LAS VEGAS -- When advocates pushed for the legalization of marijuana in Nevada, one of their arguments in favor of the policy was anticipated elimination of the drug’s black market.

Those expectations have not materialized, according to a review of police and court records and interviews with experts.

In fact, robberies and killings linked ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky Supreme Court is set to decide whether a law passed by the state legislature in 2024 can require violent offenders to serve at least 85% of their prison sentence, even if they were convicted before the new law.

People being held at Kentucky prisons who were convicted before the Safer Kentucky Act was passed argue...Read more

LOS ANGELES — For years, Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner has been portrayed as the civilized way to travel to and from San Diego.

No gridlock on Interstate 5. Glorious views of the Pacific Ocean. Even the chance to grab a drink and relax.

But the iconic rail line connecting Orange County to San Diego is under threat thanks to coastal erosion —...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Liz Goodman struggled for years to get support for Logan, her 17-year-old autistic son, through government programs with long waitlists.

She felt optimistic during a gathering for disabled people in Orlando a couple of years ago, where she heard a program called Hope Florida could share vital resources with families in need. ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declined Tehran’s proposal for a seven-day ceasefire and expects to resume bombing Iran after the U.S. midterm elections in November, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Trump is skeptical about Iran’s willingness to meet his demands, WSJ said, citing unidentified U.S. officials. The move again stymies a...Read more

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The White House this month issued an executive order to support the sportfishing industry by, among other things, paving the way for increased harvests of sharks and pinnipeds, including sea lions and seals.

The order specifically aims to help saltwater anglers, offshore boaters and charter operators — an industry in ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The White House is refusing to allow CNN to travel on Air Force One to cover President Donald Trump’s trip to Tennessee Saturday, the network reported.

A White House schedule of the president’s public itinerary for Saturday, released late Friday, lists no major U.S. television networks in either the in-town pool that covers ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — State regulators have launched an inquiry into the Santa Monica sober living home where Presley Gerber died Sunday of a suspected overdose.

The California Department of Health Care Services, responding to a complaint from a rehab reform advocate, is reviewing whether the sober home, Resolutions Living, was illegally providing ...Read more

NEW YORK — The scores of protesters demonstrating against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside the U.N. in Midtown Manhattan — which included actors Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder and several local politicians — were all given summonses and sent home after being briefly detained, police said Friday.

In total, 103 people ...Read more

Oil fell on tentative signs that talks between the U.S. and Iran to reopen the world’s most important energy shipping route were progressing.

West Texas Intermediate futures fell about 2.3% to settle near $92 a barrel, notching its first weekly drop since late August, as traders increasingly expect that the negotiations will be productive. ...Read more

NEW YORK — A tight-knit Italian family was robbed of a beloved son and brother — and the world lost “a brilliant mind” in scientific research — when a frenzied man wielding a knife went on a senseless, blood-filled rampage, a Manhattan judge heard Friday before sentencing the killer to 25 years to life.

Relatives of slain Columbia ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department is moving to give state and local officials, as well as potentially some nonprofit organizations, access to passport records to verify voters’ citizenship.

The plan, laid out in a notice recently sent to key lawmakers on Capitol Hill, would add “voter eligibility” to the official list of “routine...Read more

WASHINGTON — For the third time this month, the Supreme Court has rejected Missouri’s bid for one more Republican-leaning congressional district.

With no dissents, the justices upheld a state court order requiring the use of a 2022 election map, which favors Republicans in six of the eight districts.

“At this late date, ordering ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Expectations were low entering President Donald Trump’s meetings with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, this week, after officials on both sides tempered hopes for a breakthrough. Yet the summit’s stark lack of substance surprised even the closest China watchers.

It was a visual affair designed to project a new phase of managed ...Read more

WASHINGTON — A pair of Democratic lawmakers is calling for hearings after the Navy disclosed that there were eight suicide attempts during the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group’s record-long time at sea.

“That this administration can find endless taxpayer dollars for bombs, ballrooms, and billionaires, but cannot take care of our ...Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked Missouri from using a gerrymandered congressional map in the Nov. 3 election, allowing the state to use a map lawmakers passed in 2022 and likely drawing to a close a messy legal battle.

The nation’s highest court blocked two lower court rulings in favor of the Republican-backed map and ordered those ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., has proposed legislation that seeks to address artificial intelligence-fueled shifts in the workforce as his party works to define a clear position on the controversial technology ahead of the midterms and beyond.

Introduced Thursday, his bill would rely on new artificial intelligence and digital ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York City parents and teachers, many of them who pushed for a pause on artificial intelligence in public schools, are kicking off a new campaign: They want to reintroduce play in local classrooms that, advocates say, have been overtaken by education technology, test preparation and reading curricula that push more short passages...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Vance Boelter’s defense team pressed forward with a legal argument Friday that he was justified in taking the lives of state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and attempting to kill several other lawmakers because he was “effecting a lawful arrest.”

State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, survivors of that ...Read more