The Associated Press

With flight delays mounting, the Senate has passed legislation to end air traffic controller furloughs blamed for inconveniencing large numbers of travelers.

Approval came without dissent, and long after many senators had left the Capitol for a weeklong vacation.

A House vote is expected as early as Friday.

Washington state's chief prosecutor says there's a catch to T-Mobile's new cellphone plans, which replace the traditional two-year service contract with an installment plan for phone buyers.

One of the benefits of the new plan is that buyers can cancel their service at any time. But Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson says the company hasn't told customers that they have to pay the full remaining cost of the phone if they cancel service; they can't remain on the installment plan.

The Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled that there is no employment protection for people who use marijuana.

In a split decision issued on Thursday, the court said marijuana use is still barred by the federal government, even though state-licensed marijuana use has been approved by voters and is considered lawful.

"For an activity to be lawful in Colorado, it must be permitted by, and not contrary to, both state and federal law," the appeals court said.

New York City officials say the Boston Marathon bombing suspects intended to blow up their remaining explosives in Times Square.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly spoke at a briefing Thursday.

Kelly says the two suspects had a pressure cooker bomb and five pipe bombs they wanted to set off.

At a recent scene of a fight on Seattle's waterfront, most of the gawkers weren't looking at the handcuffed and yelling suspect or the bloodied victim. Instead, their attention and cameras were directed at a fully restored 1970 Plymouth Satellite police cruiser.

It's the common reaction to the vehicle driven by 30-year-veteran Officer Jim Ritter. By his count, the Plymouth has caused at least three fender-benders. 

Democrats in the Washington state House are moving ahead with a tax plan valued at $900 million over the next two years.

The House narrowly approved a variety of tax changes Wednesday, including the permanent extension of business taxes to raise more than half a billion dollars. The plan would also repeal tax breaks for travel agents, bottled water and fuel.

Frustrated at being left out of an immigration overhaul, gay rights groups are pushing to adjust a bipartisan Senate bill to include gay couples. But Democrats are treading carefully, wary of adding another divisive issue that could lose Republican support and jeopardize the entire bill.

Both parties want the bill to succeed. Merely getting to agreement on the basic framework for the immigration overhaul, which would create a long and costly path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people in the U.S. illegally, was no small feat for senators. And getting it through a divided Congress is still far from a done deal.

Rescuers tried to free dozens of people believed trapped Wednesday night in a collapsed eight-story building that housed garment factories, killing at least 87. Workers had complained about cracks in the structure before it came tumbling down, but were assured it was safe.

Searchers cut holes in the jumbled mess of concrete with drills or their bare hands, passing water and flashlights to those pinned inside the building near Bangladesh's capital of Dhaka.

Prosecutors and crime lab scientists say a little-noticed provision in Washington's new legal marijuana law has jeopardized their ability to go after any pot crimes at all, and they're calling for an immediate fix in the Legislature.

The problem stems from a part of the law meant to distinguish marijuana from industrial hemp, which is grown for its fiber. The law defines marijuana as having more than 0.3 percent of a certain intoxicating compound, called delta-9 THC.

Boeing says it will begin delivering 787s again in early May.

The 787 has been grounded since mid-January because of smoldering batteries. Federal authorities have approved Boeing's redesigned battery system.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has signed legislation to give the Boeing Co. $120 million in incentives for its expansion plans in the state.

Haley's spokesman Rob Godfrey told The Associated Press that the Republican governor signed the bill into law Tuesday afternoon.

In the years before the Boston Marathon bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev fell under the influence of a new friend, a Muslim convert who steered the religiously apathetic young man toward a strict strain of Islam, family members said.

Under the tutelage of a friend known to the Tsarnaev family only as Misha, Tamerlan gave up boxing and stopped studying music, his family said. He began opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He turned to websites and literature claiming that the CIA was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Jews controlled the world.

Hackers have compromised the main Twitter account of The Associated Press, sending out an erroneous tweet about an attack at the White House.

The tweet, which said that there had been two explosions at the White House and President Barack Obama was injured, came after hackers made repeated attempts to steal the passwords of AP journalists.

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was an ardent reader of jihadist websites and extremist propaganda, U.S. officials said Tuesday, adding another piece to the body of evidence they say suggests the two brothers were motivated by an anti-American, radical version of Islam.

As he lay in his hospital bed with a gunshot wound to the throat, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was charged on Monday with carrying out the bombing with his older brother, who died last week in a gunbattle. Tsarnaev could get the death penalty.

Federal officials say they're delaying a policy that would allow passengers to carry small knives, bats and other sports equipment onto airliners.

The Transportation Security Administration said Monday that the policy change has been delayed to accommodate feedback from an advisory committee made up of aviation industry, consumer and law enforcement officials.