News

Politico reports: Ill-fated hopes that a Democratic-controlled Washington might loosen decades-old restrictions on the drug have given way to a market glut and plummeting prices that have put scores of businesses at risk of collapse. In Colorado, prices have dropped by 51 percent over the last two years. The price of a pound of weed has plunged by 36 percent …

Buffalo’s NBC affiliate reports: A glimmer of sunshine on Christmas Day provided Western New Yorkers with hope that the region is ready to dig itself out from the longest sustained blizzard in history. Not so fast, was the message from government officials. “It is not over,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Sunday. “I cannot overstate how dangerous conditions …

The Associated Press reports: The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo with hurricane-force winds causing whiteout conditions. Emergency response efforts were paralyzed. Three people died in the Buffalo area, including two who suffered medical emergencies in their homes and couldn’t be saved because emergency crews were unable to reach them amid historic blizzard conditions. Deep snow, single-digit temperatures and …

CBS News reports: Emergency responders evacuated a JetBlue flight at JFK International Airport in New York City as a result of a small fire in a passenger’s laptop on Saturday evening, officials said. Officials from the FAA, JetBlue and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the aircraft was taxing to a gate at Terminal 5 when …

Via press release from West Point: Long Gray Line Teammates and the West Point Community: During the holiday break, we will begin a multi-phased process, in accordance with Department of Defense (DoD) directives, to remove, rename or modify assets and real property at the United States Military Academy (USMA) and West Point installation that commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy or …

Reuters reports: An arctic blast that has gripped much of the United States this week, disrupting daily life and holiday travel for millions of Americans, was expected to produce the coldest Christmas Eve on record in many cities. Temperatures are forecast to top out on Friday at just 8 degrees Fahrenheit (-13 Celsius) in Pittsburgh, surpassing its previous all-time coldest …

CNN reports:   The House voted Friday to pass a massive $1.7 trillion spending bill that would fund critical government operations across federal agencies and provide emergency aid for Ukraine and natural disaster relief. The bill will next go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. Government funding is currently set to expire late Friday evening – and …

Reuters reports: More than a million homes and businesses were without power on the U.S. East Coast, Midwest and Texas on Friday as winter storms battered much of the country, according to data from PowerOutage.us. Most outages were in North Carolina, with over 164,000 customers without power, followed by Virginia with over 92,000 and Connecticut with more than 89,000. The …

Gothamist reports: After several threats or attacks against government officials and their families in recent years, New Jersey state legislators want to shield their home addresses from the public — over the objections of government transparency activists. Three bills moving through the state’s Legislature would no longer define a public official’s home address as a public record and would remove …

Politico reports: Florida is once again the fastest growing state in the U.S., according to a Census report released Thursday, reclaiming the top spot for the first time in more than 60 years. The Sunshine State saw a 1.9 percent population increase from 2021 to 2022, surpassing population growth in any other state for the first time since 1957. Since …

The Washington Post reports: The Senate on Thursday adopted a sprawling, roughly $1.7 trillion bill that would fund the government through most of 2023, as Democrats and Republicans resolved a last-minute standoff over immigration and voted to avert a shutdown in the final days of the year. The bipartisan 68-29 vote teed up the measure for debate in the House, …

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis warned Vatican bureaucrats on Thursday to beware the devil that lurks among them, saying it is an “elegant demon” that works in people who have a rigid, holier-than-thou way of living the Catholic faith. Francis used his annual Christmas greeting to the Roman Curia to again put the cardinals, bishops and priests who work …

The Times of Israel reports: Benjamin Netanyahu informed President Isaac Herzog late on Wednesday that he has come to agreements with his coalition partners to form Israel’s 37th government, delivering a promise of right-wing and religious-led political stability seven weeks after the country’s fifth election since 2019 and minutes before the expiration of his mandate to form the next government. …

Via press release from NASA: NASA’s InSight mission has ended after more than four years of collecting unique science on Mars. Mission controllers at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California were unable to contact the lander after two consecutive attempts, leading them to conclude the spacecraft’s solar-powered batteries have run out of energy – a state engineers …

CNN reports: A 6.4 magnitude earthquake shook Northern California’s Eureka area early Tuesday, according to the US Geological Survey, and thousands are without power in its wake. The quake, recorded at 2:34 a.m. PT, was centered in the Pacific just off the coast, about 7.5 miles from the Humboldt County city of Ferndale, the survey said. Most homes and businesses …

The Washington Post reports: A bipartisan bill that would make changes to how members of Congress could object to electoral will be included in the omnibus spending bill lawmakers need to approve in the coming days, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Monday night. The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, sponsored by Collins and Sen. Joe Manchin III …

Semafor reports: “Ron to the Rescue,” founded by Republican strategist John Thomas, emerged just after the midterms with an ad declaring that “America needs Ron DeSantis” and pitching his success as Joe Biden’s failure to keep a good state down. According to Thomas, the super PAC will likely focus on “exploit[ing] some of the former president’s vulnerabilities” on topics like …

The Associated Press reports: The House committee investigating the Capitol riot will make its final public presentation Monday about the unprecedented effort by Donald Trump to overturn the results of the presidential election he lost in 2020. The committee has called it an “attempted coup” that warrants criminal prosecution from the Justice Department. Monday’s meeting will be the committee’s 11th …

CNBC reports: Epic Games, the developer and publisher of the video game Fortnite, will pay $520 million in fines to settle with the FTC over violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The FTC had alleged that Epic paired children and teens “with strangers,” exposed them to “dangerous and psychologically traumatizing issues,” and failed to introduce adequate parental …

CNN reports: Drew Griffin, CNN’s award-winning Senior Investigative Correspondent, known for getting even the cagiest of interview subjects to engage in a story, died Saturday after a long battle with cancer, his family said. He was 60. A gifted storyteller, Griffin had a well-earned reputation for holding powerful people and institutions accountable. Griffin worked on hundreds of stories and multiple …