follow-up-news

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The Biden administration will take a historic step toward easing federal restrictions on cannabis, with plans to announce an interim rule soon reclassifying the drug for the first time since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted more than 50 years ago, four sources with knowledge of the decision tell NBC News. The Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to approve an opinion by the Department of Health and Human Services that marijuana should be reclassified from the most strict Schedule I to the less stringent Schedule III, marking the first time that the U.S. government would acknowledge its potential medical benefits and begin studying them in earnest. The Justice Department "continues to work on this rule," a Biden administration official said. "We have no further comment at this time." Since 1971, marijuana has been in the same category as heroin, methamphetamines and LSD. Each substance under the Schedule I classification is defined as a drug with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule III substances include Tylenol with codeine, steroids and testosterone. By rescheduling cannabis, the drug would now be studied and researched to identify concrete medical benefits, opening the door for pharmaceutical companies to get involved with the sale and distribution of medical marijuana in states where it is legal.  For the $34 billion cannabis industry, the move would also eliminate significant tax burdens for businesses in states where the drug is legal, notably getting rid of the Internal Revenue Services code Section 280E which currently prohibits legal cannabis companies from deducting what would otherwise be ordinary business expenses. The Department of Justice’s rescheduling decision could also help shrink the black market which has thrived despite legalization in states like New York and California and has undercut legal markets that are fiercely regulated and highly taxed.

#marijuana #biden administration

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Ukraine’s outnumbered troops have been forced to retreat from three villages on the eastern front lines, the country’s top commander said Sunday, as Russian forces push to break through its beleaguered defenses while Kyiv waits for newly committed U.S. military aid to arrive.  It was a rare admission from Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, that his troops were not only struggling, but also that Russia was gaining the upper hand. 

#ukraine #russia

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A Colorado paramedic was sentenced to four years of probation Friday for his role in the killing of Elijah McClain, bringing a close to the yearslong effort to prosecute those involved in the Black pedestrian's death. Jeremy Cooper, a onetime Aurora Fire Rescue paramedic, had faced up to three years in prison following his conviction on Dec. 22 for criminally negligent homicide. Friday's sentencing was the final trial court action against first responders who were accused of playing a role in 23-year-old McClain's death. [...] McClain was walking home on Aug. 24, 2019, when police in the Denver suburb stopped him. McClain was put in a chokehold and paramedics administered 500 milligrams of ketamine to sedate him before he went into cardiac arrest on his way to the hospital.

#elijah mcclain #colorado

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The Federal Trade Commission is sending more than $5.6 million in refunds to consumers as part of a settlement with Amazon-owned Ring, which was charged with failing to protect private video footage from outside access. In a 2023 complaint, the FTC accused the doorbell camera and home security provider of allowing its employees and contractors to access customers’ private videos. Ring allegedly used such footage to train algorithms without consent, among other purposes. Ring was also charged with failing to implement key security protections, which enabled hackers to take control of customers’ accounts, cameras and videos. This led to “egregious violations of users’ privacy,” the FTC noted. The resulting settlement required Ring to delete content that was found to be unlawfully obtained, establish stronger security protections and pay a hefty fine. The FTC says that it’s now using much of that money to refund eligible Ring customers. According to a Tuesday notice, the FTC is sending 117,044 PayPal payments to impacted consumers who had certain types of Ring devices — including indoor cameras — during the timeframes that the regulators allege unauthorized access took place. Eligible customers will need to redeem these payments within 30 days, according to the FTC — which added that consumers can contact this case’s refund administrator, Rust Consulting, or visit the FTC’s FAQ page on refunds for more information about the process.

#ftc #amazon #ring #amazon ring

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The first cargo ship passed through a newly opened deep-water channel in Baltimore on Thursday after being stuck in the harbor since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed four weeks ago, halting most maritime traffic through the city’s port. The Balsa 94, a bulk carrier sailing under a Panama flag, passed through the new 35-foot (12-meter) channel headed for Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Two more commercial ships followed later Thursday, including a vehicle carrier headed to Panama. Their long-awaited voyages marked an important step in the ongoing cleanup and recovery effort as crews have been working around the clock to clear thousands of tons of mangled steel and concrete from the entrance to Baltimore’s harbor. Five vessels that have been stranded for weeks are expected to finally leave Baltimore through the new, temporary channel. Other ships are scheduled to enter the port, which normally processes more cars and farm equipment than any other in the country. Thousands of longshoremen, truckers and small business owners have seen their jobs impacted by the collapse, prompting local and state officials to prioritize reopening the port and restoring its traffic to normal capacity in hopes of easing the economic ripple effects of the collapse. Officials have also established various assistance programs for unemployed workers and others impacted by the closure.

#baltimore #key bridge

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Haiti opened a new political chapter Thursday with the installation of a transitional council tasked to pick a new prime minister and prepare for eventual presidential elections, in hopes of quelling spiraling gang violence that has killed thousands in the Caribbean country. Ariel Henry, the prime minister who had been locked out of the country for the past couple of months due to the violence, cleared the way for the transition by presenting his resignation in a letter signed in Los Angeles. The document was released Thursday in Haiti on the same day as the new transitional council was sworn in to choose a new prime minister and Cabinet. Henry’s outgoing Cabinet chose Economy and Finance Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert as interim prime minister in the meantime. It was not immediately clear when the transitional council would name its own choice for interim prime minister. The council was officially sworn in at the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince early Thursday as the pop of sporadic gunfire erupted nearby, prompting some officials to look around the room. The council had been urged to seek a safer venue because gangs have launched daily attacks in the area.

#haiti

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Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency. New limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric plants are the Biden administration’s most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change. The rules are a key part of President Joe Biden’s pledge to eliminate carbon pollution from the electricity sector by 2035 and economy-wide by 2050. The rule was among four measures targeting coal and natural gas plants that the EPA said would provide “regulatory certainty” to the power industry and encourage them to make investments to transition “to a clean energy economy.” The measures include requirements to reduce toxic wastewater pollutants from coal-fired plants and to safely manage coal ash in unlined storage ponds. EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the rules will reduce pollution and improve public health while supporting the reliable, long-term supply of electricity that America needs.

#epa #coal #climate change

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McKinsey is under criminal investigation in the United States over allegations that the consulting firm played a key role in fueling the opioid epidemic, with federal prosecutors homing in on its work advising the OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and other drugmakers, three people familiar with the matter said. The consulting firm and the US justice department declined to comment. The inquiry is focused on whether McKinsey engaged in a criminal conspiracy when advising Purdue and other pharmaceutical manufacturers on marketing strategies to boost sales of prescription painkillers that led to widespread addiction and fatal overdoses, two of the people said. The justice department is also investigating whether McKinsey conspired to commit healthcare fraud when its consulting work for companies selling opioids allegedly resulted in fraudulent claims being made to government programs such as Medicare, they said.

#mckinsey #justice department #opioid epidemic

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Good news for airline travelers: the Department of Transportation on Wednesday announced it is rolling out new rules that will require airlines to automatically give cash refunds to passengers for canceled and significantly delayed flights. "This is a big day for America's flying public," said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at a Wednesday morning news conference. Buttigieg said the new rules -- which require prompt refunds -- are the biggest expansion of passenger rights in the department's history. Airlines can no longer decide how long a delay must be before a refund is issued. Under the new DOT rules, the delays covered would be more than three hours for domestic flights and more than six hours for international flights, the agency said. This includes tickets purchased directly from airlines, travel agents and third-party sites such as Expedia and Travelocity. The DOT rules lay out that passengers will be "entitled to a refund if their flight is canceled or significantly changed, and they do not accept alternative transportation or travel credits offered." DOT will also require airlines to give cash refunds if your bags are lost and not delivered within 12 hours. The refunds must be issued within seven days, according to the new DOT rules, and must be in cash unless the passenger chooses another form of compensation. Airlines can no longer issue refunds in forms of vouchers or credits when consumers are entitled to receive cash. Airlines will have six months to comply with the new rules.

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This past Christmas Day was the 30th anniversary of the public execution by firing squad of Romania’s last Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, who’d ruled for 24 years. In 1990, the outside world discovered his network of “child gulags,” in which an estimated 170,000 abandoned infants, children, and teens were being raised. Believing that a larger population would beef up Romania’s economy, Ceaușescu had curtailed contraception and abortion, imposed tax penalties on people who were childless, and celebrated as “heroine mothers” women who gave birth to 10 or more. Parents who couldn’t possibly handle another baby might call their new arrival “Ceauşescu’s child,” as in “Let him raise it.” To house a generation of unwanted or unaffordable children, Ceauşescu ordered the construction or conversion of hundreds of structures around the country. Signs displayed the slogan: the state can take better care of your child than you can.

This is a gift link for 14 days.

#romania #Nicolae Ceaușescu

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For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars). Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023, even though mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally. [...] Launched over 46 years ago, the twin Voyager spacecraft are the longest-running and most distant spacecraft in history. Before the start of their interstellar exploration, both probes flew by Saturn and Jupiter, and Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune.

#voyager 1 #nasa

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A Kentucky man who stormed the U.S. Capitol while carrying a Confederate battle flag was sentenced on Monday to more than two years in prison for pepper spraying two police officers in the face, partially blinding them for hours during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Isreal Easterday was 19 years old when he joined a mob of Donald Trump supporters in invading the Capitol. He used pepper spray to assault two Capitol police officers who were separately guarding the East Rotunda Doors. Chief Judge James Boasberg cited Easterday’s youth as a reason for handing down a prison term — two years and six months — that was over five times lower than the Justice Department’s initial sentencing recommendation. The judge said Easterday, who was homeschooled by his mother while living on a family farm, “may not have fully appreciated what was going on there” at the Capitol on Jan. 6 or recognized that the Confederate flag is a “symbol of rebellion.”

#jan. 6 #kentucky

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One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died. Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal. The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws and sparked confusion around the treatment doctors can provide. “It is shocking, it’s absolutely shocking,” said Amelia Huntsberger, an OB/GYN in Oregon. “It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care -- this is inconceivable.” It’s happened despite federal mandates that the women be treated. Federal law requires emergency rooms to treat or stabilize patients who are in active labor and provide a medical transfer to another hospital if they don’t have the staff or resources to treat them. Medical facilities must comply with the law if they accept Medicare funding. The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday that could weaken those protections. The Biden administration has sued Idaho over its abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, arguing it conflicts with the federal law. “No woman should be denied the care she needs,” Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said in a statement. “All patients, including women who are experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies, should have access to emergency medical care required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.”

#abortion #dobbs #roe v wade

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The U.S. Justice Department has agreed to pay approximately $100 million to settle claims with about 100 people who say they were sexually assaulted by sports doctor Larry Nassar, a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The deal has not been finalized and no money has been paid, the source said on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak before a formal announcement. An internal investigation found that FBI agents mishandled abuse allegations by women more than a year before Nassar was arrested in 2016.

#larry nassar #justice department #fbi

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Three Russian missiles slammed into a downtown area of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv on Wednesday, hitting an eight-floor apartment building and killing at least 17 people, authorities said. At least 61 people, including three children, were wounded in the morning attack, Ukrainian emergency services said, as rescue workers searched through partially demolished buildings and tall mounds of rubble. Chernihiv lies about 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the capital, Kyiv, near the border with Russia and Belarus, and has a population of around 250,000 people. The latest Russian bombardment came as the war has stretched into its third year and approaches what could be a critical juncture. A lack of further military support from Ukraine’s Western partners increasingly leaves it at the mercy of the Kremlin’s bigger forces. Through the winter months, Russia made no dramatic advance along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, focusing instead on attritional warfare. However, Ukraine’s shortage of artillery ammunition, troops and armored vehicles has allowed the Russians to gradually push forward, military analysts say.

#ukraine #russia

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President Joe Biden’s administration will help 50 countries identify and respond to infectious diseases, with the goal of preventing pandemics like the COVID-19 outbreak that suddenly halted normal life around the globe in 2020. U.S. government officials will offer support in the countries, most of them located in Africa and Asia, to develop better testing, surveillance, communication and preparedness for such outbreaks in those countries. The strategy will help “prevent, detect and effectively respond to biological threats wherever they emerge,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday. The Global Health Security Strategy, the president said, aims to protect people worldwide and “will make the United States stronger, safer, and healthier than ever before at this critical moment.” The announcement about the strategy comes as countries have struggled to meet a worldwide accord on responses to future pandemics. Four years after the coronavirus pandemic, prospects of a pandemic treaty signed by all 194 of the World Health Organization’s members are flailing.

#covid-19 #pandemics

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Thousands more firearms dealers across the United States will have to run background checks on buyers at gun shows or other places outside brick-and-mortar stores, according to a Biden administration rule that will soon go into effect. The rule aims to close a loophole that has allowed tens of thousands of guns to be sold every year by unlicensed dealers who do not perform background checks to ensure the potential buyer is not legally prohibited from having a firearm. Gun rights groups are expected to fight it in court.

#gun violence