News Brief

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to slash the number of medical marijuana dispensaries operating in the city by nearly 90%. Under the measure approved, the number of dispensaries would be limited to 70.

Police in Utah who cleaned up meth labs in the 1980s and 1990s have filed dozens of workers compensation claims asserting exposure to the caustic chemicals caused a variety of physical ailments. Now, those claims are being dismissed for lack of evidence.

Testilying -- the practice of police perjuring themselves to get an arrest or win a case -- is so prevalent in the NYPD that something has to be done, a federal judge complained this week.

Three years ago this month, Mexican President Felipe Calderon sicced the military on the so-called drug cartels. Three years later, the drugs keep flowing north, the cash and guns keep flowing south, and more than 16,000 people have been killed. Here's the latest.

A Worcester, Massachusetts, resident tried to snuff out an ill-timed joint and fasten his seat belt as the vehicle he was in rolled up to a police sobriety checkpoint last week. He was dead within minutes, and his family's attorney claims he was beaten by police. Police have a different version of events.

Taking a step firmly backward, the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip is foregoing Israeli military drug law -- a remnant of the occupation -- for Egyptian drug law, which includes the death penalty for dealing.

It's an odd mix this week: A cop with a gambling jones doing petty bribery, a pair of narcs misbehaving, and a Customs officer and a small town cop heading for prison are just the half of it.

San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis thinks selling medical marijuana is illegal. But a San Diego jury disagreed Tuesday in the first dispensary case since her latest round of raids back in September.

Israel is one of the few countries that allows for medical marijuana use, and this week saw forward movement on a couple of important fronts.

The carnage continues. This week an American citizen is among the casualties, but it looks like she was the victim of a soldier's inadvertent discharge.