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Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Saturday that he’d reached an agreement with key lawmakers on a plan to legalize recreational marijuana in the state starting next year. 

The legislation would allow adults 21 and older to legally buy cannabis for recreational use from licensed dispensaries. Illinois residents could possess up to about an ounce (30 grams) of marijuana, while nonresidents could possess about half an ounce (15 grams).

The measure also would automatically expunge some marijuana convictions. 

If it passes, Illinois would join 10 other states, including neighboring Michigan, in legalizing recreational marijuana. While the Illinois law would take effect Jan. 1, the first licenses for Illinois growers, processors and dispensaries wouldn’t be issued until May and July 2020, the governor’s office said.

Pritzker was joined by fellow Democratic lawmakers in Chicago to announce the deal, which comes after years of discussion among state legislators. They said the measure would be introduced Monday, kicking off debate at the Legislature, where Democrats hold a majority in both chambers.

The proposal “starts righting some historic wrongs” against minority communities that have suffered from discriminatory drug policies and enforcement, the new governor said.

“This bill advances equity by providing resources and second chances to people and communities that have been harmed by policies such as the failed ‘war on drugs,’ ” said Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who is black.

The measure includes a $20 million low-interest loan program to help defray the costs of starting a licensed cannabis business for “social equity applicants.” Those applicants would include people who have lived in a “disproportionately impacted area” — or communities with high rates of poverty and high rates of arrest and incarceration for marijuana offenses — or been arrested or convicted of offenses eligible for expungement.

Critics of legalization, including law enforcement and the Illinois NAACP, have said it would lead to more addiction and mental health issues and would harm rather than help black communities. 

“The consequences of this bill are far-reaching and will have devastating impacts on citizens, communities and youth,” said Kevin Samet, founder and president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana. “Illinois lawmakers must take a smart, commonsense approach, and not welcome in another addiction-for-profit industry into the state.” 

Medical cannabis is already legal in Illinois. Pritzker campaigned on the issue of legalizing recreational marijuana and is counting on $170 million from licensing fees in his proposed state budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. He’s said future revenue from legal marijuana will help Illinois address some of its deep financial problems.

The governor’s office said 35% of revenue from legal cannabis would go to the state’s general operating fund, while an additional 25% would go into a new Restoring Our Communities fund. That money would be distributed as grants to communities that “have suffered the most because of discriminatory drug policies.”

Illinois would use 10% of revenue to pay a backlog of unpaid bills. The rest of the money would support mental health and substance abuse treatment, law enforcement grants, and public education and awareness. 
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Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Saturday that he’d reached an agreement with key lawmakers on a plan to legalize recreational marijuana in the state starting next year. 

The legislation would allow adults 21 and older to legally buy cannabis for recreational use from licensed dispensaries. Illinois residents could possess up to about an ounce (30 grams) of marijuana, while nonresidents could possess about half an ounce (15 grams).

The measure also would automatically expunge some marijuana convictions. 

If it passes, Illinois would join 10 other states, including neighboring Michigan, in legalizing recreational marijuana. While the Illinois law would take effect Jan. 1, the first licenses for Illinois growers, processors and dispensaries wouldn’t be issued until May and July 2020, the governor’s office said.

Pritzker was joined by fellow Democratic lawmakers in Chicago to announce the deal, which comes after years of discussion among state legislators. They said the measure would be introduced Monday, kicking off debate at the Legislature, where Democrats hold a majority in both chambers.

The proposal “starts righting some historic wrongs” against minority communities that have suffered from discriminatory drug policies and enforcement, the new governor said.

“This bill advances equity by providing resources and second chances to people and communities that have been harmed by policies such as the failed ‘war on drugs,’ ” said Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who is black.

The measure includes a $20 million low-interest loan program to help defray the costs of starting a licensed cannabis business for “social equity applicants.” Those applicants would include people who have lived in a “disproportionately impacted area” — or communities with high rates of poverty and high rates of arrest and incarceration for marijuana offenses — or been arrested or convicted of offenses eligible for expungement.

Critics of legalization, including law enforcement and the Illinois NAACP, have said it would lead to more addiction and mental health issues and would harm rather than help black communities. 

“The consequences of this bill are far-reaching and will have devastating impacts on citizens, communities and youth,” said Kevin Samet, founder and president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana. “Illinois lawmakers must take a smart, commonsense approach, and not welcome in another addiction-for-profit industry into the state.” 

Medical cannabis is already legal in Illinois. Pritzker campaigned on the issue of legalizing recreational marijuana and is counting on $170 million from licensing fees in his proposed state budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. He’s said future revenue from legal marijuana will help Illinois address some of its deep financial problems.

The governor’s office said 35% of revenue from legal cannabis would go to the state’s general operating fund, while an additional 25% would go into a new Restoring Our Communities fund. That money would be distributed as grants to communities that “have suffered the most because of discriminatory drug policies.”

Illinois would use 10% of revenue to pay a backlog of unpaid bills. The rest of the money would support mental health and substance abuse treatment, law enforcement grants, and public education and awareness. 
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VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump applauded Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini’s announcement that his country plans to increase its military spending to 2% of its GDP in the next three years, as well as purchase U.S.-made F-16 war planes.

A joint statement issued by the two leaders after their White House meeting Friday said the U.S. and Slovakia “seek to build on this and deepen our defense cooperation by concluding a mutually beneficial Defense Cooperation Agreement.”

Earlier, speculation about terms of a bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement, or DCA, had stirred controversy in the Central European country. The Slovak foreign ministry described as lacking in knowledge and short on facts allegations that a defense cooperation agreement with the U.S. would lead to encroachment upon Slovakia’s sovereignty.

In contrast to protests heard in certain quarters in Slovakia, a number of nations in Central Europe have shown an eagerness to enter into defense cooperation agreements with the U.S.

Last month, a bilateral agreement was signed between the U.S. and Hungary on the sidelines of events marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of NATO, after more than a year and a half of negotiations.

In an interview with VOA, Laszlo Szabo, Hungary’s ambassador to the U.S., described the agreement as both strategic and tactical in nature and as one that sets the terms under which American forces and other foreign troops can operate in Hungary.

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic is negotiating an agreement that is “quite similar,” according to Hynek Kmonicek, the country’s chief diplomat in the U.S. Czechs regard the U.S. as the “backbone of NATO,” he told VOA, adding “if you ask people how they feel about [the] 2% of GDP spent [on military expenditures], it usually has 80% [popular] support, which is quite extraordinary.”

Among Central European countries, Poland is seen as the most enthusiastic when it comes to building ever-closer ties with the United States in military and security affairs.

Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said in an interview with VOA’s Russian Service that Poland realizes relying on its own defense forces will not be sufficient when it comes to a security guarantee, even as the Polish government is working to strengthen its military forces, including increasing the number of soldiers. The minister said the “military presence of our allies on our soil is crucially important.”  

Not that Poland feels a direct military threat from Russia at the moment, said Czaputowicz, but from what Poland can see, Russia is prone to taking advantage of situations when it “senses a weakness; like in Donbas, like in Crimea,” referring to Russian attempts to annex territory in Ukraine. Poland, he said, plans to increase its defense spending to up to 2.5% of its GDP.  The relative absence of an imminent military threat that Poland currently feels, as Czaputowicz sees it, is precisely due to Russia’s calculation of both how the country itself and its allies will react.

As negotiations between the U.S. and Slovakia on a bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement unfold, Rachel Ellehuus, a former Pentagon official and current deputy director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), cautions that the U.S. Congress has signaled that it will not allow funds from the European Deterrence Initiative to be spent in countries that have not signed a defense cooperation agreement with the U.S. She also points out that the guarantee of “assured access” by U.S. military to signatory countries’ facilities could be a sticking point with certain allies.

That said, Ellehuus describes bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreements as “pragmatic measures to enhance NATO deterrence and defense, while also ensuring needed protections for U.S. troops.

“Think of them as legal agreements that strengthen the provisions in the NATO SOFA,” she said, referring to Status of Forces Agreements among NATO member states.

From an operational angle, “mitigating Russia’s time-distance advantages” over the U.S. and allies, should conflict break out, is crucial to deterrence and defense, according to Billy Fabian, a Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA).

 
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VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump applauded Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini’s announcement that his country plans to increase its military spending to 2% of its GDP in the next three years, as well as purchase U.S.-made F-16 war planes.

A joint statement issued by the two leaders after their White House meeting Friday said the U.S. and Slovakia “seek to build on this and deepen our defense cooperation by concluding a mutually beneficial Defense Cooperation Agreement.”

Earlier, speculation about terms of a bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement, or DCA, had stirred controversy in the Central European country. The Slovak foreign ministry described as lacking in knowledge and short on facts allegations that a defense cooperation agreement with the U.S. would lead to encroachment upon Slovakia’s sovereignty.

In contrast to protests heard in certain quarters in Slovakia, a number of nations in Central Europe have shown an eagerness to enter into defense cooperation agreements with the U.S.

Last month, a bilateral agreement was signed between the U.S. and Hungary on the sidelines of events marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of NATO, after more than a year and a half of negotiations.

In an interview with VOA, Laszlo Szabo, Hungary’s ambassador to the U.S., described the agreement as both strategic and tactical in nature and as one that sets the terms under which American forces and other foreign troops can operate in Hungary.

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic is negotiating an agreement that is “quite similar,” according to Hynek Kmonicek, the country’s chief diplomat in the U.S. Czechs regard the U.S. as the “backbone of NATO,” he told VOA, adding “if you ask people how they feel about [the] 2% of GDP spent [on military expenditures], it usually has 80% [popular] support, which is quite extraordinary.”

Among Central European countries, Poland is seen as the most enthusiastic when it comes to building ever-closer ties with the United States in military and security affairs.

Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said in an interview with VOA’s Russian Service that Poland realizes relying on its own defense forces will not be sufficient when it comes to a security guarantee, even as the Polish government is working to strengthen its military forces, including increasing the number of soldiers. The minister said the “military presence of our allies on our soil is crucially important.”  

Not that Poland feels a direct military threat from Russia at the moment, said Czaputowicz, but from what Poland can see, Russia is prone to taking advantage of situations when it “senses a weakness; like in Donbas, like in Crimea,” referring to Russian attempts to annex territory in Ukraine. Poland, he said, plans to increase its defense spending to up to 2.5% of its GDP.  The relative absence of an imminent military threat that Poland currently feels, as Czaputowicz sees it, is precisely due to Russia’s calculation of both how the country itself and its allies will react.

As negotiations between the U.S. and Slovakia on a bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement unfold, Rachel Ellehuus, a former Pentagon official and current deputy director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), cautions that the U.S. Congress has signaled that it will not allow funds from the European Deterrence Initiative to be spent in countries that have not signed a defense cooperation agreement with the U.S. She also points out that the guarantee of “assured access” by U.S. military to signatory countries’ facilities could be a sticking point with certain allies.

That said, Ellehuus describes bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreements as “pragmatic measures to enhance NATO deterrence and defense, while also ensuring needed protections for U.S. troops.

“Think of them as legal agreements that strengthen the provisions in the NATO SOFA,” she said, referring to Status of Forces Agreements among NATO member states.

From an operational angle, “mitigating Russia’s time-distance advantages” over the U.S. and allies, should conflict break out, is crucial to deterrence and defense, according to Billy Fabian, a Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA).

 
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New party animals in Los Angeles are literally, well, animals. Parties with dwarf goats are quickly gaining popularity in the City of Angels. Angelina Bagdasaryan crashed one such party to see what it is like to hang out with goats. Anna Rice narrates her story.
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New party animals in Los Angeles are literally, well, animals. Parties with dwarf goats are quickly gaining popularity in the City of Angels. Angelina Bagdasaryan crashed one such party to see what it is like to hang out with goats. Anna Rice narrates her story.
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Members of an Arlington, Virginia, mosque are being trained on how to respond to an active shooter. Worshippers are learning how to take security measures to protect themselves and save the lives of others. The training follows mass shooting at houses of worship around the world, including one in New Zealand that killed 51 people at a mosque, and another one at a Pittsburgh Synagogue that claimed 11 lives. VOA’s Nilofar Mughal has more from Arlington.
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Members of an Arlington, Virginia, mosque are being trained on how to respond to an active shooter. Worshippers are learning how to take security measures to protect themselves and save the lives of others. The training follows mass shooting at houses of worship around the world, including one in New Zealand that killed 51 people at a mosque, and another one at a Pittsburgh Synagogue that claimed 11 lives. VOA’s Nilofar Mughal has more from Arlington.
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European and American investigators have broken up one of the world’s largest online criminal marketplaces for drugs, hacking tools and financial-theft wares in raids in the United States, Germany and Brazil.

Three German men, ages 31, 22 and 29, were arrested after the raids in three southern states on allegations they operated the so-called “Wall Street Market” darknet platform, which hosted about 5,400 sellers and more than 1 million customer accounts, Frankfurt prosecutor Georg Ungefuk told reporters in Wiesbaden on Friday.

A Brazilian man, the site’s alleged moderator, was also charged.

The three Germans, identified in U.S. court documents as Tibo Lousee, Jonathan Kalla and Klaus-Martin Frost, face drug charges in Germany on allegations they administrated the platform where cocaine, heroin and other drugs, as well as forged documents and other illegal material, were sold.

They have also been charged in the United States with conspiring to launder money and distribute illegal drugs, according to a criminal complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court.

“The charges filed in Germany and the United States will significantly disrupt the illegal sale of drugs on the darknet,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan White told reporters in Germany. “We believe that Wall Street Market recently became the world’s largest darknet marketplace for contraband including narcotics, hacking tools, illegal services and stolen financial data.”

Two-year operation

Ungefuk said Wall Street Market was at least the second biggest, refusing to name others for fear of jeopardizing other investigations.

In the nearly two-year operation involving European police agency Europol and authorities in the Netherlands as well as the U.S. and Germany, investigators pinpointed the three men as administrators of the platform on the darknet. It is part of the internet often used by criminals that is hosted within an encrypted network and accessible only through anonymity-providing tools, such as the Tor browser.

Transactions were conducted using cryptocurrencies, and the suspects took commissions ranging from 2% to 6%, Ungefuk said.

The site trafficked documents such as identity papers and driver’s licenses. But an estimated 60% or more of the business was drug-related, he said.

​Caught during ‘exit scam’

Authorities swept in quickly after the platform was switched into a “maintenance mode” April 23, and the suspects allegedly began transferring funds used on the platform to themselves in a so-called “exit scam,” Ungefuk said.

The U.S. Department of Justice said the administrators took about $11 million in the exit scam from escrow and user accounts.

The U.S. identified a fourth defendant as Marcos Paulo De Oliveira-Annibale, 29, of Sao Paulo, Brazil. It was not clear if he had been arrested, and federal police in Brazil wouldn’t comment.

Annibale, who went by the moniker “MED3LIN” online, faces federal drug distribution and money laundering charges in the United States for allegedly acting as a moderator on the site in disputes between vendors and their customers. He also allegedly promoted Wall Street Market on prominent websites such as Reddit, the Justice Department said.

Brazilian authorities searched his home Thursday after investigators linked his online persona to pictures he posted of himself years ago, U.S. officials said.

Impact will be short-lived

A University of Manchester criminology researcher who follows activity on dark web markets, Patrick Shortis, said the takedown was widely anticipated after Annibale leaked his credentials and the market’s true internet address online.

Knocking out Wall Street Market is unlikely to have a lasting impact on online criminal markets, though law enforcement officials make it clear they are going after sellers and customers, Shortis said.

In Los Angeles, two drug suppliers were arrested, and authorities confiscated about $1 million cash, weapons and drugs in raids. They were only identified by their online monikers, “Platinum45” and “Ladyskywalker,” and characterized as “major drug traffickers” dealing methamphetamine and fentanyl.

Other darknet busts

After the first big takedown of such a marketplace, Silk Road in 2013, it took overall trade about four to five months to recuperate, Shortis said. And after law enforcement took out Hansa and AlphaBay in 2017, it took about a month, he said.

Shortis said one threat he does see to the market, in the short term at least, are so-called denial of service cyberattacks that effectively knock web servers offline by flooding them with traffic.

“An extortionist is currently targeting Empire and Nightmare, who are both in the running to replace Wall Street as the top market,” he said.

The raids in Germany culminated Thursday with the seizure of servers, while federal police confiscated 550,000 euros ($615,000) in cash, Bitcoin and Monero cryptocurrencies, hard drives, and other evidence in multiple raids.

Because of the clandestine nature of the operation and the difficulty of tracing cryptocurrencies, Ungefuk said it was difficult to assess the overall volume of business conducted by the darknet group. But he said that “we’re talking about profits in the millions at least.”
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European and American investigators have broken up one of the world’s largest online criminal marketplaces for drugs, hacking tools and financial-theft wares in raids in the United States, Germany and Brazil.

Three German men, ages 31, 22 and 29, were arrested after the raids in three southern states on allegations they operated the so-called “Wall Street Market” darknet platform, which hosted about 5,400 sellers and more than 1 million customer accounts, Frankfurt prosecutor Georg Ungefuk told reporters in Wiesbaden on Friday.

A Brazilian man, the site’s alleged moderator, was also charged.

The three Germans, identified in U.S. court documents as Tibo Lousee, Jonathan Kalla and Klaus-Martin Frost, face drug charges in Germany on allegations they administrated the platform where cocaine, heroin and other drugs, as well as forged documents and other illegal material, were sold.

They have also been charged in the United States with conspiring to launder money and distribute illegal drugs, according to a criminal complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court.

“The charges filed in Germany and the United States will significantly disrupt the illegal sale of drugs on the darknet,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan White told reporters in Germany. “We believe that Wall Street Market recently became the world’s largest darknet marketplace for contraband including narcotics, hacking tools, illegal services and stolen financial data.”

Two-year operation

Ungefuk said Wall Street Market was at least the second biggest, refusing to name others for fear of jeopardizing other investigations.

In the nearly two-year operation involving European police agency Europol and authorities in the Netherlands as well as the U.S. and Germany, investigators pinpointed the three men as administrators of the platform on the darknet. It is part of the internet often used by criminals that is hosted within an encrypted network and accessible only through anonymity-providing tools, such as the Tor browser.

Transactions were conducted using cryptocurrencies, and the suspects took commissions ranging from 2% to 6%, Ungefuk said.

The site trafficked documents such as identity papers and driver’s licenses. But an estimated 60% or more of the business was drug-related, he said.

​Caught during ‘exit scam’

Authorities swept in quickly after the platform was switched into a “maintenance mode” April 23, and the suspects allegedly began transferring funds used on the platform to themselves in a so-called “exit scam,” Ungefuk said.

The U.S. Department of Justice said the administrators took about $11 million in the exit scam from escrow and user accounts.

The U.S. identified a fourth defendant as Marcos Paulo De Oliveira-Annibale, 29, of Sao Paulo, Brazil. It was not clear if he had been arrested, and federal police in Brazil wouldn’t comment.

Annibale, who went by the moniker “MED3LIN” online, faces federal drug distribution and money laundering charges in the United States for allegedly acting as a moderator on the site in disputes between vendors and their customers. He also allegedly promoted Wall Street Market on prominent websites such as Reddit, the Justice Department said.

Brazilian authorities searched his home Thursday after investigators linked his online persona to pictures he posted of himself years ago, U.S. officials said.

Impact will be short-lived

A University of Manchester criminology researcher who follows activity on dark web markets, Patrick Shortis, said the takedown was widely anticipated after Annibale leaked his credentials and the market’s true internet address online.

Knocking out Wall Street Market is unlikely to have a lasting impact on online criminal markets, though law enforcement officials make it clear they are going after sellers and customers, Shortis said.

In Los Angeles, two drug suppliers were arrested, and authorities confiscated about $1 million cash, weapons and drugs in raids. They were only identified by their online monikers, “Platinum45” and “Ladyskywalker,” and characterized as “major drug traffickers” dealing methamphetamine and fentanyl.

Other darknet busts

After the first big takedown of such a marketplace, Silk Road in 2013, it took overall trade about four to five months to recuperate, Shortis said. And after law enforcement took out Hansa and AlphaBay in 2017, it took about a month, he said.

Shortis said one threat he does see to the market, in the short term at least, are so-called denial of service cyberattacks that effectively knock web servers offline by flooding them with traffic.

“An extortionist is currently targeting Empire and Nightmare, who are both in the running to replace Wall Street as the top market,” he said.

The raids in Germany culminated Thursday with the seizure of servers, while federal police confiscated 550,000 euros ($615,000) in cash, Bitcoin and Monero cryptocurrencies, hard drives, and other evidence in multiple raids.

Because of the clandestine nature of the operation and the difficulty of tracing cryptocurrencies, Ungefuk said it was difficult to assess the overall volume of business conducted by the darknet group. But he said that “we’re talking about profits in the millions at least.”
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Authorities in the southeastern U.S. state of Florida say a Boeing 737 skidded off a runway at Naval Air Station Jacksonville and slid into the Saint Johns River while landing Friday night with 136 passengers on board.

WOKV-TV, a local television station, said the flight was approaching the runway in a heavy thunderstorm when it went into the river at the end of the runway.

The station said 21 adults were taken to area hospitals, but “all were listed in good condition.”

The Miami International Air flight was a military charter from the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Photographs of the plane showed that the aircraft was not submerged in the water.

Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said crews were working to contain jet fuel on the water.

A Boeing spokesman said the company is aware of the incident and is gathering information about it, according to a Reuters report.
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