New York is finally joining the ranks of states that allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes, becoming the 23rd in the nation to do so. Too bad Governor Cuomo, who held the upper hand in bargaining because of his veto power, forced legislators to accept so many restrictions that the law will be a lot less useful than it could have been. The legislation has passed both chambers and is awaiting the governor’s signature.
Medical marijuana has actually been available in a pill containing the chief active ingredient for more than two decades, but many patients find the pill ineffective or too toxic. The new law will allow a broader range of marijuana products, including edibles, oils and vaporizers. Unfortunately, smoking marijuana, the form of ingestion favored by many patients because it is cheap and can be highly effective, will be flatly prohibited. Only one other state (Minnesota) has adopted a medical marijuana law that prohibits smokable forms.
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Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSyrian refugees at Karkamis refugee camp near the town of Gaziantep, south of Turkey. Jan. 16, 2014.When it comes to Iraq, the international focus is largely on the Islamic militants who have seized a huge swath of the country and are moving toward Baghdad.
But the fighters aren’t the only ones on the move. The growing violence has already driven one million civilians from their homes and the number is certain to rise as long as the conflict continues.
And the Iraqis are just a small portion of the total population of forcibly displaced people all over the world. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, this marks the first time since World War II that the total has exceeded 50 million. You read that correctly: More than 50 million. An estimated 51.2 million people, to be more exact, have been forced out of their homes, their towns, their countries.
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Jacquelyn Martin/Associated PressJames Sensenbrenner.In an unusual display of unity from the divided, do-nothing House, a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushed through a bill that basically says, yes, the Fourth Amendment applies to electronic communications, too.
The measure, whose chief sponsors are Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, and Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, passed by a vote of 293-to-123 late Thursday night. It bars the National Security Agency, the Central intelligence Agency and other spy agencies from examining without a warrant Americans’ emails and other communications that were swept up into databases created to target foreigners.
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Fred Prouser/ReutersGerry Goffin on May 15, 2012.I used to give a class for New York Times interns on writing and editing. I would start by playing the Gerry Goffin and Carole King song “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” (I used Ms. King’s version.) I wanted to make a point about brevity and beauty: to show how it’s possible to convey complicated emotions, deep feeling and intricate meanings with the tiniest and plainest of words. You can be short and sweet. You can also be short and heartbreaking.
Well, Mr. Goffin, who died on Thursday, could, anyway. This is how he did it, mostly in words with two syllables or less. Mostly less.
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Interest groups love keeping scorecards measuring the fidelity of lawmakers, but to judge the new leaders that House Republicans elected today all you really need to know is how they’d answer the question: Do you believe in governing by consensus or by destruction? Republicans today elected one of each type, which will probably lead to more tension, more obstruction, and less progress.
Kevin McCarthy of California, the new majority leader, is the consensus guy. He supported a clean increase in the debt ceiling in February and helped end the government shutdown last fall.
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Susan Walsh/Associated PressJanet Yellen on June 18, 2014.The Federal Reserve faced reality on Wednesday, lowering it forecast for economic growth this year to 2.1 percent to 2.3 percent, down from a March projection of 2.8 percent to 3.0 percent.
The earlier forecast was pie in the sky from the start, because it coincided with news that the economy had contracted by 1 percent in the first quarter. With first-quarter growth in negative territory, it’s basically impossible for annual growth to be any stronger than 2 percent or so – the level it has been stuck at for years.
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Scott Olson/Getty ImagesFreddie Bear Sports in Tinley Park, Ill., on June 16, 2014.The Supreme Court came alarmingly close this week to eviscerating one of the most important gun safety rules on the books — the federal ban on “straw purchases.”
Those are transactions in which an individual falsely asserts he is buying a weapon for himself, when in fact he is buying it for someone else — one of the main ways gun traffickers and other criminals evade required background checks and gain access to deadly firepower.
In a big victory for public safety and sane statutory interpretation, the Supreme Court’s new 5-4 ruling upheld strong enforcement of the federal prohibition.
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“Because I want you to go away and not stand here and argue with me. Otherwise you’re about to get locked up.”
That’s a police sergeant in Suffolk County, N.Y., bullying a journalist named Philip Datz, who in July 2011 tried to film the aftermath of a police chase in Bohemia, on Long Island, from a public sidewalk across the street.
The confrontation played out in the usual way. Mr. Datz objected. He was arrested. He sued. The Police Department defended itself.
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Jennifer Bruce/International Fund for Animal Welfare, via Associated PressAn orphaned elephant calf is introduced to an adult at the Kafue National Park in Zambia. The calf’s parents were killed by poachers.The stories are horrifying: ruthless criminals slaughtering thousands of African elephants for their ivory tusks and wantonly killing rhinoceroses for their horns. Besides the terrible suffering inflicted on these animals, there is a growing fear that they could soon become extinct. The best way to stop this killing is to stop the market.
As it happens, after China, the United States is the big market for ivory and rhino horn. And in the U.S. the epicenter of that trade is New York City.
But New York State legislators have said they now have an agreement to pass a tough law making it harder to sell illegal ivory or rhino horn. The bill, which is expected to pass easily on Thursday in Albany, toughens penalties, tightens loopholes and offers only a few narrow exemptions.
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