Plane crashes into suburban Buffalo-area home; 49 killed

A Continental Airlines plane crashed into a home near Buffalo, New York, late Thursday, killing 44 passengers and four crew members on board, according to New York State police. Authorities also said one person on the ground was killed. It is not yet known whether that person was in the home at the time of the crash.

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Ex-presidents of Latin America urge legal marijuana

Former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil called Wednesday for the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use and a change in tactics on the war on drugs, a Spanish news agency said. Ex-presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil made their announcement at a meeting in Brazil of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, the EFE news agency said.

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California may have to cut prison population by 40 percent

Federal judges tentatively ruled on Monday that California must reduce the number of inmates in its overcrowded prison system by up to 40 percent to stop a constitutional violation of prisoners’ rights. “Overcrowding is the primary cause of the unconstitutional conditions that have been found to exist in the California prisons,” the court concluded

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