The Illinois Senate has voted to approve the use of marijuana for medical purposes, which if signed into law would make it the second-most-populous state after California to do so.    

Some conservatives allege that the I.R.S. also targeted individual taxpayers, but a handful of anecdotal data points are not worth much in a country of 300 million.    

The secretary, Eric Shinseki, is being held accountable for his overwhelmed agency’s problems dealing with claims for disability compensation.    

A driver described as an elderly man struck hikers marching in a parade in Damascus, a small Virginia mountain town, with more than a dozen suffering serious injuries.    

About 50 to 60 people were injured when a driver drove into a group of hikers marching in a parade in a small mountain town.    

Police are investigating the slaying of a 32-year-old man in the Greenwich Village neighborhood early Saturday as a hate crime because the gunman made multiple anti-gay comments, they said.

A U.S. Airways plane touched down without landing gear at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey early Saturday morning.

A growing body of mortality research on immigrants has shown that the longer they live in this country, the worse their rates of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.    

A new federal report says inmates at jails in Indianapolis, Baltimore, St. Louis and Philadelphia face the nation's highest levels of sexual abuse at the hands of guards.

The U.S. Department of Justice's report says the Marion County Jail in Indianapolis had the nation's highest rate of inmate sex abuse by staff. Its 7.7 percent abuse rate was well above the 1.8 percent average abuse rate among all jails based on inmate surveys from February 2011 to May 2012.

The Baltimore City Detention Center had the second-highest abuse rate by guards at 6.7 percent. The St. Louis Medium Security Institution and the Philadelphia City Industrial Correctional Center both had 6.3 percent abuse rates.

The report's authors surveyed inmates at 233 prisons, 358 local jails and 15 special correctional facilities.

April's attack brings up old questions and arguments about anti-terrorism tactics.

Commuters on the trains that collided late Friday, and local reporters, began posting images from the scene almost as soon as the crash occurred.    

About 50 to 60 people were injured Saturday when a driver described by witnesses as an elderly man drove his car into a group of hikers marching in a parade in a small Virginia mountain town.

It happened around 2:10 p.m. during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival, an annual celebration of the Appalachian Trail in Damascus, near the Tennessee state line about a half-hour drive east of Bristol.

Washington County director of emergency management Pokey Harris said no fatalities had been reported.

The injuries ranged from critical to superficial, he said. Three of the victims were flown by helicopters to regional hospitals. Another 12 to 15 were taken by ambulance. The rest were treated at the scene.

At a news conference, Damascus Police Chief Bill Nunley didn't release the driver's name or age but said he was participating in the parade. Multiple witnesses described him as an elderly man.

Nunley said the man's 1997 Cadillac was one of the last vehicles in the parade and the driver might have suffered an unspecified medical problem when his car accelerated to about 25 mph and struck the crowd on a two-lane bridge along the town's main road. The driver was among those taken to hospitals.

"It is under investigation and charges may be placed," Nunley said.

There were ambulances in the parade ahead of the hikers and paramedics on board immediately responded to the crash.

Nunley cited the "quick action" by police, firefighters, paramedics and hikers to tend to the victims, including a Damascus volunteer firefighter who dove into the car to turn off the ignition. The firefighter, whose name wasn't released, suffered minor injuries.

Nunley said about 1,000 people participated in the parade. Nunley said the driver was a hiker, too -- someone who had traversed the Appalachian Trail in the past.

What caused the car to drive into the crowd wasn't immediately known. A thud could be heard, people yelled stop, and at some point, the car finally stopped.

Witnesses said the car had a handicapped parking sticker and it went more than 100 feet before coming to a stop.

"He was hitting hikers," said Vickie Harmon, a witness from Damascus. "I saw hikers just go everywhere."

Damascus resident Amanda Puckett, who was watching the parade with her children, ran to the car, where she and others lifted the car off those pinned underneath.

"Everybody just threw our hands up on the car and we just lifted the car up," she said.

Keith Neumann, a hiker from South Carolina, said he was part of the group that scrambled around the car. They pushed the car backward to free a woman trapped underneath and lifted it off the ground to make sure no one else was trapped. Another person jumped inside to put it in park.

"There's no single heroes. We're talking about a group effort of everybody jumping in," he said.

Mayor Jack McCrady encouraged people to attend the festival on Sunday, its final day.

"In 27 years of this, we've never had anything of this magnitude, and is it our job to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.

McCrady said a donation fund was being set up to assist the injured, some of whom don't have medical insurance.

"We want to make sure they don't suffer any greater loss than they already have," he said.

Funeral services have been held for the New Jersey woman and boy whose bodies were found in their home after a 37-hour hostage standoff last weekend.

The Times of Trenton (http://bit.ly/113Q2dJ) reports Carmenlita Stevens' four surviving children were among those attending Saturday's service for the 44-year-old woman and her 12-year-old son, Quavon Foster. Stevens' boyfriend had held three of the surviving children hostage during the standoff.

Authorities have said Stevens and Foster died from stab wounds on April 25, nearly three weeks before the standoff began May 10. It ended two days later when hostage-taker Gerald Tyrone Murphy was fatally shot in the head by police who stormed the home.

Authorities have said Murphy killed the pair, but a motive has not been determined.

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Information from: The (Trenton, N.J.) Times, http://www.nj.com/times

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke painted an upbeat picture for the potential of innovation to lift living standards.

It's all about the odds.

With the majority of possible combinations of Powerball numbers in play, someone is almost sure to win the game's highest jackpot during Saturday night's drawing, a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars — and that's after taxes.

The problem, of course, is those same odds just about guarantee the lucky person won't be you.

The chances of winning the estimated $600 million prize remain astronomically high: 1 in 175.2 million. That's how many different ways you can combine the numbers when you play. But lottery officials estimate about 80 percent of those possible combinations have been purchased, so now's the time to buy.

"This would be the roll to get in on," said Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich. "Of course there's no guarantee, and that's the randomness of it, and the fun of it."

That hasn't deterred people across Powerball-playing states — 43 plus Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands — from lining up at gas stations and convenience stores Saturday for their chance at striking it filthy rich.

At a mini market in the heart of Los Angeles' Chinatown, employees broke the steady stream of customers into two lines: One for Powerball ticket buyers and one for everybody else. Some people appeared to be looking for a little karma.

"We've had two winners over $10 million here over the years, so people in the neighborhood think this is the lucky store," employee Gordon Chan said as he replenished a stack of lottery tickets on a counter.

Workers at one suburban Columbia, S.C., convenience store were so busy with ticket buyers that they hadn't updated their sign with the current jackpot figure, which was released Friday. Customer Armous Peterson was reluctant to share his system for playing the Powerball. The 56-year-old was well aware of the long odds, but he also knows the mantra of just about every person buying tickets.

"Somebody is going to win," he said. "Lots of people are going to lose, too. But if you buy a ticket, that winner might be you."

The latest jackpot is the world's second largest overall, just behind a $656 million Mega Millions jackpot in March 2012. The $600 million jackpot, which could grow before the numbers are drawn at 10:59 EDT Saturday, currently includes a $376.9 million cash option.

Charles Hill of Dallas says he buys lottery tickets every day. And he knows exactly what he'd do if he wins.

"What would I do with my money? I'd run and hide," he said. "I wouldn't want none of my kinfolks to find me."

Clyde Barrow, a public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, specializes in the gaming industry. He said one of the key factors behind the ticket-buying frenzy is the size of the jackpot — people are interested in the easy investment.

"Even though the odds are very low, the investment is very small," he said. "Two dollars gets you a chance."

That may be why Ed McCuen has a Powerball habit that's as regular as clockwork. The 57-year-old electrical contractor from Savannah, Ga., buys one ticket a week, regardless of the possible loot. It's a habit he didn't alter Saturday.

"You've got one shot in a gazillion or whatever," McCuen said, tucking his ticket in his pocket as he left a local convenience store. "You can't win unless you buy a ticket. But whether you buy one or 10 or 20, it's insignificant."

Seema Sharma doesn't seem to think so. The newsstand employee in Manhattan's Penn Station has purchased $80 worth of tickets for herself. She also was selling tickets all morning at a steady pace, instructing buyers where to stand if they wanted machine-picked tickets or to choose their own numbers.

"I work very hard — too hard — and I want to get the money so I can finally relax," she said. "You never know."

Officials will conduct the drawing live Saturday night from Tallahassee, Fla.

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Associated Press Writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., Betsy Blaney in Lubbock, Texas, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., John Rogers in Los Angeles and Verena Dobnick in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow Barbara Rodriguez at http://twitter.com/bcrodriguez

Alienated from the broader Internal Revenue Service culture and given little direction, specialists in a Cincinnati office struggled with the caseload of groups seeking tax exemptions.    

A former Philadelphia police officer once hailed as a hero and given a seat next to the first lady at a speech by President Obama has been arrested and charged with rape and other crimes.

Authorities allege that former officer Richard DeCoatsworth left a party with two females early Thursday and took them to another location, where they allege that he produced a handgun and "forced the two females to engage in the use of narcotics and sexual acts."

A police spokeswoman said the two called police after he left, and 27-year-old DeCoatsworth was charged with rape, sexual assault, terroristic threats and related offenses.

DeCoatsworth was hailed as a hero after he was shot in the face during a traffic stop in September 2007 but still managed to chase after his attacker, who was later sentenced to 36 to 72 years in prison.

DeCoatsworth was invited by Vice President Joe Biden to attend the president's televised February 2009 address to Congress and sat with first lady Michelle Obama. He said he didn't know why he had been singled out, but being in the presence of the nation's leaders was an honor "that I will keep with me for the rest of my life."

WCAU-TV, which first reported his arrest, said DeCoatsworth retired from the department on disability in December 2011.

Police said no other information on the alleged attack would be released Saturday to protect the victims and the integrity of the ongoing investigation. Authorities declined to give even general locations for the party and alleged crime scene and also wouldn't say when DeCoatsworth was arrested.

A listed number for DeCoatsworth has been disconnected and it was unclear whether he had an attorney.

Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey told a Philadelphia Daily News columnist in February of last year that he believed he had made a mistake in granting the former officer's request to go back to work too soon after he was shot.

"God bless him for still wanting to get out there and do police work, but did I act in his best interest? In hindsight, I would say probably not," Ramsey told columnist Sty Bykofsky.

A new bill aims to press colleges into providing students and families with information on graduate employment outcomes.

A former Philadelphia police officer once hailed as a hero and given a seat next to the first lady at a speech by President Obama has been arrested and charged with rape and other crimes.

Authorities allege that former officer Richard DeCoatsworth left a party with two females early Thursday and took them to another location, where they allege he produced a handgun and forced them to use narcotics and engage in sexual acts.

A police spokeswoman said the victims called police and the 27-year-old DeCoatsworth was charged with rape, sexual assault, terroristic threats and related offenses.

A listed number for DeCoatsworth had been disconnected; it was unclear whether he had an attorney.

WCAU-TV, which first reported the arrest, said DeCoatsworth retired from the force on disability in 2011.

Police say a gunman used anti-gay slurs before fatally shooting a 32-year-old man in New York City's Greenwich (GREN'-ich) Village.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Saturday that the shooting, which occurred just after midnight, appears to have been a hate crime.

Kelly says the gunman was seen urinating on the street outside a bar. He says the man went into the bar, made anti-gay remarks to the bartender and showed the bartender that he was wearing a holster with a silver pistol.

Kelly says the gunman then confronted the victim and a companion on the street and asked if they were "gay wrestlers."

Kelly says the man shot the victim in the face. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The names of the victim and the suspect were not immediately released.