LOS ANGELES — A divided U.S. House committee approved a proposal Wednesday to decriminalize and tax marijuana at the federal level, a vote that was alternately described as a momentous turning point in national cannabis policy or a hollow political gesture.

The House Judiciary Committee approved the proposal 24-10 after more than two hours of debate. It would reverse a long-standing federal prohibition by removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, while allowing states to set their own rules on pot.

The vote “marks a turning point for federal cannabis policy and is truly a sign that prohibition’s days are numbered,” Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said in a statement.

However, the bill’s future is uncertain. It wasn’t immediately clear if the proposal would be reviewed by other committees and when, or if, a vote would take place in the full House. The proposal has better chances of passing in the Democratic-controlled chamber than in the Republican-held Senate.

The House passed a bill earlier this year to grant legal marijuana businesses access to banking, but it hasn’t advanced in the Senate.

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee complained that the proposal had never had a hearing and lacked bipartisan support.

Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said the nation has for too long “treated marijuana as a criminal justice problem, instead of a matter of personal choice and public health.”

Helicopter crash in Afghanistan kills 2 US service members

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two American service members were killed Wednesday when their helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan while supporting combat operations, according to the U.S. military.

A lawmaker from Logar province said the crash occurred near an American outpost in the province. The helicopter “hit a mountainous area, and we understand that it occurred five kilometers away from a U.S. base,” Mohammed Asif said.

About 2,400 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.

While the role of the U.S. military in Afghanistan has been described by the Afghan government as mentoring or training, security forces still rely heavily on American support to carry out operations, according to a Pentagon study released in June.

UK Conservatives under fire for Twitter deception in debate

LONDON — Britain’s Conservative Party was accused Wednesday of trying to deceive voters by changing the name of its press office Twitter account to “factcheckUK” during a televised election debate between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, raising concerns that political parties’ online trickery is undermining democracy.

Organizations that combat political misinformation cried foul.

“It was misleading and it was inappropriate,” Will Moy, chief executive of the London-based fact-checking website Full Fact, told The Associated Press.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab defended the party’s actions, saying the account was asserting that voters would not be perturbed by “the social media cut and thrust.”

UN Security Council members rebuke US on Israel settlements

UNITED NATIONS — In a sharp rebuke to the Trump administration, the 14 other U.N. Security Council members on Wednesday strongly opposed the U.S. announcement Monday by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that it no longer considers Israeli settlements to be a violation of international law.

They warned that the new American policy undermines a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The council’s monthly Mideast meeting was dominated by countries representing all regions of the world who said Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

Only Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, who is not a council member, spoke in support of the U.S. action, saying it “rights a historical wrong.”

Nebraska takes 1st step in sharing drivers’ records

LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska is the first state to publicly acknowledge it will share drivers’ license records with the U.S. Census Bureau as the federal agency tries to comply with President Donald Trump’s order to count the number of U.S. citizens.

The Associated Press has learned that the Census Bureau and Rhonda Lahm, Nebraska’s motor vehicles director, signed an agreement to share the records earlier this month.

An AP survey last month showed that the majority of states hadn’t agreed to share their records with the bureau, which began requesting them in August.

The effort began after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, and the president instead ordered citizenship data compiled through federal and state administrative records.

Greece announces overhaul of migrant camps

ATHENS, Greece — Greece announced plans Wednesday to overhaul its migration management system, replacing overcrowded refugee camps on the islands with smaller detention facilities and moving some 20,000 asylum seekers to the mainland over the next few weeks.

Deputy Defense Minister Alkiviadis Stefanis announced the changes following a surge in the number of arrivals from nearby Turkey — with the number of migrants and refugees now exceeding the islands’ populations in some cases.

Camps on Lesbos and four other islands are suffering overcrowding ahead of the winter, with hundreds of families sleeping in tents and often outside facilities.

The changes are the most significant since a landmark deal in 2016 to limit migration to Europe.

In California: Pacific Gas & Electric Co. turned off electricity Wednesday for about 120,000 people in Northern California to prevent power lines from sparking wildfires as the region faced a new bout of windy and warm weather.

The utility originally said that about 150,000 customers, or about 375,000 people, would be affected by the outages but significantly lowered that number after some areas got rain or increased humidity that lowered the fire threat.

PG&E spokeswoman Ari Vanrenen said about 35,000 more people were told they could lose power later Wednesday if weather conditions do not improve in their communities. People who lost power were expected to get it back Thursday.