Reconciling federal, state laws on pot

Reconciling federal, state laws on pot

SEATTLE

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and state Attorney General Bob Ferguson will travel to Washington, D.C., this week to meet with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss marijuana enforcement and implementation of Initiative 502, the state’s voter-approved legal-pot law.

The state law conflicts with federal law, which maintains that all forms of marijuana are illegal.

As the state begins to establish regulations for a new, legal marijuana industry, and investors prepare to plow money into it, questions loom about whether the federal government will crack down on Washington or look the other way.

Pistol pointed at Bulgarian politician

SOFIA, Bulgaria

Bulgarian police detained a man after he pointed a gas pistol at an ethnic Turkish party leader as he was delivering a speech at a party caucus in the capital Saturday. No shots were fired.

The video from the Saturday event in Sofia shows the man climbing the podium where Ahmed Dogan, the leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, was speaking, and pointing the gun to his face.

Dogan struck the man before he could pull the trigger, while other delegates wrestled the assailant to the ground. TV footage showed several people punching, kicking and stomping on the man when he was on the ground.

Police arrested him and took him to a hospital.

Seller of bogus 9/11 coins to pay $750K

NEW YORK

A company that sold Sept. 11 commemorative coins supposedly containing silver from ground zero has agreed to pay $750,000 to settle charges that it deceived consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission says Port Chester, N.Y.-based National Collector’s Mint charged customers for items they never ordered and failed to identify its wares as imitations.

A law passed in 2010 created an official Sept. 11 medal to benefit the museum being built at the World Trade Center site.

The FTC said in a release Thursday the agreement bars National Mint from misrepresenting its products.

Hundreds honor information activist

NEW YORK

Portraying his suicide as the product of injustice, friends and supporters at a memorial Saturday for free-information advocate Aaron Swartz called for changing computer-crime laws and the legal system itself.

At a New York City ceremony that was part tribute and part rallying cry, Swartz — who killed himself this month as he faced trial on hacking charges — was painted as a precocious technologist, erudite activist and hounded hero.

To prosecutors, the 26-year-old Swartz was a thief whose aims to make information available didn’t excuse the illegal acts he was charged with: breaking into a wiring closet at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and tapping into its computer network to download millions of paid-access scholarly articles, which he planned to share publicly.

4 die in avalanche in Scottish Highlands

LONDON

An avalanche killed four climbers in the Scottish Highlands on Saturday, police said.

The victims were in a group of six climbers — three men and three women — who were at Glencoe, one of Scotland’s best-known glens, when a snow slope broke away.

The BBC said five of them were swept down the mountain in ice and snow, with four dying and one being saved and hospitalized in serious condition. The sixth climber managed to escape unharmed and call emergency services, police said.

Combined dispatches