Orbital View: An Ocean Halo

After decades of waging a ruinous and counterproductive war on drugs, the U. S. government is finally taking steps in a new direction. President Biden has issued mass pardons for marijuana possession offenses and urged the Drug Enforcement Administration to reschedule pot, so that it may be legally prescribed by physicians.

Can a President order a political rival’s assassination and avoid criminal prosecution? What if he sold nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary or staged a coup? These are some of the hypothetical questions posed during oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Thursday as the Justices wrestled with the practical implications of what could happen if they grant former President Donald Trump immunity from criminal prosecution in special counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case against him. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “This case has huge implications for the presidency, for the future of the presidency, for the future of the country,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh. During nearly three hours of arguments in Trump v.

Puerto Rico is participating in the U. S. presidential primaries in late April: Republicans selected delegates for the Republican National Convention (RNC) on April 21, and Democrats hold their primaries a week later. While Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the general election despite being U. S. citizens, they do have the power to shape presidential contests.

On Wednesday, Joe Biden signed into law a bill that could lead to TikTok being banned in the U. S. if ByteDance, the app’s Chinese-owned parent company, does not sell it within a year. Lawmakers are increasingly worried that the app could pose national security concerns to the U. S.

New York’s top court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, the watershed case that sparked Hollywood’s #MeToo movement. The 72-year-old has been serving a 23-year sentence on rape and sexual assault charges in an upstate New York correctional facility since February 2020. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Here’s what we know about the landmark decision. Why was Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction overturned? In a 4-3 decision, the New York Court of Appeals found that the appointed judge prejudiced the disgraced movie mogul’s case by allowing prosecution to call women who were not part of the case to testify as witnesses.

What does it tell us, my students ask, that nine years after Donald Trump oozed down the golden escalator and into contention as Leader of the Free World, the American press, mainstream edition, is still arguing about how to cover him? [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Once the charge was that he gets millions of dollars in free media because reporters obsessively overcover him; now it’s that he gets a free ride because they have outrage fatigue.