A Utah college student missing 11 days was abducted and killed and her remains burned in the yard of a man now facing aggravated murder and other charges, authorities said Friday. Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown, who became emotional at times during a morning press conference, said Ayoola A. Ajayi will be charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, obstruction of justice and desecration of a body in the death of 23-year-old Mackenzie Lueck.

Nevada faces complaints about secrecy in awarding licenses to sell marijuana in the state's booming legal marketplace, boiling over into lawsuits and legislation that appear poised to pry open the process. Several companies have sued the state tax department, arguing that no one knows for sure the criteria officials use to award new licenses. They complain the state releases no information about who seeks and receives permission to sell cannabis to adults, many of them tourists, in the nearly 2-year-old market.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is recommending attendance be capped at existing levels for the next 10 years at the annual Burning Man counter-culture festival in the desert 100 miles north of Reno. Burning Man organizers had proposed raising the current 80,000 limit as high as 100,000 in coming years. But the BLM said in releasing the final environmental impact statement on Friday its preferred alternative for the proposed 10-year renewal of Burning Man's special recreation permit would stick with the cap that's been in place since 2017.

A former U.S. intelligence officer convicted of trying to pass defense information to China was solemn as he was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison and said he "would give anything" to change his actions. Ron Rockwell Hansen, 60, wearing a gray jumpsuit, apologized in a trembling voice to his family and former colleagues for "pain and damage" he caused.

Idaho police say at least two people were killed and three were injured in a shooting at an apartment complex for senior citizens in Caldwell.

Idaho State Police may get the funding to purchase equipment that would allow investigators to distinguish hemp from marijuana after a high-profile case in the state grabbed headlines and prompted a federal lawsuit. The state legislature's Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Friday approved about $240,000 for three testing devices for crime labs in the cities of Meridian, Pocatello and Coeur d'Alene. The funding must be approved by the House and Senate.

A disputed effort to help native bighorn sheep in Grand Teton National Park was scheduled to start Friday with a helicopter buzzing over rugged peaks with sharpshooters aboard tasked with killing nonnative mountain goats. Park officials closed off a large portion of the Teton Range to the public for the eradication effort and planned to begin the flights in the afternoon, park spokeswoman Denise Germann said.

A man whose home was searched as police investigate the disappearance of a Utah college student was named a "person of interest" in the case Thursday, and police were trying to find a mattress that had been inside his home. The announcement came shortly after authorities spent about 19 hours searching the man's home in a middle class Salt Lake City neighborhood. Neighbors described officers entering the home with shovels and police dogs.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Monday stressed the importance of an independent central bank "absolutely free" from politics in the wake of increasing pressure from President Donald Trump urging the central bank to lower interest rates.

The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 united a nation fresh off the Civil War that had been separated by wide expanses of desert, mountains and forests and became a pivotal moment in United States history that dramatically changed how people traveled and did business. Some 15,000 people are expected to gather Friday at the remote spot in the Utah desert where the final spikes were hammered into the ground 150 years ago to mark the finish of the nearly 1,800-mile rail line, triggering a famous telegraph that set off celebrations around the nation.