Local governments in California's have legal authority to ban storefront pot shops within their borders, California's highest court ruled on Monday in an opinion likely to further diminish the state's once-robust medical marijuana industry.

Nearly 17 years after voters in the state legalized medical marijuana, the court ruled unanimously in a legal challenge to a ban the city of Riverside enacted in 2010.

The advocacy group Americans for Safe Access estimates that another 200 jurisdictions statewide have similar prohibitions on retail pot sales. Many were enacted after the number of retail medical marijuana outlets boomed in Southern California after a 2009 memo from the U.S. Justice Department said prosecuting pot sales would be a low priority.

However, the rush to outlaw pot shops has slowed in the 21 months since the four federal prosecutors in California launched a coordinated crackdown on dispensaries by threatening to seize the property of landlords who lease space to the shops. Hundreds of dispensary operators have since been evicted or closed voluntarily.

Marijuana advocates have argued that allowing local government to bar dispensaries thwarts the intent of the state's medical marijuana law - the nation's first - to make the drug accessible to residents with doctor's recommendations to use it.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a former death row inmate in a 1998 slaying in Lexington.

The appeals court on Friday found that 40-year-old Gerald Young failed to prove his allegation that prosecutors put on false testimony at his trial.

Young is serving life in prison for complicity to commit murder in June 1997. Young was originally sentenced to death for hiring a hit-man to kill Osama Shalash in Lexington as part of a drug dispute.

The Kentucky Supreme Court in 2001 overturned the death sentence, finding no aggravating circumstances to warrant capital punishment. Young is currently challenging his resentencing. Two other men were also sentenced to prison in the slaying.

A Southern California doctor has agreed to plead guilty to charges of illegally prescribing drugs to his patients at nightly meetings in Starbucks stores.

Court documents show 44-year-old Alvin Mingczech Yee entered into a plea agreement earlier this week. He is expected to plead guilty to seven counts at a April 17 hearing.

Prosecutors say Yee saw up to a dozen patients nightly at Starbucks coffee stores across suburban Orange County at meetings that cost up to $600. Prosecutors say Yee barely examined them but prescribed drugs including OxyContin and Vicodin.

Yee was arrested in October 2011 at his Irvine office and has been free on bond.

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A federal appeals court has granted Hobby Lobby's request for the entire court to hear its challenge of a federal requirement that it provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraceptives.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced its decision Friday. Appeals are usually decided by a three-judge panel, but a total of nine judges will hear the appeal from the Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts chain.

Hobby Lobby is challenging a requirement in the new federal health care law that says the company must provide and pay for emergency contraceptives. The company says the requirement violates the beliefs of its Christian owners.

The Denver-based court also said it would hear Hobby Lobby's appeal on an expedited basis, with oral arguments expected this spring.

A federal appeals court says government regulators can try to halt construction projects at power plants if they think the companies didn't properly calculate whether the changes would increase air pollution.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued DTE Energy in 2010 because the company replaced key boiler parts at its Monroe Unit 2 without installing pollution controls that are required whenever a utility performs a major overhaul. DTE said the project was only routine maintenance.

U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman threw out the suit, saying EPA went to court too soon.

But the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his decision Thursday. In a 2-1 ruling, the court says the law doesn't block EPA from challenging suspected violations of its regulations until long after power plants are modified.