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.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘KAMPAI’: It is said that people in Japan began brewing rice about 2,000 years ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol Traditional Japanese knowledge and skills used in the production of sake and shochu distilled spirits were approved on Wednesday for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the UN cultural body said It is believed people in the archipelago began brewing rice in a simple way about two millennia ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol. By about 1000 AD, the imperial palace had a department to supervise the manufacturing of sake and its use in rituals, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association said. The multi-staged brewing techniques still used today are
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