Archive
Everyone in the courtroom could agree on this: If the acid in Mel Russell’s blood had been a minuscule amount higher, the little boy’s condition would have been caught before he suffered brain damage.
The FBI notified the Illinois Republican Party in June that some of its email accounts may have been hacked, but party officials were not told that it was part of a wide-ranging federal investigation of Russian activity in the nation's political system, the state GOP's executive director said Sunday.
The election of Donald Trump should remind us — again — of the vast difference between managing a company and running a government.
They would be mostly -- but not all -- good for state and local revenues.
Districts are experimenting with ways to get every student access to high-speed Internet. Right now, millions don't.
Progress is slow. Our overly enthusiastic forecasts prove that.
The housing shortages that plague most urban areas are a prime example of the complications that can arise when states take a back seat.
The Chicagos and Cincinnatis of the world are more vulnerable than they realize.
D.C. may be an object of Republican disdain, but it’s now at the center of governmental change.
A look back at their evolution may offer some idea of what lies ahead.
In a unanimous decision issued Thursday, the Missouri Supreme Court deemed a state law barring undocumented immigrants from being granted bail to be unconstitutional.
Advocates are hoping to replicate the success they had at the ballot box this year.
When a rock band's fireworks display exploded into flames at a crowded Rhode Island nightclub in February 2003, killing 100 people, fire safety in the nation's smallest state was governed by a patchwork of mostly outdated local regulations.
North Carolina's outgoing Republican Gov. Pat McCrory was briefly spotted in Trump Tower in New York City on Wednesday morning, but he gave no public indication about his meeting with President-elect Donald Trump.
Before she heads to her shift at a nursing home in New Haven, Connecticut, every morning, nursing assistant Elisha LaRose drops her 4-year-old son off at a day care center.
After serving three years as the lone woman in the S.C. Senate, Katrina Shealy is happy to have more company.
Montana Department of Transportation Director Mike Tooley told the Montana Contractors Association this week that it is delaying $144.5 million of road projects across the state as it faces a budget shortfall that could ultimately kill the contracts altogether, said association Executive Director Cary Hegreberg.
Among Republican ideas to transform the health care system is a proposal to allow health insurers to sell their policies across state lines.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
Hyattsville has become the first municipality in Prince George’s County to extend voting privileges to non-U.S. citizens, joining six other Maryland cities that passed similar measures years ago.
After two days of ballot counting, conflicting court decisions and legal wranglings between frustrated lawyers, a federal judge on Wednesday halted the hand recount of 4.8 million ballots cast for president in Michigan, concluding there's no real evidence of foul play and there's no valid reason to continue the recount.
President-elect Donald Trump has made many promises on immigration, including a new one Wednesday to "work something out" for the so-called Dreamers _ young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.
Donald Trump picked Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency, signaling the president-elect will deliver on his vow to disassemble President Barack Obama's landmark effort to fight climate change.
But a new report, released right after Trump nominated a climate skeptic to lead the EPA, shows that some states still have rising emissions.
Lawmakers almost never know a company's full tax picture when they sign away corporate tax credits. That's unlikely to change any time soon.
Donald Trump has picked Terry Branstad, the long-serving Iowa governor who proved a loyal and unflinching surrogate in the presidential race, to be the ambassador to China, the transition team said Wednesday.
With the legislative session just weeks ahead, the Texas business community is digging in its heels in opposition to Texas Republicans’ anti-LGBT proposals, warning they could have dire consequences on the state’s economy.
The recount of votes on Maine's contentious marijuana legalization initiative began Monday in Augusta with volunteers slowly hand-sorting through thousands of "Yes" and "No" votes, one by one.
Gov. Chris Christie shot down an attempt to curtail the use of solitary confinement in New Jersey's prisons on Monday, vetoing legislation that would have strictly limited the practice and assailing its key sponsor in a fiery veto message.
Thanks, but no thanks, was the word Tuesday from Ohio Gov. John Kasich about a campaign to switch electoral votes from Donald Trump to him.
When Ashley Hurteau, 32, was arrested in 2015, she faced a list of charges for crimes she committed to finance a drug craving she had struggled with for more than a decade.
Two days after conceding in the North Carolina gubernatorial race, Republican Gov. Pat McCrory plans to meet with President-elect Donald Trump in New York, Trump's transition team announced Tuesday morning.
Hopes for Medicaid expansion, the program intended to bring health coverage to thousands of low-income adults, have died in Wyoming.
Thousands of Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller's followers on social media might believe that terrorists are — in his words —preparing "for their jihad against the state and our nation” from a training compound outside of Houston.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has been re-elected to head the Democratic Governors Association, a job that saw him travel the country this year, raising money, campaigning and speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July, but ended without much success on Election Day.
No government can be fully prepared for every economic twist and turn. Still, some are trying.
Texas county jails have seen a sharp decline in inmate suicides since they began using a revised mental health screening tool last December.
Another Texas Republican elector is objecting to Donald Trump, saying he will not vote for the president-elect.
An overseas tip about an imminent bombing of the Metro Red Line's Universal City station has forced federal and local law enforcement in Los Angeles to swiftly ramp up security across its sprawling transit system, authorities said Monday.
A Supreme Court majority on Monday appeared to lean in favor of Democrats in Virginia and North Carolina seeking to rein in what they call racial gerrymandering by Republican-controlled legislatures in those states.
A jury could not reach a decision on Monday in the murder trial against a former North Charleston police officer accused of shooting a black motorist in the back.
It's one of the many ideas and practices that Craig Fugate, the agency's outgoing leader, hopes the Trump administration will adopt. Among the others: rescuing pets.
Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory announced Monday that he's conceded the election to Democrat Roy Cooper, the state's attorney general, and will support transition efforts.
Current and historical data showing real per capita personal incomes for all metro areas.
When states tried the all-payer model decades ago, it largely didn't live up to its cost-cutting goals. But Vermont is taking a slightly different approach.
The “most wonderful time of the year” may be the hardest for tens of thousands of young people locked up for the holidays.
When Attorney General Maura Healey and other Massachusetts law enforcement officials announced last spring that they were pursuing fraud investigations against the world’s largest oil company, ExxonMobil, former vice president Al Gore called it “the most hopeful step I can remember in a long time” to combat climate change.
A federal judge early Monday morning ordered a recount of Michigan's presidential ballots to begin at noon on Monday, and for the state to "assemble necessary staff to work sufficient hours" to complete the recount by a Dec. 13 federal deadline.
The Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday denied permission for the Dakota Access pipeline to cross under a section of the Missouri River, handing at least a temporary victory to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and its supporters.
Teachers and staff in the Hillsboro School District will have to come up with something a little extra creative this year if they want to decorate their rooms for the holidays. That's because, according to a memo sent to staff and shared by KATU, Santa Claus is off the decoration menu.
The death toll from a fire that tore through an electronic music show in Oakland soared to 33 on Sunday, and criminal investigators are looking into how a warehouse that allegedly had been converted into an artistic and performance space without permits could have become such a death trap.
Two cities are testing a new, safer way to immobilize vehicles when their drivers haven’t paid parking tickets.
Massachusetts legislators, scrambling to pay for regulators to oversee the nascent recreational marijuana industry, may turn to a controversial source: the state’s emergency savings account, meant only for fiscal crises.
Gov. Bruce Rauner blames the veto on Democratic leaders who backed out of a deal to pass comprehensive pension reform by the end of the current general assembly.
Gov. Kate Brown presented a $20.8 billion budget Thursday, which would close half of Oregon's looming $1.7 billion shortfall through cuts to existing programs.
Smaller cities and counties may not be as willing to remain “sanctuaries” for undocumented immigrants as big cities under a Donald Trump presidency.
The Brown administration will go to court on Friday to block an unprecedented and potentially disruptive one-day strike next week by California’s largest state employee union.
Efforts to pinpoint the cause of deadly wildfires that engulfed two tourist towns outside Great Smoky Mountains National Park continued Thursday. Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said the devastation has been “unfathomable” and warned that the death toll could continue to rise.
A New Jersey appeals court Thursday struck down controversial changes Gov. Chris Christie's administration made to the state's civil service system -- the latest development in a years-long battle over the rules governing how thousands of public workers are promoted.
In tapping Rep. Xavier Becerra, a veteran Los Angeles lawmaker and son of Mexican immigrants, Gov. Jerry Brown placed a stalwart defender of immigrant rights at the forefront of anticipated legal battles between California and the incoming Trump administration.
The $7 million incentive package Carrier Corp. will receive as part of a deal the company reached with President-elect Donald Trump represents a departure from how tax credits are typically used in Indiana.
State and local decision-makers are learning to harness it as a strategic asset.
Not many states have the necessary laws in place to conduct an effective election audit.
South Bend is leveraging its higher-education assets and better use of data to begin turning things around.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
The top election official in Kansas asserted without evidence that millions of noncitizens voted in the presidential election moments after he certified the state's election results on Wednesday.
The State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines Wednesday to order a machine recount of 90,000 votes in Durham County, backing a request from Republicans and North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory's campaign.
Smoking is to be prohibited in federally subsidized public housing nationwide as soon as early next year under a rule announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Retired Dallas Police Chief David Brown has a new job.
A longshot campaign to block Donald Trump from the presidency using the Electoral College has added another renegade elector from Washington state, the group announced at the Capitol in Olympia on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court justices gave a mostly skeptical hearing Wednesday to a Los Angeles lawyer who argued for limits on the government's power to indefinitely jail immigrants facing deportation because of crimes they've committed.
The hundreds of arrests during the months of protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota have created an unprecedented burden for the state's court system, which faces huge cost overruns and doesn't have enough judges, lawyers and clerks to handle the workload.
No charges will be brought against Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officer Brentley Vinson in the September shooting death of a man in University City, District Attorney Andrew Murray announced Wednesday.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein paid $3.5 million Tuesday to clear the way for Wisconsin's presidential vote recount but had a judge reject her lawsuit to require all Wisconsin counties to do the recount by hand.
Three people were confirmed dead Tuesday after a fire that destroyed more than 150 homes and businesses as flames whipped by high-speed winds raged overnight through town and displaced more than 14,000 residents in an inferno witnesses called unlike any in living memory.
A federal court Tuesday ordered North Carolina to hold a special legislative election next year after 28 state House and Senate districts are redrawn to comply with a gerrymandering ruling.
For all Muni Metro passengers knew, the free rides they were getting Friday night and Saturday were a holiday gift from the transit system. Little did they know Muni was under attack from a hacker trying to squeeze $73,000 in ransom to unlock the agency's computer systems.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin is emerging as President-elect Donald Trump's leading contender for interior secretary, three people close to Trump's transition team told POLITICO.
President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Rep. Tom Price to head the Department of Health and Human Services signals that the new administration is all-in on both efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and restructure Medicare and Medicaid.
Richard B. Teitelman, Missouri's first legally blind Supreme Court judge, has died.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission agreed Monday to begin a recount of the presidential election on Thursday but was sued by Green Party candidate Jill Stein after the agency declined to require county officials to recount the votes by hand.
State health officials confirmed Monday what many scientists have long suspected: The Zika virus has been transmitted by a mosquito in Texas.
Weed is winning in the polls, with a solid majority of Americans saying marijuana should be legal. But does that mean the federal government will let dozens of state pot experiments play out? Not by a long shot.
Art Sisneros just couldn't do it.
As Ohio State University students and faculty dealt with a campus attack today, the Ohio Senate this week could pass a bill that would reduce the penalty from a felony to a misdemeanor for carrying a gun on a college campus.
Kansas is one of three states that limits the availability of a life-saving drug that reverses opioid overdoses.
Shell-shocked Democrats looking to recover from 2016 see the large slate of upcoming governors races as their most likely path out of the political wilderness — starting in the Midwest.
Unlike America, which has one of the highest infant mortality rates of developed countries, Finland has one of the world's lowest.
Nashville has a program -- the first of its kind in the country -- that takes the long view on building connections, trust and leadership among New Americans.
Neil Reichenberg has devoted his career to helping the public sector hire and keep employees.
Donald Trump has consistently vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare. But he has yet to explain what he intends to replace it with.
A Utah judge frustrated over a lack of DNA results from the state crime lab said if the results aren't complete by next month, he'll put a crime lab employee behind bars.
As Donald Trump on Sunday lashed out via Twitter at Hillary Clinton over her campaign's decision to join the recount process in Wisconsin, state elections officials announced a recount will probably start Thursday.
The U.S. Justice Department has sued Bernards Township, N.J., alleging that it delayed for nearly four years an Islamic community's effort to build a mosque, and ultimately denied the application out of prejudice against Muslims.
State Rep. David Hillman of Almyra announced his switch to the Republican Party on Tuesday weeks after being re-elected to his third term as a Democrat, solidifying the GOP's "supermajority" control of Arkansas' lower house.
Don't look for apologies from the North Dakota sheriff leading the response to the Dakota Access oil pipeline protests, especially for the recent — and, in some circles, controversial — action against demonstrators who he believes have become increasingly aggressive.
In Maine, where Gov. Paul R. LePage backed Donald J. Trump’s campaign for the presidency, some political observers are wondering if the state will soon see results from that. Might Mr. Trump lend his support, for instance, to reversing a recent federal parkland designation that Mr. LePage strongly opposed?
Federal education officials are pleading with school districts, including some in Georgia, to stop using corporal punishment as a means of student discipline.
The state's health commissioner announced Monday that the opioid addiction crisis is an official public health emergency in Virginia and created a standing order that anyone can obtain a rescue drug at pharmacies to treat overdoses.
Republican Gov. Pat McCrory requested a recount Tuesday in his race with Democrat Roy Cooper, and a federal lawsuit was filed Monday asking the courts to issue a restraining order against more than 90,000 ballots cast across North Carolina.
Less than a third of government workers feel connected to their jobs. Improving that statistic should be a top priority.
A Texas judge blocked President Barack Obama's bid to expand overtime pay protections to millions of Americans on Tuesday, thwarting a key presidential priority just days before it was to take effect.
After a Baton Rouge Police officer shot and killed Alton Sterling in July, hundreds took to the city's streets in protest. Now, City Hall will pay out a few hundred dollars apiece to more than 90 protesters, including Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson, who sued the city after their arrests.
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as his pick for United Nations ambassador, according to media reports early Wednesday.
Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday vetoed a bill that would have put statewide restrictions on when police departments can release the names of officers involved in shootings or other uses of force that cause injury.
Incomes are rising nationwide -- but at a slower rate in rural America.
Los Angeles is spending billions to revamp its airport. The move is spurring other cities to make similar investments.
And it's getting one, in part thanks to the nation's largest public-private partnership.
The decline of the mining industry started long before the Obama administration and will likely continue even with Trump in the White House. That's why local leaders are starting to diversify their economies and prepare their people for an uncertain future.
Their resignations, once rare, have seemingly become a frequent occurrence.
With the state's law in limbo and so many players at the table -- employers, unions, insurers, attorneys and lawmakers -- it will be hard to reach an agreement.
Paul LePage’s abrupt decision left lawmakers and public health workers with unanswered questions as they struggle to battle a drug epidemic.
In the latest chapter of his feud with the state’s attorney general, Edwards is taking on the oil and gas industry -- but with some controversial allies.
Nashville will continue to allow police officers in Davidson County to give civil citations for the possession of small amounts of marijuana despite a new opinion from Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery that contends the local ordinance preempts state law.
Two Indiana Appeals Court judges took issue with key arguments made by the Pence administration Monday, as it tries to keep an email sent to Gov. Mike Pence secret.
A federal judge under fire for reportedly telling newly sworn-in U.S. citizens last week that Donald Trump is "your president, and if you don't like that, you need to go to another country," was suspended Monday from overseeing further citizenship ceremonies.
A panel of federal judges on Monday ruled that Wisconsin's 2011 legislative redistricting plan, created by Republican leaders virtually in secret, is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a defiant challenge Monday to President-elect Donald Trump from the stage of the historic Cooper Union in Manhattan, saying New York City would not comply with federal policies that threaten its residents' rights.
When Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach met with President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday, he was carrying a copy of a plan for the Department of Homeland Security.
The city’s new open data website breaks down how sustainability is defined -- and how it’s being achieved.
The idea that needle exchanges encourage illegal drug use is fading just as rapidly as the programs are expanding.
Whoever wins this month faces the tough job of uniting and rebuilding a community that’s still hurting from deadly police shootings and floods.
Budget cutbacks are forcing many of them to find more sustainable funding models. See how your state's parks are funded.
San Francisco has built some of the most beautiful and colorful stairs.
Financial statements can make the best case for public works investors.
The state is on track to enacting first-in-the-nation rules about how banks respond to cyberattacks. Some say they're misguided.
They often fall under the radar, but compacts are becoming a top tool for managing interstate issues.
There’s a dispute about whether the movement toward city living is real. But this either/or battle is a distraction.
On Portland’s newest bridge, there’s just one rule: no cars allowed. Other cities may follow the progressive city’s lead.
The president-elect and his Republican Congress will surely change health care -- but first, they have to decide how.
Cities and states have very different ideas for fixing decrepit urban highways.
Faced with a rising death toll from opioid abuse, Texas public health officials in May decided to apply for a $1 million federal grant to purchase Naloxone, a drug that, if administered during an overdose, can save the life of a person addicted to heroin or pain pills.
The State Board of Elections on Sunday rejected a request from Gov. Pat McCrory’s campaign to take over election protest reviews, instead setting a 10 a.m. Tuesday meeting to set guidelines for counties to address the complaints.
Six states lacked the legal right to challenge a California law that prohibits the sale off eggs from chickens that are not raised in accordance with strict space requirements, a federal appeals court said Thursday.
In light of ongoing Dakota Access Pipeline protest activities and increased demand on law enforcement, lawmakers broke tradition Thursday by canceling the traditional State of the Judiciary Address and Tribal-State Relationship message held during the first week of the upcoming legislative session.
Nearly 100,000 Oregonians who otherwise may not have voted cast ballots in the Nov. 8 election after registering to vote in the state’s new automatic voter registration program, Democratic Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins said.
A man being sought as a suspect in the shooting of a St. Louis police officer Sunday night was shot and killed in a shootout with police early Monday.
As delays and safety issues continue on privatized transit systems, that arrangement is getting new scrutiny.
Even if there’s a retail health clinic less than a 10-minute drive away, consumers are just as likely to go to the emergency department for low-level problems like bronchitis or urinary tract infections, a recent study found.
Mayor Bill de Blasio emerged from Trump Tower to a sea of reporters and cable-news cameras.
Ohio can impose its commercial activity tax on out-of-state businesses lacking a bricks-and-mortar presence in the state, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled today.
Maryland's chief tax collector said Wednesday that his office accidentally misdirected $21.4 million of local income tax payments for years, a mistake that affects nearly every municipality in the state.
A St. Louis County couple who divorced after having embryos frozen and stored nine years ago will maintain joint custody but neither can use them without the other's consent, the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.
S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley met Thursday with President-elect Donald Trump in New York, but details of the meeting were scarce.
Fall injuries among older adults cost Medicare almost as much as cancer treatment last year.
Planning that doesn't account for technology's exponential impact will be off the mark.
Public administration schools' research doesn't have to be irrelevant. Business schools provide a model.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
A state Supreme Court ruling will require refunds to elected officials and public-safety officers who since 2011 were required to pay more for their pensions, with local governments likely to cover the projected $220 million cost to an already fragile public-pension trust fund.
Homelessness in the U.S. declined over the past year. Even so, there were large increases in several cities, including Los Angeles and Seattle.
