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Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have introduced a bill declaring that the state has the power to establish an official religion — a direct challenge to the First Amendment. One professor of politics called the measure “the verge of being neo-secessionist,” and another said it was reminiscent of how Southern states objected to the Supreme Court’s 1954 integration of public schools.

The United States is in the midst of one of the biggest droughts in recent memory. At last count, over half of the lower 48 states had abnormally dry conditions and are suffering from at least moderate drought.

According to the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, since the passage of Prop 30 in the November election, California-based company relocation inquiries have doubled, possibly tripled, in Central Texas. West Coast entrepreneurs feeling the personal financial stress of an out-of-control state budget and tax policy have heard Texas’ message, and they’re responding.

Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, a leading Republican critic of President Obama’s health care law, said he now supported a three-year expansion of Medicaid to cover more poor people.

Mark Simmons began dialing Rhode Island's unemployment call center at 8 a.m. on a recent Monday. He got a busy signal. He tried 67 more times before the automated system picked up and told him that because of heavy call volume, he should try back another time....

Look out, California. Rick Perry is going hunting in your backyard for jobs to bring back to Texas. The Republican governor heads to San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Orange County next week on a "business recruitment trip," his office says. The trip is being paid for by Texas One, a public-private partnership that does marketing for the state.

Snow began to fall throughout the Northeast on Friday in what's predicted to be a massive, possibly historic blizzard. A look at each state in the storm's path...

When it comes to traffic congestion around Washington, even the good news is bad, and it goes downhill from there. The city that so hungers to be No. 1 at something — usually on a gridiron or diamond-shaped field — has again risen to the top as the most congested metropolitan area in the United States, a place where the average driver burns 67 hours and 32 gallons of gas each year sitting in traffic.

The Justice Department and state prosecutors plan to file civil charges against Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service, accusing the firm of fraudulently rating mortgage bonds that led to the financial crisis, people briefed on the plan said.

Republican governors who long opposed President Barack Obama's remake of the health insurance market are struggling to square their opposition with the new law's requirements as it starts to take effect.