BUFFALO, N.Y. — Ten years ago this week:
The New York state legislature at long last finally approved the use of medical marijuana.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would sign the legislation only if it gave him the authority to suspend the program, which came wit the strictest guidelines in the nation. This included a limited list of maladies for which it could be used and limitations on how it could be injested including a prohibition on smoking it.
Just ten years later the state now sponsors both the sale and recreational use of the drug.
There was growing concern over the number of illegal crossings at the southern border by unaccompanied children, which had reached 47,000 in a year. In more recent years that number has been reached over the course of a few months.
Controversy brewed in Lancaster amid a renewed push to change the name of the school district's school sports teams.
Despite the sentiment of most district students and parents who wanted it to remain Redskins, the school board eventually changed the name. Today, the teams are called the Legends and the state's education department has forced other schools to change their team nicknames under a policy which now prohibits the use of names which can in any way be associated to native Americans.
20 years ago this week:
In Washington DC the new national World War Two memorial was welcoming its first visitors, and Space Ship One made history when it became the first privately developed and privately owned rocket to cross the edge of space this week in 2004.
30 years this week:
Just like now, sometimes it got hot in Buffalo and the city was in the city was in the midst of a heatwave almost identical in temperature and duration to the one forecast for this week.
So while the weather here has really not changed over time, back in the those days the city had yet to develop its "cooling centers" program. For relief, neighborhood residents often opened, without authorization, fire hydrants near which children would happily splash around to seek relief from the heat. This was accompanied by annual reminders from the city's fire department about the danger of children playing in the streets, to passing motorist, and to the city's water system which might experience a dangerous drop in pressure when enough of the hydrants were illicitly opened.
The state of New York began pushing to finally complete a long planned for road project in Western New York which involved the expansion of a major expressway. It's also the topic of the week's News 2 You Pop Quiz (the answer to which can be found at the conclusion of the video attached to this story).
40 years ago this week:
Whenever Gov. Mario Cuomo
40 years ago this week when Governor Mario Cuomo came to Buffalo he was often accompanied by an aide who was South Buffalo native and whose face would soon become an even more familiar one than that of the governor he served.
Tim Russert, who had previously worked as an aide to US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan before joining Cuomo's administration, would soon go on to join NBC News and become the host of its popular Sunday morning talk show, Meet the Press.
Russert passed away suddenly in 2008 at the age of 58.
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