Northeast

Newark, N.J. is selling 100 municipally-owned vacant lots to couples for $1,000 apiece on Valentine's Day in an effort to fuel development in some of the city's blighted neighborhoods.

Gov. Tom Wolf proposed a severance tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas extraction to fund Pennsylvania's teetering public education system.

Mayor Bill de Blasio's preliminary $77.7 billion fiscal 2016 budget for New York City represents a spending plan that the capital markets will accept, observers said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has submitted a $77.7 billion budget to the City Council with public safety enhancements as a theme.

Massachusetts officials focused on public safety amid the state's third big snowstorm in two weeks. Sifting through the finances will come later.

The Connecticut Housing Finance Authority plans to sell $150 million of mortgage finance program bonds, starting with a retail order day on Monday.

Massachusetts Treasurer Deborah Goldberg appointed 20-year public finance veteran Ruth Ellen Fitch to serve on the Pension Reserves Investment Management Board.

An issuer in Virginia recently disclosed an Internal Revenue Service audit of bonds it issued in 2006, and a borrower in Indiana and an issuer in Pennsylvania disclosed that the IRS has closed audits of their bonds.

Having sold its incinerator, Harrisburg, Pa., has a new symbol of a deal gone sour: a 12-story downtown office building, subject of a $6.9 million borrowing in 1998 that straddled the city with $42 million in debt service the city recently restructured.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf established what he called a transformation office with an eye toward whittling the state's $2.3 billion deficit for fiscal 2016.