California backs stem cell research

AMONG a raft of issues voted for alongside the presidential election, California backed a $6 billion (€4.5bn) measure to fund stem cell research and rejected measures that would have expanded gambling in the nation’s most populous state.

Activists spent hundreds of millions of dollars an estimated $200m (€156m) in California alone on 163 initiatives in 34 states tackling issues as varied as tobacco taxes, electoral changes and tort reform.

In Arizona, voters comfortably passed a controversial proposition that targets illegal immigrants entering the southwestern border state from Mexico.