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House Republicans told the leaders of the capital’s beleaguered subway system on Wednesday that they would not “bail you out,” soundly rejecting pleas for more federal funds to support it.
After years of cutbacks, many of the nation’s state parks are facing similar situations to Wyoming's, forced to cut programming, reduce hours of operations, and sometimes shut their gates. The shrinking budgets have prompted park officials to look for new sources of funding.
The most important election news and political dynamics at the state and local levels.
Texas prison inmates shouldn't be allowed to have active social media accounts, even if friends or family on the outside actually run them, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has decided.
Facing a potentially bruising ballot fight over real estate development next year, Los Angeles' political leaders announced Wednesday that they will seek a sweeping update of the plans that govern the size and density of new buildings that go up in scores of neighborhoods.
New Jersey’s transportation funding system is in disarray, and neither the governor nor state legislators has a plan for how to plug a financing gap that tops $2 billion, administration officials and Assembly members said Wednesday at the first budget hearing of the season
A federal judge Wednesday issued a preliminary injunction barring Los Angeles police and sanitation officers from seizing and destroying homeless people's property without sufficient notice, and ordered the city to segregate and store impounded belongings where they can be recovered.
For the first time ever in Louisiana, a governor took formal action to protect transgender state workers and transgender people seeking state services from discrimination. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards issued an executive order Wednesday that protects state workers and state contractors from being fired, discriminated against or harassed based on their gender identity as well as their sexual orientation.
Missouri's treasurer says 529 programs are only one piece of the college puzzle.
New Mexico is holding on to more than $4 million in tax refunds from thousands of undocumented immigrants. They're suing the state to get their money back.
Older people are more vulnerable, but there's a lot that fire departments could be doing to keep them safer.
A Seattle area transit agency got into trouble when it tried to gauge voter's attitudes.
A new study highlighting racial and socioeconomic disparities in license suspensions is the latest call for states to make reforms.
Debates over LGBT rights have helped define differences between red and blue states.
District officials plan to announce on Wednesday a new hotline for the city’s crime victims. With the new D.C. Victim Hotline, the District will become one of the few jurisdictions with a one-stop number for people affected by any crime, whether it’s mugging or murder. The number is not meant to summon emergency responders, but it can be used for services needed in the immediate aftermath or much later.
Thirty years from now, downtown Las Vegas could be brimming with trees and parks strategically placed near many more residential buildings, markets and transit hubs. That's the much-simplified vision of a new downtown master plan that's aimed at making the city's inner core a better place to live and work by improving mobility, economic opportunities and aesthetics.
In a city where mass transit is synonymous with broken promises and disappointment, downtown Miami's Metromover has been the little engine that could. The junior-sized, fully-automated trains ferry nearly 10 million passengers around the downtown and Brickell neighborhoods each year. But now the free Metromover rides are at risk. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Barbara Jordan is pushing to charge Metromover riders, arguing it's unfair that Metrorail and bus riders pay $2.25, while Metromover passengers pay nothing.
Philadelphia has been awarded a $3.5 million MacArthur Foundation grant to fund an aggressive plan to reduce its prison population by 34 percent over three years while addressing racial bias across the criminal justice system.
Many states don’t publish records of their short-term and contract hires. Even states that do have to do a little research to determine how that share of the state workforce may be changing over time and why. A small but growing body of research suggests that work arrangements other than full-time jobs are more common across the economy, including in government. It’s hard to tell, however, how much states contribute to the so-called 1099 economy through their hiring and contracting.
The Chicago Police Department must acknowledge its racist history and overhaul its handling of excessive force allegations before true reforms can take place, according to a scathing draft report from the task force established by Mayor Rahm Emanuel following public unrest over the Laquan McDonald video.
Lawmakers in Prince George’s County voted unanimously on Tuesday to ban hydraulic fracking, becoming the first local jurisdiction in Maryland to prohibit the extraction of natural gas within its borders since the state’s moratorium on the practice went into effect.
Waller County, Texas, needs a new jail, local officers need body cameras to record their activities and the sheriff's office needs to promote civility, a study committee formed after the death of Sandra Bland said Tuesday. The county came under national scrutiny in July when Bland was found hanged in her jail cell three days after being arrested for assaulting an officer during a contentious traffic stop.
A task force appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to investigate the Flint water crisis told lawmakers Tuesday that the situation in Flint was a failure of leadership in the state, a clear case of environmental injustice and a reason to change the state’s emergency manager law. But that there is no single piece of legislative action or a bill that could have prevented the crisis in Flint.
A recent document leak revealed that four states were targeted by a Panamanian law firm to hide assets.
Attorney General Andy Beshear filed a lawsuit Monday in Franklin Circuit Court challenging Gov. Matt Bevin's authority to cut the budgets of Kentucky's public colleges and universities without legislative approval.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon is directing state agencies not to ask about candidates' criminal history in initial job applications.
In the latest effort to push back against drug costs, the California legislature will hold a hearing on Wednesday to review a bill that would require companies to report any move to increase the list price of a medicine by more than 10 percent during any 12-month period. And drug makers would have to justify price hikes for medicines with a list price of more than $10,000 within 30 days of making such a move.
As the city attorney considers whether to bring charges against an officer who shot a homeless man last year, the atmosphere in Los Angeles demonstrates the growing pressure that prosecutors now face to move aggressively against officers who kill civilians.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is spreading its latest grants across 19 communities to support an outdoor office, a carpentry-based workforce program and more.
The U.S. Congress is considering a bill that would add farmers to the list of occupations that qualify for a federal program that forgives student loans for public service workers, such as teachers and police officers. In the meantime, some states are already rolling out their own forgiveness programs.
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