DEMOCRATIC MAYOR

Boston’s mayor has approved an overhaul of the city’s marijuana business review process meant to boost the involvement of minority entrepreneurs in Massachusetts’ burgeoning pot industry. The ordinance signed by Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh Tuesday calls for the creation of an independent Cannabis Board.

Boston is overhauling its marijuana licensing process to boost involvement of minority entrepreneurs in Massachusetts’ burgeoning pot industry. The City Council on Wednesday approved an ordinance calling for the creation of an independent Cannabis Board to oversee local approval of marijuana businesses.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says Boston police records show the department has a close working relationship with federal immigration authorities. Laura Rotolo, the organization’s staff counsel, says the nearly 800 pages of department documents it recently received through a public records request disprove the department’s prior statements suggesting its relationship with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement is...

Two Phoenix police officers involved in separate incidents that drew national outrage, including one who pointed a gun and yelled profanities at a black family, will be fired, the chief of police said Tuesday. “I expect more. You deserve more,” Chief Jeri Williams said at a news conference. “Unlike other professions, we don’t have a luxury of a do-over.”

Boston’s mayor has a plan to accelerate the city’s goal of reducing carbon emissions. Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh says the updated Climate Action Plan he’s releasing Tuesday will significantly cut carbon emissions from buildings, which account for most emissions in the city.

Mayor de Blasio has ended his 2020 bid for president.

A black artist has dropped his bid to build a slave memorial in front of Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall after the NAACP objected. Steve Locke announced Tuesday on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter that he won’t go forward with the project because the president of the Boston chapter of the prominent civil rights group warned him they would come out strongly...

A planned forum on climate change for Democratic presidential candidates lost several major sponsors on Saturday in the wake of the left-leaning magazine The New Republic publishing — and later retracting — a vulgar and homophobic story related to gay presidential contender Pete Buttigieg. The New Republic was slated as a chief sponsor of a September event designed to spark...

Raids targeting 2,000 undocumented immigrants in as many as 10 cities had begun Sunday, resulting in a handful of arrests, a senior U.S. official told NBC News. Religious leaders across the country used their pulpits Sunday to quell concerns in immigrant communities and spring into action as nationwide immigration enforcement sweeps loomed. A Chicago priest talked during his homily about...

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a case involving two former state officials convicted in New Jersey’s infamous George Washington Bridge scandal.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg says Republican Party members are hypocrites for saying they are Christian but still putting kids in cages at the border.

Boston may not be known for the most courteous of drivers, but the city’s mayor is hoping to change that. Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh is launching a competition to encourage better driving habits in a city notorious for its twisty streets and testy motorists. The competition uses a smartphone-based app to score drivers on their behaviors and enable what organizers...

Supporters of Baltimore’s embattled mayor have grown largely quiet as a chorus of resignation calls has dramatically swelled following raids of her government offices, her two city homes and other locations by teams of federal investigators carting out boxes of evidence.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says he’s including money in his budget proposal for a legal defense fund for immigrants. The Democratic mayor said Saturday his proposal includes $50,000 in city funding for the Greater Boston Immigrant Defense Fund.

Cash-free stores are generating a backlash among some activists and liberal-leaning policymakers who say the practice discriminates against people who either lack bank accounts or rely on cash for many transactions.

On the campaign trail, Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg blasts Vice President Mike Pence’s cultural and religious conservatism. But as the mayor of Indiana’s fourth largest city, his tone toward the state’s Republican former governor was more muted. During the four years in which they overlapped in Indiana politics, Buttigieg, the South Bend mayor, had a cordial relationship with Pence....

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan to protect lower Manhattan from rising sea levels by surrounding it with earthen berms and extending its shoreline by as much as 500 feet.

When U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren officially jumps into the race for president, it won’t be from her Cambridge hometown where Harvard and MIT reside, or nearby Boston, where presidential hopefuls have launched campaigns over the generations. Instead, the 69-year-old Democrat is widely expected to kick off her campaign Saturday some 30 miles (50 kilometers) north in Lawrence, a faded mill...

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a Democrat, and Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker will take a road trip to Washington, D.C.