January 1, Marijuana Now Legal in Illinois

This Day in History | 1974

Richard Nixon signs the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, setting a new national maximum speed limit of 55 mile per hour. 

Good Morning Middle Americans, 

The lines wrapped around the store fronts and people stood in the freezing cold, just to buy legal Marijuana.  Illinois is the eleventh state to now offer legal recreational marijuana. 

Info war creator Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $100,000 in legal fees to the father of child killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. 

Finally, Pope Francis is apologizing for gently slapping the wrist of a woman after she grabbed him and wouldn’t let his hand go during New Year’s Eve services at the Vatican. 

Read all about it !

– Fraser Dixon 

Illinois Rings in New Year’s Day with its First Legal Recreational Marijuana Sales

(CNBC) – Illinois rings in the new year on Wednesday by joining 10 states and the District of Columbia in allowing the legal sale and purchase of marijuana.

Illinois became the 11th state in the nation to legalize recreational pot use in June after Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law, permitting Illinois residents and visitors to buy the drug from licensed dispensaries, beginning on Jan. 1.

Marijuana enthusiasts and those curious about the drug are expected to flock to the more than three dozen licensed dispensaries in the state, most located in Chicago or Chicago suburbs.

Cresco Labs, a Chicago-based cannabis company, says it has spent weeks training its roughly 530 employees in Illinois on educating new marijuana users in anticipation of a swell of curious shoppers on Wednesday.

Read more here

Related: Illinois governor Pardons 11,000 for Low-Level Marijuana Convictions

Judge Orders Alex Jones and Infowars to Pay $100,000 in Sandy Hook Legal Fees

(New York Times) – A Texas judge has ordered the Infowars founder Alex Jones to pay $100,000 in legal fees in a defamation case brought against him by the father of a Sandy Hook school shooting victim, the latest court setback for the conspiracy theorist.

In a Dec. 20 ruling, Judge Scott Jenkins of Travis County District Court said that Mr. Jones and his lawyer intentionally disregarded an October court order to produce witnesses and other materials to the plaintiff in the lawsuit, Neil Heslin.

Judge Jenkins said the defense’s failure to cooperate “should be treated as contempt of court.” In two separate orders issued the same day, the judge told Mr. Jones to pay $65,825 and $34,323 in lawyer fees incurred by Mr. Heslin. He also denied Mr. Jones’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which argues that Mr. Jones and Infowars defamed Mr. Heslin by calling his account of his son’s death a lie.

Mr. Heslin lost his son, Jesse Lewis, 6, in the December 2012 shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which a heavily-armed gunman killed 20 first graders and six educators before taking his own life.

Find out more here

Pope Apologizes for Slapping Arm of Woman who Tugged Him

(Reuters) – Pope Francis apologized on Wednesday for having angrily slapped a woman’s arm when she had grabbed hold of his hand and yanked him towards her, saying he had lost his patience and set a “bad example”.

His unusual apology came after he used his first homily of the new year to denounce violence against women, which he compared to profaning God.

Pope Francis, 83, had a sharp encounter with a woman on Tuesday evening during a walkabout in St. Peters Square.

The pilgrim, who has not been identified, unexpectedly seized his hand and pulled him towards her, causing him evident alarm. A clearly disgruntled Francis wrenched himself free by slapping down at her arm.

“So many times we lose patience, even me, and I apologize for yesterday’s bad example,” the pope told thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday at the end of the traditional New Year Mass.

See what happened here