Despite warnings from California officials, the nation's highest court is refusing to delay the early release of nearly 10,000 California inmates by year's end to ease overcrowding at 33 adult prisons.

In its decision Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed an emergency request by the Gov. Jerry Brown to halt a lower court's directive for the early release.

Law enforcement officials expressed concern about the ruling.

The justices ignored efforts already under way to reduce prison populations and "chose instead to allow for the release of more felons into already overburdened communities," said Covina Police Chief Kim Raney, president of the California Police Chiefs Association.

Brown's office referred a request for comment to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where Secretary Jeff Beard vowed that the state would press on with a still-pending appeal in hope of preventing the releases.

A panel of three federal judges had previously ordered the state to cut its prison population by nearly 8 percent to roughly 110,000 inmates by Dec. 31 to avoid conditions amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. That panel, responding to decades of lawsuits filed by inmates, repeatedly ordered early releases after finding inmates were needlessly dying and suffering because of inadequate medical and mental health care caused by overcrowding.

A federal appeals court says an Oregon longshoreman who got drunk on the job, urinated while standing on a dock and then fell 6 feet onto concrete should not get workers' compensation benefits for his injuries.

Gary Schwirse drank at least nine beers and half-pint of whiskey on Jan. 8, 2006. While standing on a dock, he urinated and fell over a railing. At the hospital, he registered a blood-alcohol level of 0.25 percent.

Schwirse sued for workers' compensation benefits and at first was victorious, when an administrative law judge ruled that workplace hazards had been a factor in his fall. But the judge later reversed his ruling when Schwirse backed off a claim that he tripped over an orange cone.

The worker appealed it to U.S. District Court, where he lost, and the case landed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied a petition for a review of claims this week. The court said his injuries were due solely to intoxication and his employers could not be held responsible.

Schwirse later tried to argue that the very concrete onto which he fell, and not his intoxication, was responsible for his injuries. That argument also lost.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge N. Randy Smith wrote in the opinion that if intoxication was the reason for the fall, then intoxication was also the reason for the injury.

A California court has ordered the state's Department of Public Health to establish a safe drinking water standard for the cancer-causing chemical made famous in the film "Erin Brockovich."

An Alameda County Superior Court judge directed the agency to propose a drinking water standard for hexavalent chromium by the end of August.

The ruling on July 18 came nearly a year after environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming it was eight years late in setting the standard.

Results of state water quality testing conducted between 2000 and 2011 throughout California showed that about a third of the 7,000 drinking water sources tested had hexavalent chromium levels at or above a preliminary benchmark set by the California EPA. The chemical comes chiefly from industrial pollution, but also occurs naturally.

The U.S. Justice Department says a Charleston man prepared hundreds of tax returns that cheated the government out of $55 million.

A federal judge on Tuesday permanently barred Stacy Middleton from preparing federal tax returns for others.

Middleton had been preparing tax returns for more than a decade. Prosecutors say he and another man prepared returns that understated their clients' income tax liabilities and overstated deductions and credits.

From 2008 to 2011, authorities say the men prepared about 17,000 federal returns. Of the records examined by the Internal Revenue Service, more than 90 percent needed adjustments.

In all, the IRS estimates that the U.S. Treasury lost as much as $55 million in revenue.

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday hears arguments in an appeal of a lower court's ruling that requires the state Legislature to give schools an annual funding increase even in lean years to account for inflation.

The high court is reviewing a Court of Appeals decision. It said a voter-approved law requires the Legislature to provide an annual inflation adjustment for state funding to public schools.

School districts and education groups sued after the Legislature in 2010 instead only increased schools' transportation funding, eliminating a $61 million increase in general school spending.

The Supreme Court says it is considering is whether the Voter Protection Act allows voters to require the legislature to increase funding for schools.

The Voter Protection Act severely restricts the Legislature's to change voter-approved laws.

Two Colorado Democratic state senators facing recalls over their support for new gun restrictions argued Wednesday to stop the proceedings, telling a judge the petitions against them are invalid and that no election should be set until judicial review is complete.

State Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs and Pueblo Sen. Angela Giron argue the recall petitions against them were improperly worded and didn't ask for an election to appoint a successor.

Denver District Court Judge Robert Hyatt heard arguments Wednesday and will rule Thursday afternoon whether to grant a preliminary injunction.

Supporters of the recall maintain their petitions are valid. The Secretary of State's office has agreed and is seeking a court order to force Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper to set an election date.