Massachusetts lawmakers override Romney veto of stem cell bill News
Massachusetts lawmakers override Romney veto of stem cell bill

[JURIST] The Massachusetts legislature Tuesday overrode a Friday veto by Gov. Mitt Romney [official website] on a bill [Senate bill text] allowing scientists seeking to do stem cell research in Massachusetts to bypass approval from the local district attorney. The new law does, however, give the state Department of Public Health [official website] some regulatory controls and prohibits human cloning. Both the state House and Senate defeated the veto by the two-thirds vote necessary to override a gubernatorial veto but the vote in the House was close at 112-42. The Senate vote was 35-2. Critics claim the new law is a slippery slope to human cloning, a claim supporters see as unfounded. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Ku Klux Klan founded

The US hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan was founded on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a reaction to reconstruction efforts following the Union victory in the American Civil War. The group would later become notorious for its attacks on Black Americans, being targeted by the Enforcement Act of 1871, which imposed civil and criminal liability for deprivation of constitutional rights. Read the Enforcement Act of 1871.  

Hamid Karzai born

On December 24, 1957, Hamid Karzai was born in Karz, Afghanistan. He would go on to become in 2004 his country's first elected president after the end of Taliban rule in 2001.