Far West

Faced with the nation's highest foreclosure and unemployment rates, Nevada political leaders decided last year that they needed a plan to not only vault the state out of its current economic trough, but flatten out the peaks and valleys of its boom-and-bust economy.

LOS ANGELES — California Controller John Chiang and state Sen. Kevin de León, D-L.A., unveiled legislation on Tuesday to recast a bond-based program encouraging cost-effective retrofits of commercial buildings throughout the state.

WASHINGTON — A Fluvanna County, Va., circuit court judge on Thursday dismissed the lawsuit the county's Board of Supervisors had filed against their former financial advisor, Davenport & Co., after agreeing with the firm that the court could not decide the case under the state constitution's separation of powers doctrine.

Washington House Democrats proposed a budget this week that would close a $1 billion gap in the state’s current two-year budget.

Moody’s Investors Service on Tuesday affirmed Nevada’s Aa2 rating and stable outlook.

U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., says she plans to introduce a bill to protect the deduction for state sales taxes, since Congress has failed to extend the tax break that expired at the end of 2011, according to published reports.

Two moves to block San Diego’s comprehensive pension-reform initiative from going to the voters were rejected this week by Superior Court judges, according to city attorney Jan Goldsmith.

California’s 24 local pension systems are underfunded to the tune of $135.7 billion, according a new report from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

The Stockton City Council on Tuesday is expected to take what would be an initial step toward bankruptcy, according to published reports.

Fluvanna County, Va.'s Board of Supervisors and its former financial advisor, Davenport & Co., present two different versions of the December 2008 bond financing for a new high school in documents filed in connection with the board's lawsuit against the firm.