The debate over how much tax money recreational marijuana laws could produce is playing an outsize role in the campaigns for and against legalization — and both sides concede they’re not really sure what would happen.

At one extreme, pro-pot campaigners say it could prove a windfall for cash-strapped states with new taxes on pot and reduced criminal justice costs.

At the other, state government skeptics warn legalization would lead to costly legal battles and expensive new bureaucracies to regulate marijuana.

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Obama boosted by housing reports, polls as Romney seeks end to controversy of his own making

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fresh signs of a national housing rebound and growing support in public opinion polls boosted President Barack Obama’s bid for a new term in the White House on Wednesday as Republican rival Mitt Romney struggled to quell his video controversy.

The challenger’s attempts to get his campaign back on track ran into new difficulty in the form of criticism from rank-and-file Republicans concerned about their own election prospects in the fall.

“I have a very different view of the world,” said appointed Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, taking issue with Romney’s dismissive comments about the 47 percent of all Americans who pay no income taxes. Separately, Senate GOP leaders avoided answering questions about their presidential candidate at a news conference in the Capitol.

After days of virtually nonstop political damage control on issues foreign and domestic, Romney assured an audience at a Miami forum that “my campaign is about the 100 percent in America.”

Earlier in the day, at an Atlanta fundraiser, Romney said: “The question of this campaign is not who cares about the poor and the middle class. I do. He (Obama) does. The question is who can help the poor and the middle class. I can. He can’t.”

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Romney’s comments about government dependency resonate in presidential campaign’s key states

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Mitt Romney’s offhanded comment that as a candidate he doesn’t worry about the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes has quickly entered the bloodstream in the presidential campaign’s most hard-fought states.

His comment, in a video revealed this week, is prompting expressions of shock — but also shrugs — from Nevada to Florida to New Hampshire and the handful of battleground states in between.

Will it sway an election expected to be close?

There was much discussion in the relatively few states that are still considered competitive, likely to decide the race. Here, as elsewhere, the question was whether Romney was showing himself to be insensitive or merely delivering the hard truth a nation at an economic crossroads must face.

People’s answers could make an Election Day difference in states where the race is tight.

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Watchdog faults Justice Department over Fast and Furious; no evidence Holder was informed

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department’s internal watchdog on Wednesday faulted the agency for misguided strategies, errors in judgment and management failures during a bungled gun-trafficking probe in Arizona that disregarded public safety and resulted in hundreds of weapons turning up at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico.

A former head of the department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and a deputy assistant attorney general in Justice’s criminal division in Washington left the department upon the report’s release — the first by retirement, the second by resignation.

In the 471-page report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred more than a dozen people for possible department disciplinary action for their roles in Operation Fast and Furious and a separate, earlier probe known as Wide Receiver, undertaken during the George W. Bush administration. A former acting deputy attorney general and the head of the criminal division were criticized for actions and omissions related to operations subsequent to and preceding Fast and Furious.

The report did not criticize Attorney General Eric Holder, but said lower-level officials should have briefed him about the investigation much earlier.

The report found no evidence that Holder was informed about the Fast and Furious operation before Jan. 31, 2011, or that the attorney general was told about the much-disputed gun-walking tactic employed by the ATF.

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New estimate for health care penalty: Nearly 2M more will pay tax for failing to get coverage

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 6 million Americans — significantly more than first estimated— will face a tax penalty under President Barack Obama’s health overhaul for not getting insurance, congressional analysts said Wednesday. Most would be in the middle class.

The new estimate amounts to an inconvenient fact for the administration, a reminder of what critics see as broken promises.

The numbers from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are 50 percent higher than a previous projection by the same office in 2010, shortly after the law passed. The earlier estimate found 4 million people would be affected in 2016, when the penalty is fully in effect.

That’s still only a sliver of the population, given that more than 150 million people currently are covered by employer plans. Nonetheless, in his first campaign for the White House, Obama pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000.

And the budget office analysis found that nearly 80 percent of those who’ll face the penalty would be making up to or less than five times the federal poverty level. Currently that would work out to $55,850 or less for an individual and $115,250 or less for a family of four.

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France ramps up embassy security after magazine caricatures Prophet Muhammad amid new protests

PARIS (AP) — France stepped up security Wednesday at its embassies across the Muslim world after a French satirical weekly revived a formula that it has already used to capture attention: Publishing crude, lewd caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Wednesday’s issue of the provocative satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, whose offices were firebombed last year, raised concerns that France could face violent protests like the ones targeting the United States over an amateur video produced in California that have left at least 30 people dead.

The drawings, some of which depicted Muhammad naked and in demeaning or pornographic poses, were met with a swift rebuke by the French government, which warned the magazine could be inflaming tensions, even as it reiterated France’s free speech protections.

The principle of freedom of expression “must not be infringed,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said, speaking on France Inter radio.

But he added: “Is it pertinent, intelligent, in this context to pour oil on the fire? The answer is no.”

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Yale dropout suspected of online death threats against children faces weapons charge

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rants, racist remarks and menacing words permeate the Internet these days, so why did police decide to arrest a Yale dropout for investigation of making online death threats against children and initially hold him on a bail amount usually reserved for suspected killers?

Authorities said they considered several factors in the case against 21-year-old Eric Yee, who was arrested this week after commenting about a story on ESPN’s website about the cost of new Nike sneakers named after LeBron James.

Authorities claimed Yee said he wouldn’t mind killing children, and that there were unregistered weapons in the Valencia, Calif., house he shares with his parents that overlooks two schools.

Yee was charged Wednesday with a single count of possessing an illegal firearm, and his arraignment was postponed until Oct. 16, district attorney spokeswoman Jane Robison said.

Prosecutors initially held Yee on $1 million bail, which was reduced to $100,000 at a hearing. It wasn’t immediately clear if prosecutors would still pursue the threat allegation.

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After teachers strike, both sides find victories, but doubts linger about wider implications

CHICAGO (AP) — Mayor Rahm Emanuel secured an extension of Chicago’s school day and empowered principals to hire the teachers they want. Teachers were able to soften a new evaluation process and win some job protections.

As students returned to the classroom Wednesday after a seven-day teachers strike, both sides found reasons to celebrate victory. But neither the school-reform movement nor organized labor achieved the decisive breakthrough it had sought. And whether the implications extend beyond Chicago may depend on the next case having a similar cast of characters and political pressures.

Unions hoped the walkout would prove they were still relevant, and some reform groups were disappointed with the city’s concessions.

At times, the contract talks seemed overshadowed by personalities, with the mayor and union leaders occasionally trading insults and questioning each other’s motives.

Still, everyone involved in the dispute emerged with an achievement to trumpet: Teachers said the strike sparked an important national conversation about school reform. Union activists said it helped inspire public employee unions that have been losing ground. Emanuel declared it a boon for students trapped in failing schools.

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In police video, suspect in Wis. fetal-abduction attack provides details of deadly assault

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Milwaukee woman accused of killing a pregnant woman and trying to steal her fetus described the attack in a video prosecutors played for jurors Wednesday, telling investigators she repeatedly bashed the victim in the head with a baseball bat before choking her to death.

Prosecutors played about 38 minutes of a 90-minute police interview conducted with Annette Morales-Rodriguez last October. In the recording, she describes how she attacked 23-year-old Maritza Ramirez-Cruz and then performed a crude cesarean section with a small blade in the hopes she could pass the baby off as her own.

The 34-year-old has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of the mother and her full-term fetus. A conviction on either count carries a mandatory life sentence, although a judge could allow for the possibility of parole. Wisconsin does not have the death penalty.

Her public defender contends the homicides weren’t intentional.

As the video played, Morales-Rodriguez sat silently in the courtroom, her head bowed as she stared at the table where she was sitting.

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Martian rover turns eye toward bitten-off eclipsed sun, next will turn arm toward rock

WASHINGTON (AP) — On Mars, a partial eclipse of the sun isn’t quite as rare as on Earth. So NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover is snapping hundreds of pictures of the spectacle for the folks back home to ooh and aah over.

Two moons zip around the red planet and they’re closer and faster than our lumbering moon, so eclipses are more common. Scientists say there’s even somewhat of an eclipse season on Mars, and it’s that time of year when those Martian moons take turns taking bites of the sun.

Curiosity turned its cameras skyward to watch the action in three different eclipses, starting last week and continuing Wednesday, when a moon partially slipped between Mars and the sun.

The rover has been beaming back a stream of photos of the Martian landscape since landing near the equator last month.

Texas A&M University scientist Mark Lemmon said the eclipse pictures will help scientists track the fate of the larger Martian moon, Phobos, which is slowing down in its orbit around Mars. In 10 to 15 million years, Phobos will get so close to Mars it will break up and crash into the planet.