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Many back-to-school shoppers used to be able to count on sales tax holidays at this time of year. But more states are disappointing them by rejecting or cutting back on the small tax breaks, as they seek more and steadier revenue to keep budgets balanced.
The federal judge who will preside over one of the trials challenging House Bill 2 issued a ruling on Friday that blocks the University of North California system from enforcing the bathroom portion of the controversial law for three transgender residents who have challenged it.
For the nearly two out of three American citizens who live in cities, life could be about to improve – or at least get a little easier for their mayors.
Millions of workers struggle to save for retirement in part because it isn’t easy enough to open an account or to have the money automatically deducted from their paychecks. But they could soon find themselves with more options.
Because the incentives for academic research are misaligned, it has little impact on the real world of public administration and policy.
It's a major expansion from a Feb. 16 advisory that limited such screening to areas with active Zika virus transmission.
Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden said Thursday about half the people who took on water lived in areas where residents aren't required by lenders to buy flood insurance. Many places experienced flooding that never had before.
Environmental rights groups are focusing efforts on a legal challenge to the Dakota Access Pipeline, a partially constructed oil line that has drawn thousands of Native American protesters to North Dakota in recent days.
When state lawmakers passed a new drunken driving law for people under the drinking age, they didn't realize that the change would make Tennessee the only state to run afoul of federal zero-tolerance standards.
The first handful of states have released approved 2017 rates for people who buy health insurance on their own and the results so far are consistent with what many expected: There are significant increases in premiums for next year.
The state will construct a $137.2-million overpass that will route car and truck traffic above the country's second-busiest passenger rail corridor.
The state was holding a record-setting $1 billion general treasury cash surplus when it closed the books on last fiscal year, an extraordinary sum that likely will alter the course of contract negotiations as the state and counties begin a new round of bargaining with Hawaii's public worker unions.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe will announce the shortfall – a projected $1.5 billion gap over the state's next two-year budget – to the General Assembly on Friday.
It would be the first state to adopt such a plan.
New data on displaced workers shows that those in the South have had the hardest time finding new jobs.
A Q&A with Umair Shah, director of one of the nation's biggest public health departments.
In a time of rapid change, being ready to fail early and get past it is essential.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
The state will bring in mobile home units to help house flood victims. But officials emphasized the dwellings are different from the much-maligned "FEMA travel trailers."
Falling tax revenues have left a $654 million hole in the state budget, and New Mexico lawmakers learned Wednesday that the reserve fund for day-to-day government operations is completely drained.
Buffeted for years by financial crises, mass school closings and a teachers strike, Chicago Public Schools' new spending plan again relies on borrowing and a financial windfall from a gridlocked state government coming to fruition.
Home visits from physicians sound antiquated. But new analysis suggests the practice could save states more than $1,000 per patient each year.
Maine's congressional representatives vowed to implement the new monument despite their opposition to it. But Gov. Paul LePage called the president's move a "unilateral action against the will" of "the citizens of rural Maine."
Tennessee's insurance regulator made her remarks after signing off on hefty premium hikes in an extraordinary bid to keep the program afloat.
The governor called the twin measures "a real commitment backed up by real power."
Since January, the police have quietly been working with a private company providing surveillance video shot from a plane high above the city.
The most important election news and political dynamics at the state and local levels.
Financial timeliness is a problem that's 'widespread and pervasive,' the SEC said.
Unlike Detroit or Stockton, this California city’s insolvency can’t be blamed on debt or pensions.
A town in Utah that was competing to serve as the home of a new Facebook data center announced Tuesday it is withdrawing from negotiations with a subsidiary of the tech firm, leaving Los Lunas as the last known candidate for the site.
Philadelphia's ban on non-commercial advertisements at the city's airport, sparked by a rejected billboard calling for prison reform, is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled in a decision published Tuesday.
Just under 400 people will be infected with the Zika virus by mosquitoes in Florida by mid-September, and about 80 of them will develop symptoms, according to projections developed by an international team of scientists from the University of Florida and half a dozen other research institutions.
Mayor Ed Murray has hired Seattle's first-ever cabinet-level director of homelessness, he said Tuesday.
About once a week for much of 2015, Kamia Edwards’ son was too sick to go to school.
Ramping up its fight over the rights of transgender people, Texas filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the federal government over a regulation prohibiting discrimination against transgender individuals in some health programs.
The feds are moving away from them, but states and localities still rely on them. That puts the larger issue of privatization back in the spotlight.
Individual orders have gone out re-restoring voting rights for some 13,000 former felons in Virginia, Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced Monday.
On his third visit to Miami since the nation's first outbreak of Zika, Gov. Rick Scott on Monday once again asked Washington for more help fighting the infectious disease -- even as he fended off accusations that he's not disclosing new cases quickly enough.
While a new state law requires children to be vaccinated to attend public or private school, thousands of California students are filing into classrooms this month without the required immunizations.
More than 4,000 items in alcohol-related cases across the state were analyzed incorrectly by Michigan State Police's Forensic Science Division, officials said today.
Body camera footage of a fatal police shooting that sparked unrest in Milwaukee's Sherman Park neighborhood will not be released until the Milwaukee County district attorney makes a charging decision, Attorney General Brad Schimel said Monday.
Monday was the end of the line for a landmark California case challenging tenure and other traditional job protections for teachers -- and the teachers won.
Gov. Bruce Rauner on Friday used his amendatory veto power to rewrite a bill that would have ended the state's growing practice of suing prison inmates to recover the costs of their incarceration -- effectively killing the legislation, according to the bill's two sponsors.
Ohio officials do not intend to follow the lead of the federal government in abandoning private prison operations.
Politicians and voting rights advocates continue to clash over whether photo ID and other voting requirements are needed to prevent voter fraud, but a News21 analysis and recent court rulings show little evidence that such fraud is widespread.
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Obama administration's instructions for public schools to accommodate transgender students, siding late Sunday with Texas and a dozen other states that challenged the contentious guidelines for bathrooms and other facilities.
Holding a defendant in jail simply because they can’t afford a fixed bail amount is unconstitutional, the Justice Department said in a brief it filed Thursday in a Georgia lawsuit.
The proposals could reshape several large U.S. cities for decades to come -- if they pass.
North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple issued an emergency declaration for southwest and south central North Dakota in response to protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline near Cannon Ball.
Utah, a state where even regular beer is considered too intoxicating, has made possession of heroin or cocaine a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
After nearly a decade as Baltimore's top lawyer, City Solicitor George A. Nilson will no longer lead the city law department, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced Friday.
With Miami-Beach now listed as a local source of the Zika virus, federal officials are advising pregnant women and their partners who are concerned about the virus to avoid non-essential travel to anywhere in Miami-Dade County.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, on CNN Sunday morning, praised GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump for coming to see the massive flooding damage in the state first-hand.
Food-stamp enrollment in the U.S. is declining from record levels, in part because some states are ending benefits earlier than they have to.
Georgia enjoys its image as the Empire State of the South, a leader among its Deep South neighbors, the first to have an Olympic city and the first to send a native son to the White House.
For Chirlane McCray, New York City’s first lady, mental illness is not an abstract concern.
Few of the best- and worst-performing states were in the same position just three years ago.
A judge has ruled against Detroit Public Schools in its lawsuit against two teachers involved in teacher sick-outs, saying the district failed to meet its burden and interpreted a state law in a way that is "offensive to fundamental rights of free speech."
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on Thursday nominated a former top state prosecutor to serve as attorney general and replace the convicted Kathleen Kane, in a move that would end the fleeting tenure of Bruce L. Castor Jr.
Governor Christie on Thursday vetoed a pair of bills that sponsors said would make it easier to register to vote — for years a Democratic mission that has been rejected by the Republican governor over and over again.
Parents and children crowded into the cafeteria at Eneida M. Hartner Elementary School on Thursday afternoon to get new school uniforms -- ones with long pants and long-sleeved shirts intended to protect against the spread of Zika.
A U.S. judge in San Francisco on Thursday rejected a proposed $100 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit by Uber drivers who had sought employee status.
A federal judge on Thursday threw out key parts of an abortion law that would have blocked all state funding to clinics such as Planned Parenthood and required the inspection of as many as 35,000 women's health records.
Gov. Mark Dayton voluntarily released his tax returns Thursday, showing he earned $385,000 in 2015.
In the aftermath of the recent shooting death of a Hatch police officer, Gov. Susana Martinez said Wednesday she will push during next year's 60-day legislative session to reinstate New Mexico's death penalty -- at the least for child-killers and those convicted of murdering law enforcement officers.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
They joined the growing number of states that regulate the industry that critics say traps poor people in a cycle of debt.
They don't have to produce fiscal uncertainty. States are finding ways to bring these important economic development tools under prudent controls.
Fights over payments and charges for rooftop solar are getting a lot of attention, but the underlying issue is deeper and broader.
A state appeals court has struck down a plastic bag ban in Laredo in a high-profile fight over local control that could ultimately impact similar laws in other Texas cities.
By the time Chris Christie became governor of New Jersey, the state’s auditors and lawyers had been battling for several years to collect long-overdue taxes owed by the casinos founded by his friend Donald J. Trump.
In their first debate of the election season, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and GOP challenger Bill Bryant Wednesday offered vastly different views of Washington state and its progress during the past four years.
Gov. John Bel Edwards doesn't expect to call the Louisiana Legislature into another special session to address the costs associated with flooding that has hit south Louisiana, he said this week.
Aetna's announcement this week that it was pulling out of most of the states where it was serving the Obamacare individual exchanges was a head-scratcher; after all, just three months earlier, Chief Executive Mark Bertolini was calling its participation in the market "a good investment," despite near-term losses.
Patricia Michelsen-King was observing the proceedings in a Chesterfield, Virginia, courtroom a few years ago when a man shouted in Spanish from the back of the courtroom, “I didn’t rape anybody!”
Governor Christie signed into law on Tuesday a measure that prohibits state investments in any company that boycotts Israel.
The most important election news and political dynamics at the state and local levels.
While slightly more young Americans got jobs this summer, they're not working nearly as often as they used to.
A lot of obstacles need to be overcome to bring the power of data and analytics to government, but it's doable.
The latest state-by-state predictions show Hillary Clinton well-positioned to win in November.
Officials don't know why the disease is disproportionately impacting gay men in big cities. They're getting the CDC involved to find out.
Going online for public information isn't as easy as it should be.
Republican candidate for governor Ted Gatsas said ending the opioid epidemic is a balance between getting help to those who need it while cracking down harder on those responsible for deadly drugs becoming more available and affordable in New Hampshire.
A year after the prosecution of former Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Officer Wes Kerrick ended in a mistrial, the case continues to cast a shadow over North Carolina’s gubernatorial race.
In a potential legal breakthrough for medical marijuana, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department cannot prosecute anyone who grows, supplies or uses the drug for medical purposes under state law because Congress has barred federal intervention.
In less than a day after igniting, a Southern California wildfire, burning uncontrollably, has engulfed 18,000 acres.
Police do not have to give a Miranda warning to suspected drunk drivers before they take a breathalyzer test, the state’s highest court ruled Monday in a decision that left intact a 27-year-old legal precedent.
The Philadelphia School Reform Commission's nearly two-year battle to cancel the city teachers' union contract and impose new work rules to save money was soundly defeated again Monday.
Calling the moment historic and defining, Oklahoma City Council members voted unanimously Tuesday in favor of an agreement that will nearly double the city's water supply.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who was convicted Monday of perjury and other crimes, will resign Wednesday, her once-promising career in state politics felled by a fixation on seeking revenge against enemies that led her to break the law.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced Tuesday that she will resign next month to take over as head of security for the National Football League.
A large insurer on Illinois' Obamacare exchange has decided not to credit former Land of Lincoln members for money they've already paid toward their deductibles despite a request from the state to consider doing so.
A marijuana-legalization activist has dropped his bid to be the Libertarian Party's candidate for Pennsylvania attorney general.
Washington's Republican candidate for governor, Bill Bryant, has finally taken a public stand on the Donald Trump question: He doesn't support the GOP nominee for president.
The air inside the Jefferson Davis Parish jail was hot and musty.
Aetna Inc. announced Monday that it's scaling back its participation in Obamacare by more than two-thirds as it seeks to cut its financial losses.
The state will appeal a federal judge's ruling Friday blocking Ohio lawmakers' attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, which will make Rep. Tim Ginter happy.
Democrats and voting rights advocates cried foul Monday over Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's last-minute veto of a bill that would make voter registration automatic in time for the 2018 election, vowing to push for an override when lawmakers return to the Capitol in late November.
After two nights of violent unrest in which 11 law enforcement officers were injured and a man suffered a life-threatening gunshot injury, Milwaukee braced Monday for a 10 p.m. curfew for teens.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was convicted Monday of perjury, obstruction and other crimes after squandering her once-bright political future on an illegal vendetta against an enemy.
It's bad enough that they're underfunded. Paltry investment returns are likely to make things even worse.
A federal judge Friday blocked Texas from enforcing a state law that limits the availability of interpreters in polling places, ruling that it violates protections guaranteed by the U.S. Voting Rights Act.
More states are rejecting federal funding for evidence-based sex education. That could mean a return of abstinence-only instruction in many schools.
Not long after it became clear that the robust winds that blow down from the Rocky Mountains and across the sea of sagebrush here could produce plenty of profit in a world that wants more renewable energy, some of the more expansive minds in the Wyoming Legislature began entertaining a lofty question:
Lawyers cannot provide legal services to establish, operate, or help someone do business with a medical marijuana business in Ohio, even though the state is about to legalize its use, according to an Ohio Supreme Court board.
The U.S. Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the state of Mississippi over the way it treats the mentally ill.
More than 7,000 people have been rescued, along with hundreds of pets, and three people have died as a result of flooding caused by historic amounts of rain falling on south Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards said Sunday.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker put the National Guard on alert Sunday as Milwaukee grappled with the shooting of a 23-year-old black man by a police officer, an event that prompted fiery riots and gave rise to soul-searching among residents in one of the nation's most segregated cities, even as details of the man's death remained murky.
The federal state of emergency in Flint, Mich. expires today, as the city continues to navigate a public health crisis caused by lead-laced water.
Colorado's robust system for tracking the drug and its effects provides a glimpse of a better system of controls.
To entice the talented, dedicated workers the public sector needs, there's no substitute for brand-building.
Advocates around the country are weighing in on ballot measures that would drastically change South Dakota's elections, weaken the state’s Republican Party and send a message all over.
The number of laptops, tablet computers and other devices in Vermont schools has exploded in the last several years, according to a new Agency of Education technology survey.
The mayor of Rosemont has been cleared to get a 53 percent raise to $260,000 next year.
In California, the first state to guarantee paid family leave for all workers since 2004, payroll deductions fund a state-run insurance pool that allows employees to take off up to six weeks at partial income.
Another corner of Miami's Wynwood neighborhood was removed from the Zika hot zone Thursday even as the number of local cases jumped by three.
A needle exchange program in Wilmington could be expanded statewide after Gov. Jack Markell signed legislation Thursday.
Six years after Baltimore established a review team to oversee reforms to sexual assault investigations, the Department of Justice reported evidence of continuing bias and failure to look into cases properly.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
It's the latest government to rewrite the rules for getting out of fiscal distress.
View changes in rental affordability and mortgage affordability for metro areas.
The three Democratic candidates for governor differed over raising taxes and legalizing marijuana, largely in a civil way, during a broadcast debate Wednesday.
<i>The Week in Politics</i>: Longtime Legislators Lose, Politicians Run Into Legal Problems and More
The most important election news and political dynamics at the state and local levels.
More ethics complaints have been lodged in the race to become Missouri's next governor.
A measure to legalize daily fantasy sports was tucked inside a nearly $1 billion economic development bill signed by Gov. Charlie Baker yesterday -- a move the CEO of DraftKings says will let the company add hundreds of jobs.
A Kanawha circuit judge Wednesday evening issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of West Virginia’s new right-to-work law.
A Lewiston-based health insurance co-op is suing the federal government, claiming it is owed $22.9 million to offset losses it suffered in 2015.
With the presidential election only three months away, a federal appeals panel Wednesday blocked a lower court ruling that would have allowed Wisconsin voters without photo IDs to sign an affidavit and cast a ballot.
When fall classes begin later this month, Kennesaw State University will open with a new housing option to help homeless students attending the college.
A former aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie alleged that the governor lied during a 2013 news conference about his senior staff and campaign manager's involvement in the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal, according to a court filing.
Key takeaways from recent surveys about crime's impact on victims.
The experiences of one Virginia county demonstrate how the technology can improve decision-making and help guide smart growth.
For financially distressed municipalities, it’s good to be in a state that intervenes, according to a new study.
Discrimination doesn't always appear in the most obvious places. Many government policies and practices are seemingly unbiased and uncontroversial but actually disproportionately harm minorities.
Missouri's soon-to-be former governor talks about his accomplishments and disappointments, party politics and what's next.
Sports betting fans in New Jersey may have finally run out of luck.
Baltimore police routinely violated the constitutional rights of residents by conducting unlawful stops and using excessive force, according to the findings of a long-anticipated Justice Department probe to be released Wednesday.
Nurses and doctors lobbied the state to help cover the cost of a cocktail of drugs that can protect sexual assault victims from contracting HIV.
The judge overseeing North Carolina's state-level voter ID case opened court Tuesday by reading an unusual four-minute soliloquy into the court record in response to a Raleigh think tank questioning whether he should continue to preside over the trial.
Some 50 citizens made a valiant effort Tuesday to get the State Health Council to turn back rules permitting radioactive waste disposal in North Dakota, but the council held to the approval it gave a year ago at an illegal meeting.
The 2016 race for governor of Vermont will feature Democrat Sue Minter versus Republican Phil Scott. Meanwhile Democrat David Zuckerman will face Republican Randy Brock for lieutenant governor.
A federal judge imposed the same 14-year prison sentence on Rod Blagojevich despite pleas for mercy from the former governor, his wife and two daughters.
The political newcomer who failed to unseat House Speaker Michael Madigan in the March primary filed a federal lawsuit Monday alleging a litany of misdeeds by the powerful Democrat, his political organizations, other candidates in the race and an unrelated state agency.
Portland Public Schools officials knew water from district's sinks was unsafe for drinking, but declined to place explicit warnings on the fixtures as early as 2012 because they worried people might panic.
Suspended Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore will go on trial next month on judicial ethics charges after the Alabama Court of the Judiciary late Monday issued an order that denied Moore's request to dismiss the charges.
A three-term northern Virginia mayor will resign after being arrested on drug charges, reports CBS affiliate WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C.
The state's education commissioner has ordered Kentucky public school superintendents to immediately stop using a form of Aikido training to restrain students.
Responding to the "serious public health threat" of the Zika virus, Medicaid will now pay for over-the-counter mosquito repellents when prescribed by a health professional, the state announced Friday.
Mississippi's capital is showing that you don't have to be a Chicago or a New York to make good things happen.
Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who has not endorsed Donald Trump, is now asking Texas Republicans to support the party's presidential nominee.
