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The Connecticut Senate voted 20-16 early Thursday morning on a bill that would do away with the death penalty and make the state the fifth in five years to abolish capital punishment.

Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky will be in a Pennsylvania courtroom Thursday as his lawyers argue that child sex abuse charges against him be dismissed.

The Justice Department is preparing to sue Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, saying talks between the two sides in a discrimination settlement have fallen through.

The government says it's pulling some troops out response to former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's peace plan, his spokesman says. The claim couldn't be confirmed.

The Upper Big Branch coal mine, where 29 people were killed in a blast two years ago Thursday, will be permanently sealed by the summer.

Convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was sentenced Thursday to 25 years behind bars by a federal judge in New York.

The Detroit City Council passed a financial consent agreement late Wednesday with a 5-4 vote, which grants the city the power to void contracts and slash costs but not provide state funding or loans to bail the city out of its financial problems.

Mississippi lawmakers have passed a bill requiring physicians performing abortions to be board-certified obstetrician-gynecologists and have admitting privileges at an area hospital.

Former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern, 89, was admitted to a Florida hospital on Tuesday, CNN has confirmed.

A JetBlue pilot who had an apparent meltdown aboard a flight last week will undergo a psychiatric evaluation to see whether he was sane during the incident and whether he is competent to stand trial.

Santa Monica College officials in California have launched an investigation into a raucous student protest at a board of trustees meeting in which campus police used pepper spray on demonstrators, sending three of them to a hospital, the college president said Wednesday.

The latest photos of notorious killer Charles Manson have been released by the California Department of Corrections, one week before his next parole hearing.

Lawmakers in Connecticut are grappling with a bill that would do away with the death penalty and make their state the fifth in five years to abolish capital punishment.

Whitney Houston drowned face down in a tub of "extremely hot water" about 12 inches deep, the final autopsy report on the singer's death said.

Matt Welch says the surprise isn't that a federal agency was "busted" for its $822,000 Las Vegas junket, it's that taxpayers haven't figured out that the government has been on a spending binge for years

Five former New Orleans police officers are sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 65 years for killing or seriously injuring unarmed civilians in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The chairman of America's most prestigious golf club skirted the prickly issue of women's membership in Augusta National, saying it's a private matter.

President Barack Obama signed legislation on Wednesday aimed at restoring Americans' faith in the nation's public institutions at a time they rank at record lows in opinion polls. The act bans insider trading by members of Congress and many executive branch employees.

Atlanta police have launched an internal investigation into filmmaker Tyler Perry's claim he was racially profiled by two white officers who pulled his car over, the police department said.

Mitt Romney, fresh off a three-primary sweep that put him more than halfway to the delegate number needed for the Republican presidential nomination, gets the chance Wednesday to answer President Barack Obama's harsh attacks the day before against Republican ideology.