reportedly broke into state of Minnesota databases, stealing e-mails and passwords.
A federal judge on Tuesday approved a secret civil settlement of the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the parents of Michael Brown over his 2014 fatal shooting.
Public employees are often resistant to technological change. In some cases, it's their employers' fault.
Multnomah County Circuit Court administrators have determined that Pro Tem Judge Monica Herranz didn't violate any rules of judicial conduct when she allowed an undocumented criminal defendant to leave her courtroom through a back door as immigration agents waited in the hallway.
Free tuition isn't enough to get many Tennessee students to enroll in college, according to a new report.
With a stroke of his pen, Gov. Paul LePage last week enacted landmark legislation putting Maine in the forefront of the food sovereignty movement.
Anyone following the debate over the “repeal and replace” of the Affordable Care Act knows the 13 Republican senators writing the bill are meeting behind closed doors.
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a North Carolina law prohibiting registered sex offenders from using Facebook or other social networking sites that minors can join.
The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will decide in its next term a case brought by Democratic voters in Wisconsin who argue that state Assembly districts are unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans. The court in a separate order delayed the drawing of new state Assembly district boundaries.
A group of Republican and Democratic governors are echoing President Donald Trump's criticism of a House GOP health care bill, saying it threatens coverage for the most vulnerable.
For supporters of Democratic mayoral candidate Joel Ford -- or opponents of Mayor Jennifer Roberts -- the sales pitch was clear.
Gov. Rick Scott signed into law Wednesday a bill pushed by two Southwest Florida lawmakers that cracks down on fentanyl abuse.
