CHILE
Marijuana decree signed
President Michelle Bachelet has signed a decree that removes marijuana from the country’s list of hard drugs. The decree also authorizes the sale of cannabis-derived medicines at pharmacies. The document has not been published officially, but a copy was obtained on Friday by The Associated Press. Planting, selling and transporting marijuana remains illegal and carries prison terms of up to 10 years. However, Congress is expected to soon debate wider changes to drug laws. The nation is joining an international trend of easing restrictions on marijuana for medical or personal use. A Chilean municipality began planting the country’s first legal medical marijuana in October last year as part of a government-approved pilot program aimed at helping ease the pain endured by cancer patients.
COLOMBIA
Gold-filled galleon found
Researchers have found the wreck of a Spanish galleon that was sunk more than 300 years ago while carrying a big cargo of gold and precious stones, President Juan Manuel Santos said. “Great news: We found the galleon San Jose,” Santos said on Twitter. The ship was sunk in an attack by the British in 1708 and has been submerged off the coast of Baru in what is now Colombia near the Rosario Islands. It is believed to have been carrying 11 million gold coins, jewels and 600 people. The lost galleon and its cargo have been the subject of a long legal fight between the government and the salvage firm Sea Search.
UNITED STATES
Woman stabbed at art show
One woman stabbed another during a fight at world-famous Art Basel Miami Beach, causing at least one patron to think he was watching performance art. Miami Beach Detective Kathleen Prieto told the Miami Herald the suspect stabbed the victim’s arms and neck during Friday’s fight. She said the victim is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries. The suspect was arrested. The fight happened near an exhibit by artist Naomi Fisher. She told the Miami Herald one witness thought it was a performance with fake blood until he realized the blood was real. The paper said others thought the police tape cordoning the area was an installation.
UNITED STATES
Elderly cocaine fan arrested
A 73-year-old man who had been pulled over for driving without his headlights was arrested by a Seattle police officer after he tried to snort cocaine in front of the stunned patrolman, authorities said on Friday. After the officer checked the man’s license and registration during the traffic stop on Tuesday evening, the patrolman walked back to the man’s Toyota. When he peered into the car he saw the man “portioning out a scoop of cocaine from a small glass vial,” the department said in a statement. “What is that? Are you kidding?” Police officer Nic Abts-Olsen can be heard saying to the man in an exchange captured by the patrol car’s dashboard camera. “You’re about to snort coke on the side of the road?” The man was startled and spilled the white powder on his hands and on the car floor, telling the officer it was “vitamins.” “Finally, the man relented, complimented officer Abts-Olsen on his keen detection skills and admitted that snorting cocaine in the middle of a traffic stop was, perhaps, a poor decision,” the department’s statement said. The man was arrested and booked into the King County Jail for narcotics possession. Abts-Olsen told the man that he would have let him off with a warning for driving without his headlights, but for the cocaine.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
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