Voters in Washington and Colorado legalize recreational marijuana

It's been quite the night for marijuana in several ballot measures across the country.

Voters in Washington state and Colorado appear to have voted "yes" on measures that would legalize the sale of pot to adults, without the need for a doctor's prescription.  (The final votes are still being counted.) And earlier Tuesday evening, voters in Massachusetts overwhelmingly approved the measure to allow the use of medical marijuana.

Oregon voters have to decide on a similar measure to those passed in Washington and Colorado, which would allow marijuana use for any individual over the age of 21, but it appears to have been defeated.

Arkansas's medical marijuana initiative also appears to have been defeated.

Montana, which already has a medical marijuana law, is voting on whether or not to restrict patient access in the state.

So far, states that have approved medical marijuana have walked a fine line with federal laws that still prohibit the sale of marijuana under any circumstances. The full legalization of marijuana in these two states is expected to increase that tension between local and federal laws.

In total, six states are considering marijuana initiatives.

"Now that this law has been passed [in Massachusetts], it will finally be legal and safe for myself and many others in the state to procure the medicine," Eric McCoy, 59, told the Boston Globe.

NBC News reports that 17 states and the District of Columbia already have laws allowing for the medical use of marijuana, according to the National Council of Legislatures.

Signal forecast goes 50 for 50 with Florida outstanding

Last February, the Signal predicted that President Barack Obama would win reelection with 303 electoral votes to his opponent's 235--a prediction we made before the Republican party had chosen the identity of that challenger. This struck many people as absurd at the time: There were nine months of campaigning left, two conventions, several billion dollars worth of advertising, four debates, and untold bumps in the road for both sides.

As of 1 a.m. EST this morning, 50 of 51 of those predictions are correct, with about 60,000 votes separating the candidates in Florida. If Romney can win the state, the Signal will have gone a perfect 51 for 51.

We point this out not to brag--mostly not to brag--but to say that it's a vindication for the broad view of presidential elections: That they are the product of a complex stew of social and economic forces, not a contest between candidates and campaigns. At the time, the Signal's prediction model included only one measure of public opinion: Obama's approval rating, which stood at just below 50 percent at the time. The rest of predictions were driven by a model of those macro-factors--incumbency, economic growth and contraction, and so forth--that exist independently of the names and faces on the tickets.

Anyone can average a bunch of polls and call the election a week before it happens. In the end, it's the models that tell us something about what forces influence election. We will talk in most depth over the coming days (with a minimum of gloating) about how our model maintained its consistency as it shifted to include more polls and prediction markets in the weeks and months that followed the initial take. But we are proud to have provided a consistant and correct message to our readers for the last few months.

Storm Sandy: US death toll close to 100

Worst hit were New York City and New Jersey, with fuel shortages the latest in a series of post-storm challenges.

Campaigning for Tuesday's presidential election - suspended earlier in the week - has fully resumed.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Barack Obama, citing his leadership on climate change.

Mr Bloomberg said Sandy could be evidence of climate change.

Of the two candidates, he said, "one sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not".

"I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics."

Food hand-outs

Sandy arrived on the US Atlantic coast on Monday night, bringing hurricane-strength winds, flooding and blackouts.

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About 4.5 million customers in 12 states are still without power.

The storm could cost the US $50bn (£31bn), according to forecasting firm Eqecat, which has doubled its previous estimate.

In New York, where Sandy brought a record 14ft (4.2m) tidal surge, the National Guard is to deliver a million meals and bottled water to residents affected by the storm.

In the south-western New York City borough of Staten Island, at least 15 bodies have been recovered.

The storm, one of the biggest to hit the US in decades, swamped the low-lying district with tidal surges, lifting whole houses off their foundations.

Anger is rising there at the delay in bringing aid.

One resident, Theresa Connor, told Reuters her neighbourhood had been "annihilated".

"They forgot about us... And Bloomberg said New York is fine. The marathon is on."

New York City councilman James Oddo said: "If they take one first responder from Staten Island to cover this marathon, I will scream."

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) official Richard Serino will visit the borough on Friday.

Petrol station fights

Limited subway services returned to New York on Thursday, though four of the seven train tunnels under the East river remained flooded.

Fares on commuter trains, subways and buses have been temporarily waived in a bid to entice commuters off the traffic-choked roads.

Many of the petrol stations in the city and the state of New Jersey remained closed. Fights broke out amid long queues on forecourts.

Amtrak plans to restart its East Coast service - the busiest train line in the US - on Friday.

In Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City, some 20,000 people were still trapped in their homes as floodwaters slowly receded.

Officials warned residents not to walk in water polluted with sewage and chemicals.

Some 1.7 million people remain without power in the state, where the National Guard is helping with evacuations and meal distributions.

The cyclone also caused havoc further inland.

The state of West Virginia has seen up to 5ft of snow in some areas, after Sandy collided with two winter weather fronts.

The number of dead in the US now exceeds the toll from the Caribbean, where 69 people were killed by Sandy.

Prosecutor: Illinois woman told children to pray, then stabbed them as they begged for lives

Neighbors heard the couple shouting at each other, but they never saw it get physical. Artur Plackowska said his wife recently told him she loved him.

But beneath that ordinary domestic facade lay far more violent resentments between the husband and wife, prosecutors say, eventually leading Elzbieta Plackowska to kill her own 7-year-old son, stabbing him 100 times Tuesday, all out of anger at her often-absent, truck driver husband. She then fatally and repeatedly stabbed a 5-year-old girl she was babysitting.

"She felt he truly did not appreciate how fine a wife and mother she was," DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin said. "She told the detectives that she thought by killing (her son) Justin she would make her husband hurt the way she hurt in their relationship."

The gruesome slayings have shocked this vibrant, populous suburb 25 miles west of Chicago, leaving prosecutors, neighbors and relatives at a loss. Berlin said the 40-year-old Polish immigrant told investigators that her husband used to bring her flowers and gifts, but she resented him being home only on weekends and that she had to work as a maid, which she felt was beneath her.

For some in Naperville, it brought back painful memories of a similar horror, when Marilyn Lemak fed her three children peanut butter laced with antidepressants and suffocated them 13 years ago as revenge on her estranged husband.

"I don't understand anything that's going on," said Tim Hooper, 28, who lives in the same condominium complex as the Plackowska family and would sometimes work out with Plackowska's older son. "This is so out of the blue."

The Naperville police chief said the crime scene was the most gruesome sight he'd seen in three decades on the job.

Officials said Thursday that Plackowska ordered her son Justin and a kindergartner she was babysitting, 5-year-old Olivia Dworakowski, to kneel on a bedroom floor and pray, then stabbed them both dozens of times as they begged for their lives, striking again and again as she told her son he was going to heaven.

Plackowska killed Olivia because she had witnessed the attack on Justin, Berlin said.

Officers who forced their way inside the locked apartment hours later found blood-spattered walls and the children's bodies in a master bedroom where moments before the killings they had been happily jumping on a bed, prosecutors said.

Olivia's body was found on the bed, and Justin's was found on the floor beside it. He had stab wounds on his head, face, neck and back. Both appeared to have had their throats slit.

The slayings took place at the home of Olivia's mother, who works nights as a nurse and had left her daughter in Plackowska's care before. Plackowska also stabbed the two family dogs.

Investigators found two blood-stained knives: a steak knife in the kitchen sink and another in Plackowska's car, Berlin said.

Still covered in blood and with scratches on her hands, Plackowska drove to a Catholic church. Finding it closed, she called the church and left a message saying she had "done something bad" and needed help, Berlin said. She then went to a friend's home where her adult son was staying and said she had been robbed.

About the same time, Olivia's mother, Marta Dworakowski, returned home to discover her door locked and the babysitter's car gone. She called police to report her daughter was missing, and officers forced their way into the home.

Police took Plackowska into custody at her friend's home, and prosecutors charged her with first-degree murder late Wednesday.

Plackowska initially told investigators that an intruder had broken into the home and killed the children while she was outside smoking a cigarette. She then told investigators she was battling the devil and trying to get evil out of the children. Finally, Berlin said, she admitted she had lashed out in anger at her husband.

Plackowska's husband, Artur, denied the two were having problems.

"The day before (the killings) she told me that she loves me," he said in a brief interview with The Associated Press, before hanging up because he said he wanted to focus on giving his son a proper funeral.

However, a neighbor said he frequently heard the couple shouting at each other. "It happened once every other month," Victor Tuckenberry said.

There also were money troubles. Public records show the couple filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2009; a foreclosure in her name only was filed in 2007.

Still, Tuckenberry said Plackowska doted on her sons and he was shocked by the slayings. Plackowska and Justin "were together all the time," he said.

Plackowska arrived in the United States from her native Poland on a tourist visa 12 years ago, Berlin said. She is not a U.S. citizen and authorities were trying to verify her immigration status. Berlin said she has no prior history of violence, although she had a misdemeanor DUI about 10 years ago.

Plackowska didn't speak during Thursday's bond hearing other than to indicate she could not afford an attorney. The judge appointed a public defender.