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Part party, part call to action: A look at pot holiday 4/20

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:59 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — Thursday marks marijuana culture’s high holiday, 4/20, when cannabis fans gather in clouds of smoke at music festivals, celebrate with all-you-can-deals on chicken wings and other munchies, and take advantage of pot-shop discounts in legal weed states.This year’s edition provides an occasion for activists to reflect on how far their movement has come, with recreational pot now allowed in 21 states and the nation’s capital, as well as a national political climate that hasn’t moved as quickly on legalization as many expected.Here’s a look at the holiday’s history. ___ WHY 4/20?The origins of the date, and the term “420” generally, were long murky. Some claimed it referred to a police code for marijuana possession or that it arose from Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35,” with its refrain of “Everybody must get stoned” — 420 being the product of 12 times 35.But a consensus has emerged that it started with a group of bell-bottomed buddies from San Rafael H...

Ugandan president refuses to sign LGBTQ bill, seeks changes

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:59 GMT

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has refused to sign into law a controversial new bill against homosexuality that prescribes the death penalty in some cases, requesting that it should be amended.Museveni’s decision was announced late Thursday after a meeting of lawmakers in his ruling party, almost all of whom support the bill approved by lawmakers last month. The meeting resolved to return the bill to the national assembly “with proposals for its improvement,” a statement said.It was not immediately clear what the president’s recommendations were. Homosexuality is already illegal in the East African country under a colonial-era law criminalizing sex acts “against the order of nature.” The punishment for that offense is life imprisonment.Museveni is under pressure from the international community to veto the bill, which needs his signature to become law. The U.S. has warned of economic consequences if the legislation is enacted. A group of...

B.C. stores broke privacy laws on facial ID technology, privacy commissioner says

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:59 GMT

VICTORIA — British Columbia’s privacy commissioner says Canadian Tire stores that used facial recognition technology didn’t adequately notify their customers and didn’t get consent to collect the personal information. Michael McEvoy’s report says even if the four stores he investigated had obtained permission, they were still required to show a reasonable purpose for collecting the information, which the investigation found they didn’t do. Twelve Canadian Tire stores were using the technology for about three years, saying it was needed for theft and staff safety, but the systems were removed and the information destroyed when the commissioner notified the chain that four stores were under investigation. McEvoy says highly sensitive biometric information was captured by the systems between 2018 and 2021, and the stores would have had to make a compelling case to show it was reasonable to collect the precise mathematical rendering of each person’s face.He says the stores contrav...

Distrust in America: Small mistakes, deep fear – and gunfire

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:59 GMT

In suburban Detroit, it was a lost 14-year-old looking for directions. In Kansas City, it was a 16-year-old who went to the wrong house to pick up his younger brothers. There was the 12-year-old rummaging around in a yard in small-town Alabama, the 20-year-old woman who found herself in the wrong driveway in upstate New York and the cheerleader who got into the wrong car in Texas.All of them, and dozens more across America, were met by gunfire. Some were injured, some killed.In a nation where strangers are all too often seen as threats and fear has been politicized, honest mistakes and simple acts like going to the wrong address or car in a parking lot, or even just ringing the wrong doorbell, can seem like a fateful question of trust. It is a tension not lost on Jae Moyer, who was at a rally at the federal courthouse in Kansas City on Tuesday, demanding a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the shooting of Ralph Yarl, the Black teenager shot last week when he went to the ...

Sudan army demands rivals’ surrender as cease-fire runs out

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:59 GMT

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Sudan’s military ruled out negotiations with a rival paramilitary force on Thursday, saying it would only accept its surrender as the two sides continued to battle in central Khartoum and other parts of the country, threatening to wreck international attempts to broker a longer cease-fire.A tenuous 24-hour cease-fire that began the previous day ran out Thursday evening with no word of extension. The military’s statement raised the likelihood of a renewed surge in the nearly week-long violence that has killed hundreds and pushed Sudan’s population to the breaking point. Alarm has grown that the country’s medical system was on the verge of collapse, with many hospitals forced to shut down and others running out of supplies.The expiring truce had failed to put a stop to fighting throughout the day and brought only marginal calm to some parts of the capital Khartoum. But many residents took advantage to flee the homes where they have been t...

Italian justice minister blames court for Russian’s escape

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:59 GMT

ROME (AP) — Italy’s justice minister insisted Thursday his office bore no responsibility for the escape of a Russian businessman wanted by the United States, and blamed Milan judicial authorities for having released him to house arrest despite a flood of U.S. warnings that he posed a high flight risk.In a briefing to lawmakers, Justice Minister Carlo Nordio denied he had any authority to reverse the Milan court’s decision and send Artyom Uss back to prison pending his extradition process. But Nordio said he had requested that prosecutors initiated a disciplinary investigation into the court’s decision and moved to freeze Uss’ assets.Uss, the 40-year-old son of a Russian regional governor, escaped from Italy on March 22, a day after a Milan court recognized as legitimate the U.S. extradition request, and surfaced in Russia earlier this month.He had been detained in October 2022 at Milan’s Malpensa Airport on a U.S. warrant accusing him of violating sanctions. In November, the M...

Hold the phone: Jim Balsillie sets the record straight on ‘BlackBerry’ movie

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:59 GMT

TORONTO — Jim Balsillie is having his Hollywood moment.It was almost inevitable the Waterloo, Ont., businessman would one day be portrayed in film for his role in the global success of the BlackBerry smartphone.And yet Balsillie never predicted how strange it would be to see it happen, especially since his cinematic version is almost unrecognizable to him.The new Canadian dark comedy “BlackBerry” takes no prisoners in the executive suite, but it’s especially ruthless to Balsillie. He’s played by “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star Glenn Howerton as an agitated live wire prone to violent outbursts and foul-mouthed tirades as he plows down the road to success.“When I first saw it, I was confused for about five minutes,” Balsillie acknowledged during an interview in a Toronto board room.“And then I thought, ‘OK, we’re being roasted here. This is a satire.’”Being portrayed as a tyrant doesn’t bother him much. He sees it as fair game.“They’re taking an element of t...

Man hit by vehicle, then robbed at gunpoint and shot on West Side

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:59 GMT

CHICAGO — A man was struck by a car and then shot by the vehicle's occupants who robbed him at gunpoint on the city's West Side. Police said the incident happened in the 0-100 block of South Kedzie around 7 a.m. Thursday.The 30-year-old man told police he was crossing the street when a white sedan struck him, and four men exited the vehicle. The men displayed a gun and robbed the man of his personal property. About a dozen freight train cars derail in Blue Island According to police, one of the men then fired a shot before getting back into the vehicle and fleeing the scene. The 30-year-old was shot in the thumb and self-transported to Stroger Hospital in fair condition.No one is in custody. Area Four detectives are investigating.

House approves trans athlete ban for girls and women's teams

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Transgender athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth was male would be barred from competing on girls or women’s sports teams at federally supported schools and colleges under legislation pushed through Thursday by House Republicans checking off another high-profile item on their social agenda. The bill approved by a 219-203 party-line vote is unlikely to advance further because the Democratic-led Senate will not support it and the White House said President Joe Biden would veto it. Supporters said the legislation, which would put violators at risk of losing taxpayer dollars, is necessary to ensure competitive fairness. They framed the vote as supporting female athletes disadvantaged by having to compete against those whose gender identify does not match their sex assigned at birth. Opponents criticized the bill as ostracizing an already vulnerable group merely for political gain. The House action comes as at least 20 other states have imposed similar limits...

Alex Murdaugh doesn’t want to 'rot away' in prison, lawyer says

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:01:59 GMT

(NewsNation) — Alex Murdaugh is serving two life sentences in a South Carolina maximum security prison in protective custody, but he wants back into the general population — despite threats from other inmates. That's according to his lawyer, Jim Griffin, who spoke exclusively to NewsNation on Wednesday about Murdaugh's life behind bars. He was convicted six weeks ago of shooting his wife and son to death in June 2021."He thinks he can be productive in the general population. He would rather take his chances on the yard than rot away in a cell, to be honest with you," Griffin said on "CUOMO." "He wants to contribute; there a lot of things he can do in the general population. There are programs he can assist with." 3 charged, including 2 teens, in Alabama birthday shooting Murdaugh is incarcerated at McCormick Correctional Institution on the South Carolina-Georgia border. The prison includes both a general population wing and a "special management" wing for inmates who may be in pro...