The White House (CNN) –President Obama endorsed his administration’s decision to keep in place age restrictions on the purchase of Plan B, the so-called “morning after pill”, without a prescription.

“I did not get involved in the process,” Obama said when asked if he personally intervened in the matter. “This was a decision that was made by Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of HHS.”

Sebelius announced the move on Wednesday, drawing applause from conservatives and ire from liberals and women’s health advocates. Even some in the president’s own administration privately complained that politics had trumped science.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is directing the Food and Drug Administration to take steps to reduce drug shortages, action he says will help stop a “slow-rolling problem” that puts patients at risk and raises the potential for price gouging.

Obama signed an executive order in the Oval Office on Monday instructing the FDA to take action in three areas: broadening its reporting of potential drug shortages; accelerating reviews of applications to change production of drugs facing potential shortages; and giving the Justice Department more information about possible instances of collusion or price gouging.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Former talk show host Montel Williams has urged state lawmakers to legalize medical marijuana in Maryland, saying it has a role helping those with painful ailments such as his own.

The Baltimore native spoke Monday at a news conference with Maryland lawmakers who support legalized medical marijuana.

Williams, 54, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1990. He said he had been living with pain in his lower extremities, face and side for years and added that marijuana provided the only relief he could find.

PHOENIX — Arizona voters have approved a measure that will legalize medical marijuana in the state.

Proposition 203 won by a tiny margin of just 4,431 votes out of more than 1.67 million votes counted. The measure started out losing by about 7,200 votes on Nov. 2 and the gap gradually narrowed in the following 10 days.

The measure began Friday losing by about 1,500 votes, then surged ahead by 4,421 votes.

SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. government will “vigorously enforce” federal laws against marijuana even if voters next month make California the first state to legalize pot, Attorney General Eric Holder says.

Holder’s warning, contained in a letter to ex-federal drug enforcement chiefs, was his most direct statement yet against Proposition 19, and it sets up another showdown with California over marijuana if the measure passes.

With Prop 19 leading in the polls, the letter also raised questions about the extent to which federal drug agents would go into communities across the state to catch small-time users and dealers, or whether they even had the resources to do it.

Washington (CNN) — President Obama signed a bill Tuesday reducing the disparity in penalties for the use of crack and powder cocaine, according to the White House.

The enactment of the law seals a hard-fought victory for civil rights activists who have argued for years that the differing punishments unfairly target African-Americans.

The Fair Sentencing Act repeals a five-year mandatory sentence for first time offenders, and for repeat offenders with less than 28 grams of crack cocaine. The old law set the mandatory sentence for conviction at five grams.

(CNN) — Legalizing marijuana is a civil rights issue, according to one of California’s most prominent African-American advocacy groups.

The California State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, led by President Alice Huffman, recently announced its “unconditional endorsement” for Proposition 19, a legislative initiative on the November ballot that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana in California.

Washington (CNN) — Mexican President Felipe Calderon addressed two of America’s most contentious political issues during a speech to the U.S. Congress Thursday, asking for a return of the assault weapons ban and blasting Arizona’s controversial new immigration law as a “terrible” endorsement of racial profiling.

OLYMPIA, Washington – Washington is one of four states where measures to legalize and regulate marijuana have been introduced, and about two dozen other states are considering bills ranging from medical marijuana to decriminalizing possession of small amounts of the herb.

“In terms of state legislatures, this is far and away the most active year that we’ve ever seen,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, which supports reforming marijuana laws.

WASHINGTON – The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks.

Advanced even this week by Republican stalwarts including the party’s last vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, and Charles E. Grassley, the veteran Iowa senator, the nature of the assertion nonetheless seemed reminiscent of the modern-day viral Internet campaigns that dogged Mr. Obama last year, falsely calling him a Muslim and questioning his nationality.