Martin Kaste

Borrowing tactics from campaigns to legalize same sex marriage and marijuana, gun control groups are shifting to a national strategy of tightening gun laws via state ballot initiatives.

Police say elected officials have become too quick to blame cops involved in deadly shootings before all the facts are in. A recent incident in New York is their case in point.

Body camera footage shows two police officers responding to a routine call about a possible burglary in North Carolina. The encounter comes to a bad end, but what's fascinating is how it gets there.

Data analytics firms that analyze vast amounts of public social media are a tool for law enforcement. But there are signs that Twitter, Facebook and others are shutting off access to that data.

Twitter and Facebook say they are cutting off bulk data access to a firm that scans vast amounts of public social media posts. Critics say the service enables police to conduct invasive surveillance.

As West Coast cities have seen a boom in homelessness, some have declared emergencies. But debates have broken out over how much tolerance should be shown to illegal camps in public spaces.

In Charlotte, N.C., some demonstrators chanted "release the tapes" — a reference to police videos of the shooting, which have been shown to the victim's family, but have not been made public.

There have been calls for police reforms since 2014, but there are practical limits to how fast a willingness to change can translate into its actually happening.

Fifteen years later, some of the places with heightened security restrictions following the terrorist attacks remain that way. Access to an outdoor sculpture in Seattle, for example, is still tight.

As police find themselves in encounters that are posted live — including video — they sometimes want to pull the social media plug. Activists say this threatens to censor an electronic witness.

The attorney general declined to prosecute 2 deputies for shooting and killing a rancher last fall. The case is a rallying point for those who say excessive police force is a problem outside cities.

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, one of the most prominent figures in American policing, is stepping down. Crime declined in the city after Bratton's early enthusiasm for the broken windows policy.

More than $200 million in cost overruns, lawsuits and delays continue to haunt Seattle's big dig project. The world's largest tunneling machine, nicknamed "Bertha," is now working again, but the complicated fix of an underground breakdown in 2013 has created a huge fight over blame and who pays the tab.

Advocates of police reform say there's been real progress since the Ferguson, Mo., protests, but both sides worry about how to keep that process going after recent, deadly attacks targeting police.

Legal guns are a reality for police, especially in states with open-carry or concealed-carry laws. But there's no consistent guidance for either gun owners or police on how to react to such weapons.

Critics say training firms use ambush-style videos that make police paranoid and quick to react with force. But not exposing officers to such scenarios puts them at unnecessary risk, trainers say.

Twelve police officers were shot — and five were killed — in a mass shooting in Dallas on Thursday. The killings have complicated efforts to reform policing around the country.

Gunmen opened fire at the end of a protest in downtown Dallas, shooting 12 police officers, five of them fatally. KERA reporter Stella Chavez and protest organizer Jeff Hood talk with Morning Edition.

NPR correspondents and Sarah Mervosh of the Dallas Morning News talk about the latest from Dallas, U.S. law enforcement and politics, and Friday's news conference by the Dallas police chief and mayor.

Five police officers were shot and killed Thursday night in Dallas after 2 snipers opened fire during what had been a peaceful demonstration. How are other departments acting to the news.