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The city government is indicating in may be time to retire Mayor Michael Nutter's 2014 executive order that has barred city police and prison officials from cooperating with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
In 2014, 13 percent of health care systems in the United States offered plans that covered 18 million members, or about 8 percent of all people with insurance. Most of the people covered by provider-led plans are in Medicaid managed care or Medicare Advantage plans.
Maine Attorney General Janet Mills has filed a civil complaint against a Lisbon man for allegedly violating the Maine Civil Rights Act during a protest at Planned Parenthood's Portland offices.
After Michael Middleton founded the Legion of Black Collegians, he personally delivered a list of race-related demands to the University of Missouri chancellor in 1969.
Trying to close a stadium deal with local governments, David Beckham this week greeted the man who would be his landlord: Miami-Dade School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.
To help cover Illinois' unpaid bills in the midst of a budget stalemate, Gov. Bruce Rauner is turning to an obscure state agency usually occupied with arranging loans to farms, towns and hospitals.
President Barack Obama has signed an executive order to create a second emergency board to investigate the dispute between New Jersey Transit and its labor unions.
In California, some gun smugglers use FedEx. In Chicago, smugglers drive just across the state line into Indiana, buy a gun and drive back. In Orlando, Fla., smugglers have been known to fill a $500 car with guns and send it on a ship to crime rings in Puerto Rico.
Sales for most tickets, including instant games and Powerball, declined about $21 million — with October sales at roughly $215 million compared to September's approximately $236 million.
To address the underlying issues that led to the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., local leaders are expanding the traditional role of public health departments.
Gov. Bruce Rauner ends the tax break for firms that add jobs in one place, but cut them elsewhere.
Two registered sex offenders are suing California, saying the state's online sex offender registry prompted vigilantes to attack them.
Bill Walker will get rid of the office's director and one associate director.
Jim Kenney announced Wednesday that First Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross is his choice to run the department.
Daily fantasy sports sites have been operating on shaky legal ground in about a dozen states.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
Airbnb has been defiant and defensive in its dealings with cities like San Francisco that want to restrain vacation rentals in homes. It has organized hosts to lobby for looser laws, unleashed attack campaigns against opponents and indulged in scare tactics and snark in its advertising.
Low-wage state workers -- from lifeguards to groundskeepers, cleaning staff to office assistants -- are getting a raise.
For decades, but increasingly in recent years, state lawmakers have been pushing for a convention to add amendments to the U.S. Constitution, only to run into opposition from groups warning that such a meeting could devolve into the wholesale rewriting of the nation's charter.
The state hasn't declared victory in the war against veteran homelessness, but officials say they have won a key battle.
After a rough and highly personal debate in the Louisiana governor’s race on Tuesday night, all eyes in the Senate are on David Vitter.
Smoking would be prohibited in public housing homes nationwide under a proposed federal rule to be announced on Thursday, a move that would affect nearly one million households and open the latest front in the long-running campaign to curb unwanted exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.
Oregonians have volunteered for the state’s experiment with a road usage tax, which could replace the per-gallon gas tax someday.
With voters almost perfectly segmented _ roughly a third Republican, a third Democratic and a third unaffiliated _ neither party starts with any real advantage in Colorado, reflecting a presidential contest more wide open than any since the 2000 election ended in a near-tie.
the debate in Washington may have devolved into a typical Beltway scrum about giving the president what he wants or asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop him. But in places such as the state capitol in Providence, R.I., and Olympia, Wash., and Sacramento, Calif., state officials already are deploying strategies that could slow some of the impact of climate change.
Nashville's former mayor led his city as a single, networked entity. His approach is paying off.
One of Gov. Bill Walker's deputy chiefs of staff, Marcia Davis, was secretary, Your Future Alaska, that spent $50,000 on Walker's behalf without directly coordinating with his campaign. Last week the Alaska Public Offices Commission, filed a formal complaint, alleging the group hid the identities of Walker's supporters and failed to file required reports on time.
Nonprofits have discovered a hidden cost in preventative social programs that's keeping many from even trying to start one.
The state attorney general, Kathleen Kane ,was held for trial on the felony count after a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Cathleen Kelly Rebar.
Automatic and online voter registration have proven to increase voter rolls and save money, yet many states are still using paper.
Cancer patients insured by California’s health plan for low-income people are less likely to get recommended treatment and also have lower survival rates than patients with other types of insurance, according to a new study by University of California-Davis researchers.
Bill Wilson can't stand the smell of marijuana. He said he's anti-drug and anti-alcohol, yet there he was Monday, buying medical cannabis on the first day it was authorized by Illinois law.
New York's attorney general ordered popular daily fantasy sports companies DraftKings and FanDuel Tuesday to stop accepting bets in the state, saying their operations amount to illegal gambling.
Colorado voters will decide next year whether this state should be the first to pay for comprehensive health care for residents.
Arizona lawmakers who hoped to build miles of fencing along the border with Mexico using private money are pulling the plug on the project after nearly five years.
The Obama administration said Tuesday it will ask the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling and to back White House efforts to shield more than 4 million immigrants from deportation.
The count ruled Friday that the Bureau of Motor Vehicle's process of reviewing and approving personalized license plates does not violate the Constitution because license plates are a form of government speech -- one that is controlled by the state, not a private citizen's speech protected by the First Amendment.
Gov. Tom Wolf and Republican legislators indicated Monday that they had reached a tentative agreement on key pieces of the state's long-overdue spending plan.
California corrections officials proposed a new one-drug execution protocol Friday in an effort to conform to a judge's order nearly a decade ago that ruled the state's three-drug lethal injection method unconstitutional, but experts say it doesn't mean the resumption of capital punishment any time soon.
After a remarkable and swift revolt by students and faculty centered largely on matters of race, the leaders of the University Missouri System and its flagship campus both stepped down from their jobs within hours of each other on Monday.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, under fire from Democrats and their allies for cuts to popular social service programs, moved to lift those political pressure points Monday from a broader effort to win his pro-business, union-weakening legislative agenda.
Gov. Christie on Monday vetoed legislation that was intended to stabilize Atlantic City's finances, declaring that it failed "to recognize the true path to economic revitalization and fiscal stability."
Gov. Christie on Monday vetoed legislation that would have brought sweeping changes to the state's voting laws, panning the bill as "thinly veiled political gamesmanship."
A federal appeals court dealt a severe and possibly fatal blow Monday to President Barack Obama's executive actions to allow up to 5 million immigrants living illegally in the United States to stay and obtain work permits.
The percent of American households with children has slowly declined over the past decade.
The Kentucky governor's race is just the latest example of how election polls have become less accurate, more expensive and harder to gauge public opinion.
Dixon cops fast-track a user into treatment if he or she comes to them asking for help. The idea is quickly catching on among departments in the Chicago area.
Critics point out that the Ohio governor's proposals would do nothing to pollution.
In all, 11 states received failing grades of F in a study of state ethics and transparency laws by the Center for Public Integrity and Global Integrity.
Three after George W. Bush restricted the use of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, California started its own multi-billion dollar stem cell program. Today at least seven states offer stem cell research funding or other incentives to local scientists and industry.
These nine outstanding state and local government leaders have taken decisive action to address some of the toughest, most entrenched problems in the country.
Over the past 30 years, there have only been a handful of elections where a governor made a difference in a caucus or primary outcome.
After days of speculation, a Michigan insurer -- a one-of-a-kind entity in Michigan created under federal health reform -- is pulling its business from the state's online marketplace.
State employees can no longer direct a portion of their paychecks to Planned Parenthood or the Clinton Foundation, after a state panel decided to remove the groups from the state's charitable giving program.
To avoid confusion and uncertainty, the state’s 2016 elections for Congress and the Texas House will proceed under the current political maps, a three-judge federal panel in San Antonio said late Friday.
Hamtramck residents have elected a Muslim majority to the city's six-member city council, symbolizing the demographic changes that have transformed the city once known for being a Polish Catholic enclave.
Confronting the consequences of high-priced drugs, the Obama administration Thursday pointedly reminded states that they cannot legally restrict access by low-income people to revolutionary cures for liver-wasting hepatitis C infection.
As Republicans across the country mount an aggressive effort to tighten voting laws, a group of former aides to President Obama and President Bill Clinton is pledging to counter by spending up to $10 million on a push to make voter registration automatic whenever someone gets a driver’s license.
How do you handle the insults that come with public life? Techniques can help, but the best leaders draw on something deeper.
Facing a health-care crisis on top of financial troubles, Puerto Rico is getting help from the mainland. But why would New York come to Puerto Rico's rescue?
Many colleges might have to go to court because of gun prohibitions of certain classes.
Governors in New York, Georgia and Tennessee have all announced plans to combat high rates of obesity among their citizens, in order to save taxpayers money. Nationwide, a third of all adults, 78 million of them, are obese,
About 85,000 people, from 11,000 small businesses, have coverage through the online marketplace known as the Small Business Health Options Program, or SHOP. That’s less than 1 percent of people with coverage in the U.S.
The Denver police union said in a news release it does not oppose officers wearing body cameras. But the union said the policy that was put in place is ill-conceived, and the union's lawsuit questions multiple aspects of the program, including how it will affect officers' workloads when wearing them on off-duty security jobs.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman subpoenaed documents from the oil giant as part of a probe aimed at determining whether the company failed to disclose the business risks of climate change to investors as well as the public.
Three cities, one county and a state have suspended laws that hamper their ability to address homelessness. But why now and what does it mean?
After three weeks and mounds of draft maps, Florida legislators ended another special session on redistricting Thursday without a resolution, leaving 40 Senate districts in limbo for the 2016 election and renewing calls for an independent commission to handle the drawing of political boundaries.
Paul J. Wiedefeld, the former veteran chief executive of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, was picked Thursday to head the struggling Washington Metro system, officials said.
CalSTRS has taken the first big step toward reducing risk in its portfolio by adopting a "risk mitigation strategy" that will devote a portion of its assets to safer investments.
As Republicans look to winnow down a crowded field of presidential hopefuls, next Tuesday's fourth televised debate will offer a shake-up in what's become a topsy-turvy primary season.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's attempt to endorse Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign quickly devolved into an embarrassment for the mayor Thursday afternoon.
Congress is on the verge of doing something it hasn’t done in a decade—passing a long-term transportation bill that authorizes billions of dollars in funding to build and repair roads and bridges.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
Unrealistic assumptions about investment returns make it all too easy to fall into a hole like the one Chicago is in.
People without a 401(k) or other plan at work now have a free savings option with a modest guaranteed return.
The legal controversy is the latest clash between federal law, which still lists marijuana as a dangerous illegal drug, and the movement in some states to allow its use for medical and sometimes recreational purposes.
A pair of ethics complaints that a liberal advocacy group filed against Gov. Pat McCrory earlier this year have been dismissed.
Republican lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker Tuesday are advancing separate new proposals to put new controls on public benefits, just weeks after federal officials said that some of Wisconsin's other recent changes in the food stamp program are out of compliance with federal rules.
Michigan motorists would typically pay about $20 more for their vehicle registration fees and spend about $1.17 more for a 15-gallon fill-up under fee and tax increases passed by the Michigan Senate and House of Representatives Tuesday, as part of a $1.2-billion road-funding plan.
Federal regulators have placed a hold on a $71 million charter-school grant awarded to Ohio in September in response to concerns about the state Department of Education's rigging of charter-school evaluations.
If Texas sheriffs do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities, they will face losing state grant money, Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday.
Law enforcement officers accused of sexual misconduct have jumped from job to job — and at times faced fresh allegations that include raping women — because of a tattered network of laws and lax screening that allowed them to stay on the beat.
From a string of public suicides in Alaska to assimilation anxiety among young Hispanics in Cleveland, states are faced with the need for more bilingual and culturally sensitive mental health care professionals
Zoo and city officials are adamant that the zoo qualifies as an "amusement park" and an "educational institution" _ status that would make the "no guns" signs legal. Though the zoo is run by a private nonprofit, it's owned by the city of Dallas.
The new speaker of the House has spent nearly half his life as a professional in Washington, though he goes to great pains to distance himself from the city.
Tuition prices are influenced by far more than just state funding. View and compare differences for each state.
Social conservatives hailed the rejection of a gay rights measure in Houston. But progressives were able to claim victory elsewhere.
Most incumbents won re-election, while several cities elected their first female or openly gay mayors.
Republicans took the night’s biggest prize, but Democrats also notched some victories.
The Republican businessman will succeed term-limited Democrat Steve Beshear, weakening the Democrats' power in one of the last Southern states where they still have some.
Many Texas Republicans still consider the Affordable Care Act to be political kryptonite, but at the local level policymakers are coming around.
The Pike Place Market's gum wall is cleaned "every other month" with a steamer, but this will be the first time all the gum is removed from the original wall.
As cities turn over library management to private companies, readers see the public trust erode.
States often fail to finish their annual reports in time for them to even matter. Some have found ways to speed up the process.
Gov. Christie returned to Camden on Monday to praise the efforts of the county police force, pledging to stand with law enforcement while pushing his campaign-trail accusations that President Obama -- who was in New Jersey to address criminal justice reform -- has failed to support police.
Two weeks ago, the School Reform Commission warned that without a state budget it would be forced to borrow hundreds of millions just to keep schools open through the end of December.
Illinois' largest high school district violated federal law by barring a transgender student from using the girls' locker room, authorities declared Monday.
A threat by Anonymous to unmask at least 1,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan might have come to fruition Sunday when the names of notable politicians, supposedly affiliated with the hate group, started coming to light.
The Genesee River flows through Letchworth State Park, forming a luminous ribbon at the bottom of 600-foot cliffs of shale and sandstone, and earning the park the nickname “Grand Canyon of the East.”
Gov. Doug Ducey signed a trio of bills Friday that would settle a K-12 funding dispute, if the voters agree, and clear the path for other education initiatives.
Twenty-one states have passed laws that allow parents or guardians to freeze their child’s credit record.
Juvenile justice experts have long been concerned about school leaders calling police for minor infractions that are then dealt with in the criminal justice system.
As California and the American West grasp for water amid a lingering drought, providers such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power have resisted releasing the names of the top residential users. But that's not the case in Nevada.
In separate federal courthouses in Lower Manhattan this month, two of the most powerful men in New York are about to go on trial, an extraordinary spectacle centering on allegations of corruption, bribery and nepotism in the state’s highest chambers of political power.
Clearly frustrated by the state's inaction to remedy what he deemed an unconstitutional civil commitment program for sex offenders, a federal judge Thursday ordered Minnesota officials to make specific, immediate changes.
Long-awaited reforms designed to improve the performance, accountability and transparency of charter schools were signed into law this morning by Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Deborah L. Pierce, an emergency room doctor in Philadelphia, was optimistic when she brought a sex discrimination claim against the medical group that had dismissed her.
On fishing piers in Maine, inside public libraries in rural Iowa and at insurer-run retail stores in Minnesota, the hunt for uninsured Americans will reignite Sunday when Obamacare’s third open enrollment season starts.
Impasses over spending do more than confirm the public's worst impressions of government. They make effective governing next to impossible.
Recipients of Massachusetts' film credits are selling them off to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That's a box-office bomb for taxpayers.
Compare consumer spending for different types of expenses.
Co-ops were created to keep the cost of insurance down on Obamacare marketplaces. Now half of them are going out of business.
View current and historical data assessing employment in each state.
Voters approved a way to increase transportation funding without raising taxes or tolls. But some say it's a bad approach.
Facing mounting criticism for mixing politics and the World Series, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo canceled plans Wednesday night to hold a $5,500 per person fundraiser during two games this weekend at Citi Field when the New York Mets return to Queens for the start of their home stand.
Alabama must restore Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood clinics because Republican Gov. Robert Bentley illegally terminated the contract after watching an undercover video by anti-abortion activists on fetal tissue procurement that had nothing to do with clinics in that state, a federal judge ruled.
One of the provisions slipped into the sweeping 2014 law that vastly expanded where Georgians can legally carry firearms was a change that was never sought by school districts.
A day after his appearance in the third GOP presidential debate in Colorado, Gov. Christie took a break from the campaign trail Thursday to mark the third anniversary of Hurricane Sandy on his home turf.
New York state will require physicians to complete an educational course before they can authorize medical marijuana for patients — an unusual mandate not applied to other new drugs or seen in other states with medical marijuana programs.
When cities try to tax people who work in one place and live in another, things get really complicated really fast.
Over the last decade, many have stopped funding it. Are the roads more dangerous?
Oregon has long had more women in top political positions than practically any other state. There may be several reasons why.
They almost always fail to foresee a recession before it happens. But there are ways they can improve their insights.
Affordable, family-sized housing is out of reach in some cities.
Instead of going into taxpayers' wallets, the revenue the state generated from legalizing pot will go to schools and substance abuse programs.
Portland, Ore., is home to one of only two aerial commuter trams in the United States.
Meditation can improve inmates’ mental health better than traditional care, which is why it’s being reintroduced in some prisons.
There are reasons to believe America is at a turning point for changing the cars that cops and other public employees drive.
Obama called on Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey, among others, to change the future of law enforcement. Will his unorthodox ideas make a difference or just alienate his fellow officers?
In an attempt to cut costs and improve care, some states are merging coverage for patients who qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare. It’s a bold experiment that’s off to a rocky start.
Several states have decided the way to juice up economic development is to turn it over to a corporation outside the government bureaucracy. Is it working?
In many urban centers, families are finding themselves priced out of the market for housing large enough to accommodate them. Some cities are trying to fix the problem, but it’s not easy.
When Americans move, they generally stay within one region. But some of the most populated counties are attracting higher rates of new residents from far away.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
As rights for transgender people are debated across the country, a surprising amount of attention is on where they can go to the bathroom.
A recent audit finds California’s efforts are woefully inadequate. And that’s the good news.
It's risky and wrenching, but nothing is more important for the future of service delivery.
The Obama administration has warned state officials that pushing Planned Parenthood out of the state’s Medicaid program could put Texas at odds with federal law.
More than a year after a botched 2014 execution, the Arizona Department of Corrections has issued new guidelines that eliminate a controversial drug combination from the lethal-injection protocol, allow witnesses to see the preparation leading up to an execution, and give defense attorneys access to a cellphone in case of an emergency.
A new plan from Gov. Bill Walker's administration to broadly restructure Alaska's finances would convert the Permanent Fund into an endowment-like fund that absorbs oil income and generates billions of dollars in annual revenue for the state's treasury, Attorney General Craig Richards announced Wednesday.
The Chicago City Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved Mayor Rahm Emanuel's 2016 budget that will hit Chicagoans with more than $755 million in tax and fee increases.
In 1991, amid the AIDS crisis in San Francisco, a former jazz and blues singer named Lynnette Shaw was hired as the intake officer at the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, California's first medical marijuana dispensary.
Count this as one campaign promise that was kept: John Kasich aggressively took on his fellow Republicans in Wednesday night's GOP presidential debate.
The state’s successful civil service reforms offer lessons for other governments.
Specialized courts that focus on business disputes have been established in at least 27 states.
Paul LePage will, however, continue to block the issuance of $11.5 million in voter-approved conservation bonds until the Legislature approves his proposal to use proceeds from timber harvesting on state-owned lands to fund a heating system conversion program for poor people in the state.
Gov. Greg Abbott criticized Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez in the wake of reports that she planned to free some immigrants processed through the Dallas County jail rather than hand them over to federal authorities.
Many conservatives have long favored supply-side economics. But a new report suggests there is no evidence that income tax cuts lead to economic growth.
