AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The federal No Child Left Behind law was born in Texas, and billionaire Ross Perot first rallied big business to support tougher standardized testing and high school graduation standards here nearly three decades ago.

But the state now appears ready to step back from the strenuous accountability policies it has long been a national leader in championing, amid fears that youngsters are being forced to take too many high-stakes tests and that …

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LONG BEACH, Calif. — Just before officials at the Port of Los Angeles unanimously approved a plan for a vast new railyard last month, the mayor of Long Beach was incensed. How dare they, he angrily asked at a public meeting, value the lives of residents on Los Angeles’s side of the border more than those who live in his city.

It was a provocative statement from the mayor of this city of nearly half …

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BILOXI, Miss. — Michael White’s high blood pressure is acting up again.

The 51-year-old casino janitor has recurring seizures and recently awoke in an ambulance after passing out at a bus stop.

“It doesn’t hit me suddenly,” White said. “It creeps up on me. I get this feeling like I’m outside of my own body.”

If White had insurance, he’d be under the care of a primary physician and taking medications regularly. But he can’t afford job-based …

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For years, senior Obama officials, including the president himself, have been making public claims about their drone program that have just been proven to be categorically false. The evidence of this falsity is so conclusive that even establishment sources are using unusually harsh language – including “lies” – to describe Obama’s statements. McClatchy’s national security reporter, Jonathan Landay, obtained top-secret intelligence documents showing that “contrary to assurances it has deployed US drones only against known …

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In the first quarter of 2013, states have proposed 694 provisions related to a woman’s body, how she gets pregnant, or how she chooses to end that pregnancy.

A new report released on Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute takes a comprehensive look at how the War on Women has continued past the election cycle and into 2013. It shows that the new legislatures across the country are still very much dedicated to restricting sex education, availability …

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On February 8, 2013 Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies raided a sports apparel company and arrested 23 workers suspected of working in the country without legal permissions. Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s raid at Sportex Apparel left many sons and daughters with out their parents—among them is a deaf teenage girl who’s mother, grandmother and grandfather have been in detention since the raid.

Diana Blanco, 17, is deaf. She’s the oldest of 3 girls who will find out next …

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Have you read about the billionaire who pays a lower income tax rate than his secretary and gives advice for how much income tax other people ought to pay? You might want to ask: “How does he do it? ”

We don’t know the complete answer to that question. No doubt, only his army of tax advisers does. What we’d instead like to share are 10 ways the current tax code allows the rich to accumulate …

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United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that represents L.A. Unified’s instructors, announced Thursday a 91 percent vote of no confidence against school district Superintendent John Deasy.

“We need to share with the school board our belief that, in many ways, the educational program is not on the right track,” said union president Warren Fletcher at a news conference to announce the vote results.

Less than 60 percent of the union’s 32,000 members voted at school sites on …

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Today, 21 and a half million Americans are unemployed or underemployed—about twice as many as six years ago, according to NPR. Work-force participation, a fancy term for the number of Americans either working or looking for work, has dropped to “the lowest level since the malaise of the late 1970’s,” an era when far fewer women were working, according to MSNBC.

Yes, the unemployment rate dropped last month—but only because so many people simply gave …

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As operators at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant announce yet another radiation leak, US officials turn to the state of domestic nuclear plants only to find dangerous and widespread safety issues and “antiquated” emergency planning, leaving the US population open to “potentially devastating human consequences.”

A report by the Government Accountability Office released Wednesday found that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not adequately prepared for a real nuclear emergency and that they fail to account …

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