Report: Pot cash no boom for states
A new report by the credit rating agency Moody's Investor Service found that legalizing and taxing marijuana boosts revenue for state and local governments, but not by much.
On Tuesday, Moody's released its study, which said that legalizing recreational use of marijuana takes in more money for governments than it costs to regulate it.
Despite high taxes on the legal sales of the drug, the revenue accounts for a small portion of government budgets.
In Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational use, a marijuana tax takes in the equivalent of about 2 percent of the state budget. In Washington state, gross revenue from marijuana legalization equaled 1.2 percent of general fund revenue in the 2015-17 state budget.
Twenty-nine states now allow marijuana for either medicinal or recreational uses. Moody's cited data indicating that the legal marijuana market will grow from a $5.4 billion business in the U.S. in 2015 to $16 billion by 2020.
Parents' suit over '12 killings tossed
HARTFORD, Conn. -- A Connecticut judge has cited government immunity in dismissing a lawsuit filed by the parents of two children killed in the 2012 Newtown, Conn., school massacre against the town and its school district over alleged inadequate security measures.
Superior Court Judge Robin Wilson, in a decision released Tuesday, granted the town's request to dismiss the lawsuit, agreeing that school officials were immune from being sued and that the security procedures in place were discretionary.
"Emergencies, by their very nature, are sudden and often rapidly evolving events, and a response can never be one hundred percent scripted and directed," Wilson wrote.
The shooting killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. Gunman Adam Lanza, 20, shot his way through a locked-glass door at the school, and later killed himself as police arrived.
The parents of two first-graders killed in the shooting, Jesse Lewis and Noah Pozner, sued the town on several claims, including that school officials didn't follow security procedures.
Man convicted in Virginia shooting
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- A Maryland man who has identified himself as a Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard was found guilty Tuesday for illegally firing a weapon during last year's volatile "Unite the Right" rally in the city's downtown.
Richard Preston Jr., 53, had planned to go to trial on the gamble that he could convince a jury that he had acted in defense -- an argument he made in earlier stages of his case.
But on Tuesday, Preston abandoned that strategy and pleaded no contest to the charge of firing a weapon within 1,000 feet of a school property.
Preston is to be sentenced Wednesday and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Preston's case is one of several violent episodes stemming from last summer's rally, including the death of Heather Heyer, a counter-protester who died after being run over by a demonstrator's vehicle.
A Section on 05/09/2018