US Domestic News Roundup: Kavanaugh vote, Crosses in Arizona desert

Compassion Party candidate arrested in Rhode Island on marijuana charges

A Rhode Island gubernatorial candidate and her partner were arrested on Thursday with what police said was 48 pounds of marijuana. Compassion Party candidate Anne Armstrong, 58, was arrested with Alan Gordon, 48, the Compassion Party's candidate for attorney general, at their home in West Greenwich, state police said in a statement.

Whoops! Typos on highway signs vex drivers from New York to Ohio

When a typo appears on a road sign, fixing the error is not as easy as hitting "backspace" or opening a giant container of Wite-Out. In some cases, it can take more than 50 years. Generations of literate drivers in New York City, for example, have done a double take when passing a sign reading "Verrazano" - with a missing "z" - directing traffic to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, connecting the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island.

Kavanaugh does not belong on Supreme Court, says retired justice Stevens

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said on Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh does not belong on the high court, the Palm Beach Post reported. Speaking to an audience of retirees in Boca Raton, Florida, Stevens, 98, said Kavanaugh's performance during a recent Senate confirmation hearing suggested he lacks the temperament for the job.

Crosses in Arizona desert mark where 'American dream ended' for migrants

The brightly-coloured crosses that Alvaro Enciso plants in the unforgiving hard sand of Arizona's Sonoran desert mark what he calls 'the end of an American dream' - the places where a migrant died after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The bodies of nearly 3,000 migrants have been recovered in southern Arizona since 2000, according to the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner. Aid group Humane Borders, which sets up water stations along migrant trails, said that may be only a fraction of the total death toll, with most bodies never recovered.

Republicans aim to confirm Kavanaugh this weekend; protesters arrested

President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans gained confidence on Thursday that his U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh would win Senate confirmation after two wavering lawmakers responded positively to an FBI report on accusations of sexual misconduct against the judge. The report, sent by the White House to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the middle of the night, was denounced by Democrats as a whitewash that was too narrow in scope and ignored critical witnesses.

Utah man confessed to sending ricin letters: court documents

A 39-year-old U.S. Navy veteran has confessed to sending letters to U.S. President Donald Trump and other senior officials that were initially feared to contain the poison ricin when they were discovered this week, court documents showed. William Clyde Allen III was arrested on Wednesday at his home in Logan, Utah, on a probable cause warrant and will be charged on Friday, said Melodie Rydalch, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office.

U.S. agency saw a sharp rise in sexual harassment complaints after #MeToo

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said on Thursday that the number of sexual harassment complaints workers filed with the agency over the past year rose for the first time in nearly a decade, attributing the increase to the #MeToo movement. The commission said the number of complaints, known as charges, filed in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 rose more than 12 per cent over the previous year when it received about 6,700. It said the numbers were preliminary, as the agency typically publishes comprehensive data from its fiscal year by the following February.

The U.S. plans to rewrite rules that impede self-driving cars

The Trump administration is moving ahead with plans to revise safety rules that bar fully self-driving cars from the roads without equipment such as steering wheels, pedals and mirrors, according to a document made public on Thursday. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) "intends to reconsider the necessity and appropriateness of its current safety standards" as applied to automated vehicles, the U.S. Department of Transportation said in an 80-page update of its principles dubbed "Automated Vehicles 3.0."

Chicago police killing of the black teen was unjustifiable: prosecutor

The white Chicago policeman who shot a black teen 16 times in 2014 committed an act of unjustifiable murder, a prosecutor told jurors on Thursday, while the defence argued that the officer had seen the youngster carrying a knife and feared for his safety. The trial has intensified a debate on race relations and police use of force in the third-largest U.S. city.

Onetime rap mogul Marion 'Suge' Knight sentenced to 28 years for manslaughter

Former rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight was sentenced in a Los Angeles courtroom on Thursday to 28 years in prison for manslaughter in the death of a man he ran over with his pickup truck outside a hamburger stand in 2015. The sentence appeared to forestall any chance of a future recording business comeback for Knight, 53, known as much for repeated run-ins with the law as for his career as a hip-hop executive promoting the likes of Snoop Dogg, Dr Dre and Tupac Shakur during the 1990s.

(With inputs from Reuters)