National Roundup

Florida
High court says no to marijuana ballot proposal
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A proposed constitutional amendment to allow recreational marijuana use in Florida won’t be on the 2022 ballot after the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the ballot language was misleading.

The court, in a 5-2 decision, said proposed ballot language that says marijuana is “for limited use and growing by persons twenty-one years of age or older” is misleading.

The court said nothing in the proposal’s actual wording limits marijuana use.

The proposed amendment, called “Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol to Establish Age, Licensing, and Other Restrictions,” already faced an uphill battle. Its sponsor, Sensible Florida, had just 29,000 of the more than 890,000 voter signatures needed to get on the ballot.

On top of that hurdle, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed a bill that limits contributions to groups sponsoring ballot initiatives to $3,000 per individual during the signature gathering stage. Only when a proposal is approved for the ballot are unlimited contributions allowed. The new law takes effect July 1.

Most of the more than $222,000 Sensible Florida has raised wouldn’t have been allowed under the new law.

Ohio
Columbus sues ‘crime-plagued’ bus station
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A downtown Greyhound bus station that has been the scene of hundreds of emergency calls this year alone is a public nuisance, the city of Columbus and its police department declared in a lawsuit Thursday.

City Attorney Zach Klein and the Columbus Division of Police filed the complaint against the bus carrier. They are seeking preliminary and permeant injunctive relief against the “crime-plagued” property.

The lawsuit comes as Columbus police report having received more than 300 calls for service to the bus station so far in 2021. The calls, the department said, have ranged from concerns about guns, narcotics, stabbings, overdoses and a shooting last month.

In four months, there were approximately four overdoses at the station, in addition to around 11 narcotics complaints, the statement read.

The department says the property, located in a highly-populated part of downtown, has been on their radar for several years. The public safety concerns also stem from the station being in close proximity to a daycare center and a number of restaurants and hotels.

Arkansas
Court allows part of Little Rock schools lawsuit to proceed
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday allowed part of a lawsuit over the state’s ongoing control of the Little Rock School District to proceed.

Justices dismissed part of the lawsuit parents filed challenging the state’s decision to place limits on the Little Rock School Board when the district was returned to local control. The state took over the district in 2015 because of lagging test scores.

The state Board of Education voted in 2019 to return the district to the control of a new school board that was elected last year. But the state placed limits on the board’s authority, including preventing it from recognizing the local teachers’ union as a bargaining agent.

Justices on Thursday said the part of the case challenging the state laws the board used to place the limits on the district’s local control can move forward.

The local teachers’ union went on a one-day strike in 2019  over the state’s control of the district and their loss of collective bargaining rights.

Georgia
Students pulled from car, stunned by police sue
ATLANTA (AP) — Two students pulled from their car and hit with stun guns by Atlanta police while they were stuck in traffic caused by protests over George Floyd’s death sued the city Thursday and several of the officers, their attorneys said.

Police body camera footage showed officers shouting at Taniyah Pilgrim and Messiah Young, firing Tasers at them and dragging them from the car last May during a curfew declared by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. The federal lawsuit also names Bottoms as a defendant. An email to her office was not immediately returned.

The pair — students at historically Black colleges in Atlanta — can be heard screaming and asking what they did wrong throughout the confrontation. Young was punched repeatedly and suffered a deep laceration to his arm that required 13 stitches, according to his attorneys.

Video of the confrontation was shared widely online. Bottoms and then-Police Chief Erika Shields decided the two officers had used excessive force and must be fired immediately, though those decisions were overturned earlier this year.

Prosecutors have filed criminal charges  against six officers in the incident.

Connecticut
Family of copilot killed in WWII plane crash sues foundation
The family of a copilot killed in the crash of a World War II-era plane in 2019 in Connecticut is suing the foundation that hosted the air show.

The civil suit by relatives of Michael Foster is the fourth that has been brought against the Massachusetts-based Collings Foundation, an educational group, after the deadly crash at the Bradley International Airport, the Hartford Courant reported on Wednesday.

Foster was one of two pilots flying the four-engine, propeller-driven B-17G Flying Fortress bomber with 13 people on board at a traveling vintage aircraft show on Oct. 2, 2019. The other pilot, Ernest “Mac” McCauley, reported a problem with one of the engines shortly after takeoff, and the plane crashed into a maintenance building and burst into flames after striking the runway lights during a landing attempt.

Seven people were killed in the crash, including Foster, who was 71 at the time.

The National Transportation Safety Board found pilot error probably caused the crash and cited inadequate maintenance as a contributing factor. McCauley, who was 75 at the time of the crash, was an experienced pilot and also the maintenance director for the Collings Foundation, which owned the plane. But the NTSB investigation found he wrongly turned off an engine that was malfunctioning and deployed the plane’s landing gear too soon.

Andrew Groher, an attorney for Foster’s family, blamed the foundation for the crash in a statement to the newspaper.

“This plane should never have been allowed off the ground on the day of this crash,” he said.

In March 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration revoked the Collings Foundation’s permission to carry passengers aboard its World War II-era planes because of safety concerns stemming from the Bradley accident.