Global Ganja Report

Jonathan Braun, 27, and looking more like a "skinny slacker from Staten Island" than the leader of an international drug-trafficking ring, was denied bail at a Brooklyn hearing June 3, with federal magistrate Viktor Pohorelsky saying, "The government has posited substantial evidence of Mr. Braun's involvement in this conspiracy, which involves huge amounts of marijuana and huge amounts of money."

Kim Severson, writing in the New York Times May 18 under the headline "Marijuana Fuels a New Kitchen Culture," quotes author and professional foodie Anthony Bourdain to the effect that chefs in the Big Apple's classiest eateries are regularly toking. "Everybody smokes dope after work," says Bourdain. "People you would never imagine." Severson argues that cannabis-induced cravings are even starting to influence the city's culinary trends:

For the third time in ten years, New York City has agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle a lawsuit over illegal strip searches of thousands of nonviolent prisoners. The settlement, announced March 22, provides $33 million to the roughly 100,000 people who were strip-searched after being charged with misdemeanors and taken to Rikers Island and other city jails.