POLICY ROUNDUP

Support for legalizing pot has risen significantly over the years and has now reached a new high. According to a new CBS study, 56 percent of Americans say marijuana should be legal and 52 percent view marijuana as safer than alcohol.

According to the study, a majority of men continues to favor marijuana legalization (59 percent), and now most women favor it as well (54 percent). Most Americans under 65 support legal marijuana use, particularly younger adults: 71 percent of adults under 35 think marijuana use should be legal, a jump of 10 points since last year. Older Americans tend to think differently: Just 31 percent of Americans 65 and over think marijuana use should be legal.

There are partisan differences too, the study found. Most Democrats and independents think marijuana use should be legal, while most Republicans do not. Support among independents for legalized marijuana use has risen 7 points since last year.

There is even greater support for allowing doctors to prescribe small amounts of marijuana for patients suffering from serious illnesses: nearly nine in 10 think this should be allowed. – Joana Suleiman

LAW

Accounting class-action lawsuits jumped in 2015

For the third year in a row, the number of accounting-related securities class-action filings increased, a new report by Cornerstone Research revealed.

“Not only did the number of accounting case filings increase in 2015, the market capitalization losses associated with those filings jumped as well,” said Elaine Harwood, vice president of Cornerstone Research. “The increase is attributable, in part, to accounting cases filed against NYSE-listed firms. The market capitalization losses associated with those filings more than doubled in 2015.”

Accounting case settlement dollars reached $2.6 billion in 2015. The Disclosure Dollar Loss Index for accounting cases filed in 2015 rose to $34.8 billion, the second-largest amount in the last seven years, according to the report.

In 2015, 37 percent of accounting cases were filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit — more than any other circuit. The number of accounting cases against companies headquartered in the United States increased 43 percent to its highest level in 10 years. Accounting cases against companies headquartered in China increased 75 percent from 2014 to 2015.

The report stated that in 2015, 86 percent of accounting case settlements involved allegations of internal control weaknesses — the highest proportion in 10 years. – Joana Suleiman

EDUCATION

Charter high schools punch above their weight on national rankings

Public charter schools are among the best and most challenging high schools in the country, according to two rankings released on April 18 and 19.

On U.S. News and World Report’s annual list, more than one-third of the top 100 public high schools are charters. According to the Washington Post’s rankings of the most challenging high schools, just under one-third of the top 100 are charters. For comparison, according to the Department of Education, charter schools are about 7 percent of all public high schools.

One charter school, BASIS Oro Valley, ranked exceptionally well on both rankings. The school, outside Tucson, Ariz., ranks sixth on the best high schools list and first on the most challenging list. The school boasts a 100 percent four-year graduation rate, with 85 percent going to four-year colleges. None of its students, however, are in special education.

“It is exciting and gratifying to see so many [charter] schools increasingly being recognized for their commitment to student achievement,” said Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “Charter schools, which educate a greater percentage of minority students, are given the flexibility to innovate in exchange for accountability around student results.” – Jason Russell

HEALTHCARE

House to get opioid bills by next month

The House will consider a dozen opioid bills by the middle of May, even as senators still pressure the chamber to take up their bill.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will consider the 12 bills during a hearing next week, Chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a Facebook video Thursday. The committee’s health subcommittee unanimously advanced the bills earlier this week.

The bills tackle a wide variety of problems associated with opioid abuse including expanding use of the addiction treatment buprenorphine.

Upton said that after the bills get through the committee, he expects them to hit the House floor by the second week of May.

The bills are part of a larger effort by the House to draft a package of bills to address opioid abuse, as federal figures show 72 Americans die each day from heroin or prescription drug overdoses. – Robert King

ENERGY

Tesla doing the EPA’s job for it

Electric carmaker Tesla is doing the government’s job for it, says the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

“It is now exceeding the number of zero-emission vehicles we have now on the road,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy at a environmental summit in Washington.

She was addressing a question about orders for the new Tesla Model 3 that in one week neared almost 400,000 for the most affordable vehicle among the company’s luxury line of cars. Prices begin at $35,000, whereas other models start at double that price.

That’s nearly the same number of vehicles that it took automakers five years to sell under President Obama’s failed goal of getting 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015.

McCarthy told a group at George Washington University “it is an amazing signal that people are ready from innovation.”

“I think people, because of our ability to educate and share information, know more than they’ve ever known before,” she added. And knowledge of climate change is driving their decision on what they will buy, as much as being enthralled by technology that is simply “cool,” she said. – John Siciliano

ENVIRONMENT

Feds start over with caribou

The Fish and Wildlife Service is going back to the drawing board to figure out what to do about caribou that migrate between the U.S. and Canada.

The agency designated a specific segment of the southern Selkirk Mountains population of woodland caribou as threatened in 2014. But because the agency didn’t allow enough people to chime in on the designation, a federal district court says it is necessary to re-do the designation.

Of the 15 populations of mountain caribou that make up the Southern Mountain herds, the southern Selkirk Mountains woodland caribou population is the only population that moves freely between the United States and Canada.

The agency will take comment for 30 days on its 2014 designation upon publication in Tuesday’s Federal Register. – John Siciliano