Voters in Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Montana, Oregon, and Washington had the chance today to legalize marijuana.

Here's how the fight for marijuana is shaking out across the country:

• Massachusetts voters approved a ballot measure allowing people with debilitating medical conditions to buy pot from state-sanctioned distribution centers as long as they have permission from their doctors, Boston.com reported Tuesday night.

• Official results haven't yet been reported for Washington, Oregon and Colorado, but The Associated Press is reporting the Washington and Colorado ballot measures "were believed to have a decent chance of passage."

• And it looks like they were right. Colorado's Amendment 64 passed late Tuesday night, The Huffington Post reported.

• Official results haven't yet been reported in Arkansas but currently medical marijuana supporters are losing out to the opposition. About 52 percent of state residents have voted against Issue No. 5, which would legalize medical marijuana, while more than 48 percent have voted in favor of it, according to the Arkansas Secretary of State. However, only 7 out of 75 counties have reported thus far.

• Montana was seeking to change its current medical marijuana laws and ratify restrictions on medicinal pot use. According to The Huffington Post, 69 percent of voters voted in favor of the initiative.

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It was a close fight but the Washington Post projects that Maryland will approve same-sex marriage, 

As of 12:02 a.m. Wednesday, 52 percent of Maryland voters voted to allow same-sex marriage in the state, according to the Post.

Eighty-four precincts had reported by that time.

Last week Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley told reporters his administration had a "real shot" at getting same-sex marriage approved and praised Brad Pitt for his work on behalf of the issue.

Maryland is set to join the handful of other states that allow same-sex marriage, including New York, Washington D.C., and New Hampshire

Same-sex marriage was also at issue in Maine, Washington, and Minnesota.

Around 9:30 Tuesday night a little more than half of voters in Maine had already approved same-sex marriage.

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America's toughest illegal immigration critic won reelection Tuesday,.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio's won his sixth term in Arizona, but it came with a warning from opponent Democrat Paul Penzone.

“Our sheriff needs to be transparent, he needs to treat everyone with dignity and respect,”  Penzone said, according to The Arizona Republic. “People in this community are going to be watching. They’re going to be holding him accountable.”

Arpaio's vigilante-like tactics have long been documented.

In June, he came under fire for arresting a 6-year-old girl as part of a raid on suspected undocumented workers.

But by September, the courts had enough. The Ninth Circui Court of Appeals ruled Arpaio can't detain suspects based only on his belief they're in the country illegally.

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Both Colorado and Washington approved legislation Tuesday to allow the recreational use of marijuana for adults, 21 and over.

NBC News is reporting, that the Washington bill allows people over age 21 to possess a small amount of pot for personal use.

Colorado voted to approve Amendment 64, a bill which approves the recreational use of Marijuana for adults, the Huffington Post reports. 

Amendment 64 taxes and regulates marijuana similarly to alcohol and tobacco. It gives state and local governments the ability to control and tax the sale of small amounts of marijuana to adults age 21 and older.

Analysts project that that tax revenue could generate somewhere between $5 million and $22 million a year in the state, according to the Associated Press.

36 percent of precincts in the state are reporting that Amendment 64 has passed, according to Colorado local affiliates 9News and Fox31.

#9NEWS declares #Amendment64, recreational marijuana PASSED. #COpolitics#Decision2012 via @brandonrittiman

— 9NEWS Denver (@9NEWS) November 7, 2012

While it will be several months, maybe as long as a year, before 21-and-over adults in the state can partake in the legal sale of marijuana, the specific parts of the amendment related to individual behavior will go into effect as soon as Governor John Hickenlooper certifies the results of the vote.

The Governor is required sign a proclamation within 30 days of the election, The Colorado Independent reported.

Don't Miss: Here's How Marijuana Is Faring On The Ballot Tonight >

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Maryland and Maine voters made history Tuesday by becoming the first states in the union to approve same-sex marriage by a popular vote.

Maine's legislature had previously approved same-sex marriage, but in 2009 voters blocked gay unions with a ballot initiative largely backed by the Catholic Church.

This time around, gay rights advocates spearheaded their own ballot initiative.

With 49 percent of the precincts reporting, 54 percent of Mainers favored gay marriage, the Portland Press Herald reported just before 2 a.m.

The Baltimore Sun called Maryland's gay rights victory around 12:45 a.m., noting that 32 other states that voted on gay marriage all rejected it.

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Minnesota's proposal to amend its constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman has apparently lost, The Pioneer Press reported just before 5 a.m.

The Pioneer Press reported that Minnesota was the first state to successfully defeat an attempt to rewrite its constitution to defeat gay marriage.

However, in 2006 Arizona rejected an anti-gay marriage ban only to approve one two years later, the Associated Press reported in 2008.

About 30 other states have approved measures to ban same-sex marriage.

Correction: A previously published version of this article said Minnesota was the first state to reject a same-sex marriage ban. The error has been corrected.

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Maryland voters on Tuesday voted to let immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children pay  in-state tuition for college, the Baltimore Sun reports.

The Maryland Dream Act applies only to young immigrants who graduate from the state's high schools.

Maryland's Democrat-controlled assembly approved the law last year, but critics collected enough signatures to force a referendum, The Washington Post reported.

Maryland was the first state to approve such a measure with a popular vote, according to the Post.

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Voters in Los Angeles County had to choose yesterday between authenticity and safety for their porn.

And they chose safety.

Nearly 56 percent of LA County voters voted in favor of Measure B, which requires all porn actors to wear a condom and producers to get a permit to shoot raunchy scenes, according to the LA County Registrar's Office.

The permit fee would pay for inspectors to randomly check porn shoots to ensure all the actors are using protection while working.

As 8:11 a.m. EST, 4,987 out of 4,993 precincts had reported to the LA County Registrar's Office.

But porn industry execs have already vehemently opposed the initiative, claiming all actors undergo strict STD testing frequently and the use of condoms would ruin their work.

Before they shoot a scene, performers have to show each other an email from a lab proving they tested negative for H.I.V., syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea.

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On Tuesday Colorado and Washington voters became the first states to pass referendums legalizing marijuana for recreational use.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (D), who opposed Amendment 64, conceded defeat with a caveat: “The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will. This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug so don’t break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly.”

Still, the elimination of penalties for possessing up to an ounce of marijuana (for persons 21 and older) takes effect as soon as Gov. Hickenlooper signs a proclamation certifying the results of the election—which he is required to do within 30 days

The big takeaway, as Jacob Sullum at Reason points out, is that adults in bothstates don't have to worry nearly as much about being busted for possession because the vast majority of arrests are made by state and local police.

Scot Kersgaard of The Colorado Independent broke down legalization in Colorado:

•  It will be legal under Colorado law for adults to possess, grow, consume and give away (to another adult) up to an ounce of marijuana.

• Marijuana would be legally available for commercial sale no sooner than late 2013 or early 2014 as state, local and commercial regulations are adopted.

• The Feds could do nothing, move to block implementation, or wait until legal businesses are set up and then move to shut them down and arrest employees.

• As we noted, individual users have less to worry about, but toking in public and driving high are still illegal and employers can still test for marijuana if they choose.

• People growing their own could have up to six plants—with no more than three being mature at any given time—in secured areas not visible to the public, and growers will be able to possess their entire harvest (even if it exceeds the legal one ounce).

Kersgaard also details how legalization is projected to be a boon in regards to tax revenue, and notes that the first $40 million a year generated by the excise tax of up to 15 percent will go to a state fund for the construction of public schools.

Initiative 502 in Washington state is not as expansive but does legalize, regulate and tax sales of small amounts of marijuana to adults. The tax is a hefty one, imposing a 25 percent tax rate on the product three times: when the grower sells it to the processor, when the processor sells it to the retailer, and when the retailer sells it to the customer.

The Seattle PI notes that the initiative contains a one-year rule-making procedure, so “there is no need for precipitous action” by the federal drug bureaucracy and the state has "breathing space that allows for adult conversation at all levels,” according to Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes.

All in all, this is a big win for the states and proponents of legalization.

In the new book "Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know," drug policy scholars note that the "Constitution does not allow the federal government either to order state governments to create any particular criminal law or to require state and local police to enforce federal criminal laws."

AND it won't really be a viable option for the Drug Enforcement Agency and their 5,000 agents nationwide to pick up the state and local slack by busting a lot of people who possess dope for recreational use or even those who grow pot for themselves and their friends.

Sullum points out that the DEA "can raid state-legal pot shops, as it has done with medical marijuana dispensaries, but the number of potential targets will be considerably larger once the market officially expands to include recreational users."

SEE ALSO: Voters May Have Won The Drug War On Election Night > 

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The hype surrounding U.S. News' ranking of the best law schools in the country is almost unbelievable.

But what if that data wasn't the best information for making what's bound to be one of the most expensive decisions of your life?

Law School Transparency challenged U.S. News' list, which it says relies too heavily on Law School Admission Test scores, and created its own ranking.

LST Score Reports give each school a score that prospective students can use to compare schools in terms of post-graduation jobs, costs, and admissions.

Plus, LST doesn't rank schools nationally but by where you want to work after graduation.

If you're ultimately looking to work in New York, every BigLaw lawyer's dream city, the University of Virginia is your best bet for school. The school earned an LST employment score of 94.7 percent.

U.S. News ranked the University of Virginia as the seventh best law school in the country.

If you're looking to work in a smaller market, like Illinois, look no further than the University of Chicago, which earned an LST employment score of 88.2 percent.

U.S. News ranked the University of Chicago as the fifth best law school in the country.

Now check out our ranking of the best law schools in the country >

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Election Day is always crazy, but yesterday hundreds of law students took on the electoral process to make things just a little bit easier for their fellow citizens.

While students across the country monitored lawsuits and analyzed results, students in North Carolina and Arizona took the most proactive step to protect the polls.

University of North Carolina School of Law students teamed up with nonpartisan group Election Protection to keep track of voter intimidation allegations as well as reports of people improperly handing out campaign material at polling places, The National Law Journal reported Tuesday.

University of Arizona law students also worked with Election protection to keep an eye on polling places in Pima County, Ariz. Volunteers helped voters work their way through the state's redistricting and kept them informed of their election day rights.

"We've also heard that some groups claiming to be nonpartisan will be at poll sites and will try to discourage people from voting, saying they don't have the correct identification," first-year student Nate Wade told the Journal. "We haven't seen any of that yet, but we're looking out for it. It's all about making sure people get to vote."

Law students at the College of William & Mary also created VOTEline where they answered voters' questions about the election to ensure they were able to get out to vote.

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California voters on Tuesday struck down a proposal to ban the death penalty, officials have said, based on a majority of votes.

Voters also rejected the chance to require food companies to label genetically-modified products.

The votes marked rare victories for conservatives on a night that saw Barack Obama handily win re-election and liberal ballot initiatives succeed in other states.

The most populous US state voted against Proposition 34 – which would have replaced the death penalty with life in prison without parole – according to figures on the California Secretary of State's website.

The website said 53.6 per cent had opposed the measure, with 46.4 per cent in favour.

California also rejected Proposition 37 – which would have made it the first US state to require food companies to identify genetically modified (GM) ingredients – by 54 per cent to 46 per cent, the website said.

Other US states backed legalising marijuana for recreational use, allowing gay marriage and rejected a call to ban public funding for abortions, in a swathe of statewide ballots Tuesday.

The generally liberal moves were decided among more than 170 ballot initiatives and referendums held across the country.

Source: AFP

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Tory Burch's trial judge has spoken to Women's Wear Daily, calling the case a "drunken WASP fest."

WASP stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and is basically a synonym for East Coast yuppies.

The judge, Leo Strine of Delaware Chancery Court, said he's excited for the case.

"We’ll be all geared up and in the mood for this sort of drunken WASP fest," he said. He dismissed WWD's Alexandra Steigrad when she pointed out that Tory Burch is actually Jewish.

The dispute is over Tory's ex-husband Christopher trying to sell his stake in Tory's $2 billion fashion brand (which he helped to start) and her saying that his company, C. Wonder, copied hers.

Strine seems to question the talent of both Burches, who were wealthy long before Tory Burch sold out of Reva ballet flats.

"Honestly, there are hundreds of people in New Castle County who could make a bunch of clothes if you gave them the catalogues," Strine said.

The spat between the Burches has been going on for years. The couple divorced in 2006, just as Tory's brand was emerging.

In the latest move, Tory filed a counter-suit yesterday. In it, she claimed that Christopher's woes were "his own fault."

DON'T MISS: How Tory Burch Created A $2 Billion Empire In Less Than A Decade >

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Attorney General Eric Holder hasn't had an easy few months. He took a beating over the government's botched Fast and Furious "gun-walking" operation, so he might want a break.

Still, we can't assume Holder will step aside now that Obama has won another four years in office.

With that caveat in mind, the Wall Street Journal still decided to take a look at some of the legal bigwigs Obama might choose to be his next AG.

Here are a few of the more interesting names the WSJ floated:

• Kathy Ruemmler is currently White House counsel and served on the task force that investigated the epic, criminal collapse of Enron.
• Preet Bharara is another possibility. He's the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, and he has a reputation for busting corruption on Wall Street.
• Amy Klobuchar could also be the next AG. She's the senior U.S. senator from Minnesota, and The New York Times has speculated she may be the first female president of the United States.

Head on over to the WSJ for more possible AG picks >

SEE ALSO: A Tea Party Group Accusing Ohio Of Voter Fraud Got Blasted For Forging Signatures >

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While the nation's highest court barely got a mention this election season, President Barack Obama could reshape the conservative-leaning Supreme Court now that he has won.

To be sure, two of the court's oldest justices are liberals: 79-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg and 74-year-old Stephen Breyer.

But other septuagenarians fill the court's less liberal wing, too – namely the mercurial swing vote Anthony Kennedy and the bombastic right-winger Antonin Scalia, both of whom are 76.

If Kennedy retires, Obama can replace him with a justice who more frequently sides with liberals on issues from employee rights to class-action lawsuits, Daniel Fisher writes for Forbes.

And Obama could have a chance to replace Scalia with a justice who's his ideological opposite.

Since Obama already appointed Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, he could conceivably have a chance to be responsible for half of the court's justices, Paul Brandus pointed out in The Week.

And a liberal-leaning court could undo past decisions that favored conservatives like Citizens United, which opened the door for corporations to freely bankroll elections.

SEE ALSO: These Are The Legal Bigwigs Who Could Replace Eric Holder >

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College tuition has reached record highs and grads are still struggling to get jobs and pay off mounds of student debt.

So, it's more important than ever to have a ranking that asks a simple question: How much will a college help you succeed in life?

Last year, MIT earned the top spot in our list of America's Best Colleges, with Stanford and Harvard trailing close behind.

But have things changed?

To create the fourth annual Business Insider list of the Best Colleges, we need your help. We have selected what we consider the 60 best colleges in America and we want you to help us rank them. Please rate at least 10 of the colleges on this list—and let us know who you're furious that we left off. Also please take this opportunity to sound off on which colleges you think are total ripoffs and which are actually worth your money.

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For four years, the IRS has been poking around Mozilla's lucrative deal with Google. Today, the makers of the Firefox Web browser shared some good news: Mozilla has settled with the taxman.

The Mozilla Foundation will pay $1.5 million, Mitchell Baker, chair of the foundation, said in a blog post.

Even more good news, the foundation gets to keep its nonprofit status. And the best news of all is that Mozilla now has a windfall of $15 million from the fund it had set aside to pay potential taxes. It can now spend this money on its projects.

Mozilla's tax nightmare came from its search deal with Google. In 2004, Mozilla started including Google as a default search engine, with Google paying a share of ad revenues it generated. In 2008, they signed a three-year renewal. That deal and other similar ones turned into a whole lot of money for the nonprofit—$68 million in 2008 and, by 2010, more than $100 million.

It was good for Google, too, because placement in the Firefox browser helped boost Google's market share. The search giant turned around and signed a second three-year deal with Mozilla in 2011, for even more money—some $300 million a year, AllThingsD reported at the time.

In 2005, Mozilla had the foresight to set up a wholly owned subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation, and transferred the Google deal to the corporation. But the IRS wanted to make sure that the nonprofit arm, the Foundation, was paying its fair share of taxes, and complying with other nonprofit regulations. 

So the IRS began its audit, and Mozilla has been waiting for the shoe to drop ever since. The period before it set up the corporation, from 2004 to 2005, was still a trouble spot in 2010, according to a Mozilla financial report. (Some nonprofits have to pay out a set percentage of their endowment every year, but Mozilla had registered as a "public charity," a type which doesn't have to.)

The reaffirmation of Mozilla's corporate structure is important to the whole open-source community. Mozilla offers others a rare example of how an organization can make money while giving all of its software away for free. And Mozilla has become a highly sought-after place to work for many software developers, too.

Don't miss: Inside Mozilla's Amazing Office Space In San Francisco >

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Two men on opposite sides of one of the biggest scandals in sports history share an air of secrecy granted by their work for the U.S. government.

Former Penn St. president Graham Spanier was arraigned today on charges he attempted to cover-up the massive child abuse scandal involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

The investigator that revealed Spanier's alleged crimes, Louis Freeh, has also been accused of heading a massive cover-up when he was director of the FBI.

Spanier's lawyers previously argued that Freeh's report was unfounded in part because it didn't take into account another investigation of Spanier "conducted simultaneously by federal officials responsible for our national security."

That investigation reaffirmed Spanier’s Top Secret security clearance, which he holds from being chairman of the FBI National Security Higher Education Advisory Board until he was fired from Penn State last November.

Spanier, who had been PSU president since 1995, subsequently began consulting for the U.S. government on a project “relating to national security.” The details regarding his most recent federal gig—like which agency he works for—remain a mystery.  

Freeh, who was FBI Director from 1993 to 2001, has a mystique of his own. He is a member of the secretive group Opus Dei. The international Roman Catholic order, founded in 1928 and championed early by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, is dedicated to establishing its members in high political, corporate, and religious offices all over the world.

It's interesting—if not highly relevant given that 1.4 million Americans have Top Secret clearance—that both the man charged with orchestrating the Penn St. cover-up and the investigator who exposed his alleged role have worked on classified projects for the government.

SEE ALSO: Penn State Investigator Louis Freeh Accused Of Heading A Massive Cover-Up As Director Of FBI >

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The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today in a trademark dispute involving Nike's Air Force 1 low-cut sneakers.

Nike sued smaller sneaker maker Already for allegedly infringing its trademark for those shoes, prompting Already to file a countersuit claiming the trademark wasn't really valid anyway, according to SCOTUSblog.

Then Nike decided Already's shoes weren't much of a threat, so it dropped the case.

Already wanted to keep pursuing its crusade to void the trademark despite Nike's promises not to sue it ever again.

A federal appeals court sided with Nike by finding Already had to drop the case, so the smaller shoe maker took the fight to the nation's highest court.

If Nike loses in the Supreme Court, defendants in trademark cases could have new leverage because they could keep trying to invalidate trademarks even if the cases against them are dropped, Reuters' On the Case blog has noted.

The blog notes that "trademark holders will have to think hard about using litigation to protect their marks, since they'd face increased risks."

The case could have a major impact on luxury companies like Coach Inc. which have recognizable trademarks they often go to court to protect, according to Reuters.

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The pro-pot movement won a huge victory on Tuesday when Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes.

But what does this mean for the professional world? Will it be legal for employers to fire their workers for smoking pot?

We'll have to wait and see. 

The new law makes it OK for people to smoke in the privacy of their own homes, and there's no telling what impact that could have on the workplace. 

"It ultimately comes down to what the company policy says," Lori Adelson, a labor and employment attorney and partner with law firm Arnstein & Lehr, told us. 

Many who have required drug tests in the past will decide whether to continue to do so, but Adelson advised all employers in Colorado and Washington to immediately draft up a company policy so that there's a clear understanding of what's expected from their workers. 

For example, if an employee decides to smoke before coming into the office and is later terminated for being high on the job, Adelson said the employer may "have a stronger position" if the case goes to court because federal law still deems pot as illegal. 

"I think it's going to be pushed and it's going to be troubling," Adelson said. "You'll end up seeing this in the Supreme Court."

Since pot is illegal in federal laws, if you're an employee who receives any federal funding, you should carefully consider smoking at all, Adelson said. Even if you're smoking at home, traces of marijuana remains in the body for a long period of time, and you can still be considered "high" on the job if you're tested positive for pot weeks after you actually smoked.

This is also true if you're a business owner renting office space in a low-income, government-owned property.

The marijuana referendum only allows smoking in private, so publicly smoking on your work break is still banned, but Adelson said it's unknown how this will affect workers who have been prescribed marijuana for medical purposes since this could violate the Americans with Disability Act. 

"This [issue] will definitely be tested in court, but, no, I don't think [marijuana] will ever be acceptable in a workplace environment."

NOW SEE: 9 common interview questions that are actually illegal > 

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