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Declaring that gay unions deserve equal respect and dignity under the law, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry nationwide without regard to their state's laws.
If they finish their sentences and comply with any terms of parole, Texans convicted on felony drug charges soon will be able to receive food stamps, though another strike will put them back under a lifetime ban.
Drought has officially returned to Mecklenburg County and the rest of the state for the first time in at least two years, the State Climate Office at N.C. State University announced Thursday.
Six lawmakers said Thursday they will attempt to launch impeachment proceedings against Republican Gov. Paul LePage for his alleged role in pushing Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves out of a new job at Good Will-Hinckley School.
A law that permitted the National Rifle Association to sue Philadelphia and other municipalities over local gun ordinances that are stricter than state law is unconstitutional, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.
Soon after the Supreme Court salvaged a key part of the nation’s Affordable Care Act on Thursday, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe was rallying the troops in the state capital to expand Medicaid under the law.
A controversial proposal that would make California one of the strictest states in the country in requiring school vaccinations passed a critical vote Thursday, moving the bill one step closer to landing on Gov. Jerry Brown's desk.
Minorities account for the majority of the population in only four states, but that's set to soon change. View updated data for each state.
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the broad reach of a federal law that forbids racial discrimination in housing, ruling the civil rights measure covers more than merely cases of intentional and blatant racial bias.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
Clementa Pinckney was killed in the Charleston church shooting, but his legislative legacies will live on.
The 6-3 decision protects health subsidies for millions of Americans and spurs states to rethink the future of insurance marketplaces.
With fiscal year 2015 coming to a close, more than a dozen states have yet to strike a budget deal.
Metra will likely face fines or other penalties for failing to meet a federally mandated deadline for installation of a high-tech safety system at the end of the year, the nation's top railroad regulator said Wednesday.
Expensive specialty medicines used to treat cancer and chronic illnesses have forced some very ill Americans to choose between getting proper treatment and paying their rent.
The tumultuous debate over the future of healthcare funding for the poor came to a quiet end Tuesday as the governor signed into law a budget that includes $1 billion in federal funds to pay for charity care and raise Medicaid rates at Florida hospitals.
Christine White pays $300 a year more for her health care because she refused to join her former employer’s wellness program, which would have required that she fill out a health questionnaire and join activities like Weight Watchers.
Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday loosened gun restrictions in Wisconsin by signing a pair of bills that would make it quicker to buy guns and easier to carry them.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed a $115.4 billion general fund state budget on Wednesday, using his veto pen to wipe out $1.3 million in program increases sought by the state Legislature.
A Massachusetts law that makes it harder to outsource services is working better than its critics acknowledge.
Recycling used to generate profit. But now no-sort recycling means almost every processing facility in the country is running in the red. More than 2,000 municipalities have to pay to get rid of their recyclables.
Gov. Robert Bentley calls the flag "a major distraction" as the state confronts serious budget problems.
Convicted murder Randall Daluz maintains a website. But once he is sentenced and moved to the Maine State Prison, his writings will challenge a recent policy by the Maine Department of Corrections that has forbidden inmates from publishing their work.
A host of ballot measures and legislative initiatives could push other states closer to decriminalization or legalization before the year is over.
Moving with surprising speed and secrecy, Gov. Rick Scott vetoed $461 million from the state budget Tuesday, enraging fellow Republicans for wiping out their priorities with the stroke of a pen.
An autopsy that ruled Freddie Gray's death a homicide is likely to be a controversial piece of evidence in the criminal case against six police officers who are facing a range of charges.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had been handed three defeats on two political fronts in less than 24 hours, and he wasn’t eager to talk about it.
Saying a proposed ballot measure calling for the killing of gay people is "patently unconstitutional on its face," a Sacramento County judge has ruled that the state attorney general can halt the proposal.
Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change could prevent tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions in economic losses in the United States, according to a new study by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Obama administration is giving seven more states and the District of Columbia continued flexibility from the requirements of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind education law.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe said Tuesday that the state will move "quickly" to erase the Confederate flag from state license plates, and to reclaim existing plates with the controversial emblem.
A federal law enacted in the late days of the Bush administration is starting to force states to take a closer look at local Amtrak routes that they subsidize.
The rules for a city’s return to solvency are no longer being crafted by lawmakers.
What may seem like a great way to engage citizens may not be as effective as cities would like.
The bill, which takes effect July 1, prohibits the sale, purchase, possession or consumption of cigarettes, other tobacco products and e-cigarettes to anyone under the age of 21.
Legislature overrides Gov. Paul LePage's veto to pass a law allowing growers to purchase hemp seeds from any certified seed source.
As the Louisiana governor prepares to make his presidential run official on Wednesday, he's struggling to find support at home and nationally.
Maine legislators overwhelmingly affirmed on Monday that they would not pass a law to legalize, tax and regulate recreational use of marijuana.
Aetna, State Farm, and Assurant Health have all decided to stop offering individual health insurance plans in Alaska. Now more than 5,000 Alaskans have to find new health care coverage.
The Wisconsin governor's budget removes tenure protection from state law -- leaving it in the hands of a board of regents largely appointed by the governor.
Striking down one of the last New Deal-era farm programs, the Supreme Court sided Monday with a California raisin grower in his decade-long legal battle over a federal raisin board's seizure of his crop to reduce supply and prop up prices.
When Newark superintendent Cami Anderson last week led a teacher-training session on special education, she gave no clue that it would be one of her last days on the job.
The new academic standards known as the Common Core emphasize critical thinking, complex problem-solving and writing skills, and put less stock in rote learning and memorization.
Saying lawmakers defied the state constitution, three environmental groups sued the Florida Legislature Monday, claiming they ignored an amendment overwhelmingly approved by voters in November to conserve the state's disappearing wilderness and protect its water supplies.
Gov. Nikki Haley called Monday for legislators to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the State House.
Boyd Rutherford was shocked when he got a call more than a year ago from a little-known Republican businessman who was mounting an improbable campaign for governor.
As the amount of data that governments accumulate grows, so does the need to disaggregate it.
Unlike other rapidly growing cities, Miami doesn’t regulate building heights.
Much of what used to happen only in the biggest metropolises is spreading out.
Former Democratic Congressman Artur Davis is hoping to beat the odds in his hometown.
As public education becomes less public, what new economic model will emerge?
They may have had their negatives, but unlike Congress today -- and to some degree, the states -- they got the job done.
Many people think the work of human services agencies creates dependency and exacerbates poverty. But there’s a new effort to recast them in a more favorable light.
Indiana is the latest state to find out what happens when districts aren’t required to offer students free transportation to and from school.
What began as a day in 1962 has morphed into a weeklong celebration.
States were encouraged to experiment with ways to expand health care, but how lenient will the feds be?
Walker has proved to be an effective leader in one of the most polarized states. But how will the conservative governor’s record in Wisconsin translate to a presidential bid?
Truth or Consequences, N.M., is hoping space tourism will transform the sleepy desert town.
Pouring federal aid into poor communities hasn’t accomplished much in the past. But the Obama administration insists its Promise Zones program will be different.
Officials in several cities transformed by young adults try to predict their next move.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation late Thursday, saying criminalizing school absences doesn't work
Five members of the Texas Supreme Court affirmed a 2011 opinion from the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals that said the attorney general's office did not have standing to appeal the divorce between Texas residents Angelique Naylor and Sabina Daly.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission works to address climate change. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection mostly ignores it. Only one of the agencies answers to the governor.
Legislators and the governor have met behind closed doors for months, with little obvious progress on the issues that have dominated Capitol discourse: property-tax reform, liquor privatization, and a fix for skyrocketing pension costs. The deadline is June 30.
The higher costs paid by state workers could fall to taxpayers.
A months-long effort to keep Republicans from pushing Planned Parenthood out of a state cancer screening program for low-income women ended in defeat on Saturday when Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed off on the proposal.
With his first session officially behind him, Gov. Greg Abbott has wielded his veto pen against 42 bills, the largest batch of legislation to draw a Texas governor's disapproval since the 2007 session.
Gov. Peter Shumlin signed a bill Wednesday that will criminalize distribution of sexually explicit images without the subject's consent.
"Veep," HBO's Emmy Award-winning political satire, is leaving Maryland for Los Angeles, HBO announced Thursday.
At least for now, the state of Tennessee can't trademark its controversial new logo.
Promising to "rebuild the heart of America's cities," former Gov. Martin O'Malley used an appearance at a meeting of the nation's mayors on Sunday to call for a federal ban on assault weapons and stricter regulations on gun purchases.
Another S.C. Republican lawmaker said Saturday that he would support removing the Confederate flag from the State House grounds.
Repealing the federal health law would add an additional 19 million to the ranks of the uninsured in 2016 and increase the federal deficit over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday.
To attract young professionals, cities increasingly are going to have to think multi-modal.
Experiments in the Seattle area that involve an array of organizations have ambitious goals.
A federal appeals court upheld a voter-approved state law Thursday that allows sex offenders who have completed their prison sentences to be locked up for life if a jury determines they are mentally disturbed and dangerous.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller on Thursday restored the option for public schools to serve certain fried foods and soda by lifting a decade-old statewide ban on deep fryers and soda machines.
Delware Governor Jack Markell has signed into law a bill decriminalizing possession and private use of small amounts of marijuana, following the lead of nearly 20 states that have eased penalties for personal consumption, media reported on Thursday.
Texas police agencies will soon have to notify the attorney general every time an officer shoots someone or gets shot.
Federal prosecutors will bring no criminal charges after an investigation into loans made to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback's re-election campaign by his lieutenant governor, the U.S. attorney's office said Wednesday.
Texas has every right to declare the Confederate battle flag too divisive to be emblazoned on its specialty license plates, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a 5-4 decision that capped a heated debate over government regulation of speech.
William Holland has a reputation for fairness and nonpartisanship as the state’s auditor general over nearly a quarter-century.
Comprehensive crime bills were passed during the two previous legislative sessions to tackle the looming, costly threat. Now, the Pew Charitable Trusts, a global research and public policy nonprofit group, has agreed to provide free technical assistance to analyze what's driving the prison population boom.
The city spent a lot of money on a computer technology upgrade that was supposed to track how the city used a $30.8 million grant from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development to combat homelessness. It didn't work.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
State lawmakers grieved Thursday for slain state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, whose booming voice was silenced Wednesday night by a gunman at the Charleston minister's church.
Immigrant children who are in the country illegally would receive public health care coverage in California under a budget deal announced Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders.
Sacramento County supervisors on Tuesday approved health care for undocumented immigrants and other new social service programs as part of the county budget for the fiscal year starting July 1
The California labor commissioner has ruled that an Uber driver is an employee of the company, not a contract worker as Uber has insisted all its drivers are, setting up another battle between state regulators and the ride-hailing giant.
The actions of former NAACP chairman Rachel Dolezal and two other members of the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission threatened that group's impartiality and effectiveness, a city investigation has found.
Residential customers in northern Minnesota will have to pay more in electricity rates because of a change the Legislature made last week to help big business.
It was to be the last day of the legislative session, so tensions on Wednesday were understandably high on the Senate floor. With so much to be done, things had come to a standstill over an unexpectedly provocative bill: naming the wood frog as the official state amphibian.
Some credit ratings agencies actually want governments to call them so they can make their case when things go wrong.
The guiding principles of improv comedy could help people in the public sector perform better.
Gov. Greg Abbott has signed legislation that sets a five-year statute of limitations and caps payouts at about $2 million when counties sue companies that have fouled their water or air.
First-term Democrat Pete Buttigieg is the first openly gay executive in the state, and the highest elected official in Indiana to come out.
Gov. Bill Haslam said Tuesday he sees little reason right now in preparing for the possibility that 155,000 Tennesseans could be left foundering.
The increasingly large Republican field includes several governors (like Jim Gilmore) who are trying to make a comeback after being absent from politics for years.
The $6.7 billion deal approved by the Legislature is significantly less broad than Gov. Paul LePage's wanted, but Republicans and Democrats both claimed victories.
Even states that sued Obama over the EPA's new rules to combat climate change are trying to figure out how to comply with them.
Gov. Sam Brownback says a plan increasing sales and other taxes does not count as a tax increase because it comes on the heels of income tax cuts passed three years ago.
Gov. Bill Walker has signed legislation ending a state subsidy program for the film industry, even while proclaiming his support for the motion picture business in Alaska.
New York’s political leaders have reached a deal on one of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s legislative priorities for 2015, saying they will adopt new laws intended to change the way sexual assaults on all college campuses in the state are handled.
The latest round of talks between NJ Transit and its labor unions has broken down, signaling increased tensions between the two sides over pay and benefits. Union members have been working without a new contract for four years, union leaders said.
The University of Hawaii law school, the Hawaii State Judiciary, and environmental organizations are gearing up for the launch of Hawaii’s environmental court on July 1 — the second of its kind in the nation.
The Obama administration gave conditional approval Monday to Arkansas, Delaware and Pennsylvania to expand their roles in the insurance marketplaces created under the 2010 health care law, ahead of a high court decision that could wipe out federal health insurance subsidies for millions.
Has Rhode Island learned anything from the last economic-development shellacking it took?
Unlike similar initiatives that only build housing for low-income people, Philadelphia's will also target people who make too much to qualify for public housing but too little to afford private housing.
Some school districts are billing parents for bus service to offset budget shortfalls. The move has angered parents in some communities and worried some school officials, who are concerned about children’s safety and access to education.
Congress is just now coalescing around federal standards. Pending legislation would preempt the collage of state laws and enforce a definition of personal information that is narrower than what many states use.
Declaring “a new era of job growth in the state of Texas,” Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday signed a $2.56 billion bill cutting the franchise tax rate paid by businesses by 25 percent.
A grass fire reported Monday afternoon on the Kenai Peninsula grew rapidly through the afternoon, burning six structures and prompting a voluntary evacuation alert covering hundreds of homes in the Sterling area, emergency officials said.
A bill intended to ensure the state doesn't lose $100 million in federal aid as it sets new restrictions for welfare recipients has been signed by Gov. Sam Brownback.
Leaders from Michigan, Ohio and Ontario have agreed to reduce phosphorus in the western Lake Erie basin by 40% by 2025. The nutrient is a key ingredient of widespread algae blooms in that portion of the lake -- including a toxic strain that disrupted water supplies to 400,000 people in southeast Michigan and the Toledo area last August.
A North Carolina law that would have forced doctors performing abortions to do an ultrasound, display the sonogram for the woman and describe it in great detail suffered a final defeat on Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case.
The Louisiana Legislature ended a two-month drama Thursday — the final day of the 2015 legislative session — by approving a $24 billion budget that takes effect July 1.
Environmentalists are getting results in individual U.S. states, where environmental politics have significantly impacted greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and the present..
With health insurance coverage expanded to millions more Californians, people living here illegally _ who are barred from signing up for Obamacare _ now make up the single biggest group of uninsured state residents.
While it's legal to smoke pot in Colorado, the Colorado Supreme Court rules that employees aren't protected from termination for marijuana consumption.
The Arlington County Board just approved a measure increasing penalties for public intoxication and profane language by $150.
The governor's new budget has generated intense opposition from water agencies and local government groups.
The football field's worth of books had been collecting in the basement for a decade.
Gov. Bruce Rauner is trying to exploit tensions pitting Chicago against the rest of the state in order to elect more GOP lawmakers to the legislature.
As a large manhunt for two escaped murderers stretched into its ninth day in upstate New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday that "we don't know if they are still in the immediate area or if they are in Mexico by now."
Florida legislators on Monday begin the final week of their three-week special session that was required because they could not settle differences on health care and pass a budget in the regular session that ended April 30. This is the closest the Legislature has come to ending the fiscal year with no budget since 1992.
Calling it a salute to the “genius” of the country’s founding fathers, Gov. Greg Abbott on Saturday signed legislation allowing Texans with licenses to openly tote their handguns in a hip or shoulder holster.
Kansas will avoid massive budget cuts after a plan to increase taxes crawled to passage in the Legislature on Friday.
Rent regulations that limit how much landlords can charge for many apartments in New York City and a number of surrounding communities were set to expire on Monday and lawmakers here did not appear close to a deal to extend or modify them.
The White House expanded drought assistance to California and other western states on Friday with $110 million in new grants to aid farmers and communities.
Aiming to get more people into housing faster, the city is breaking down a lot of barriers.
The pot shop's surveillance video shows Santa Ana police officers entering Sky High Holistic, a marijuana dispensary, and forcing patrons to the ground as they raid the facility. Then an officer appears to toss an edible into mouth and flash a thumbs-up.
The state may adopt what could be a national model for states to curb the prescription of antipsychotics to children in foster care.
Can providing mental health care in exchange for reduced probation improve recidivism?
Lawyers for former Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni wrote in court papers that a proposal to limit disclosure of the evidence in the case prior to the trial would hamper their defense.
The Legislature's proposed spending bill for agriculture and the environment temporarily empties the Metropolitan Landfill Contingency Action Trust (MLCAT), which currently contains $8.1 million. The state says it will pay the money back later.
In a matter of minutes, the state House on Thursday morning overrode the governor's veto of the same-sex marriage bill that allows magistrates to opt out of performing marriages.
To join the few and the proud who police Britain’s streets with a gun, first you have to walk the beat unarmed for years.
An Ohio judge found probable cause to bring criminal charges against the Cleveland police officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice last year, but the decision whether to prosecute is still likely to rest with a county grand jury, officials said Thursday.
The Alaska Legislature formally stamped its approval on a long-awaited bipartisan budget deal Thursday, then shut down for the summer.
A tax plan crawled to passage in the Kansas House in the early hours Friday morning, after Gov. Sam Brownback warned lawmakers that massive budget cuts would occur Monday if they failed to act on taxes.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed a package of bills Thursday that will allow faith-based adoption groups in Michigan to refuse to serve prospective parents, like same-sex or unmarried couples, if doing so would violate the groups' religious beliefs.
Anyone who thinks jury duty is an inconvenience can take heart in this fact: Even governors are summoned.
A group that calls itself the Middle East Cyber Army hacked into the state Department of Weights and Measures website over the weekend, the second known attack on an Arizona site.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
Gov. Gregg Abbott said the bill would go "too far" in pursuit of water conservation by giving a local water utility authority that belongs to the state.
Record-breaking spring rains in Colorado Springs lessened city water usage and has cost Utilities about $17 million in revenue
The state approved $3.86 million for housing and salary boosts for some state employees for oil-rich parts of the state where the cost of living has skyrocketed.
