Uruguay’s Senate has approved the world’s first national marketplace for legal marijuana – an audacious and risky experiment that puts the government in charge of growing, selling and using a drug that is illegal almost everywhere else.

Former Uruguayan President-turned-dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry died early today at home, where he was serving a 30-year sentence for killings and disappearances during his country’s war against so-called subversives. He was 83.

A blunt-talking former guerrilla seeking to maintain the left’s hold on power in Uruguay easily got the most votes in presidential elections, but failed to win the majority needed to avoid a runoff.