A man accused by federal authorities today of operating an online drug bazaar called Silk Road 2.0 allegedly did so as he worked briefly at Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket and spacecraft concern in Hawthorne.
SpaceX communications director John Taylor says 26-year-old Blake Benthall was employed at the company from Dec. 9 to Feb. 21. A Facebook page for a Houston-bred man with the same name as the suspect says he was a software engineer at the South Bay company.

During the upcoming midterm elections, Hispanic voters are likely to be key in many races across the country — but could they slow the move toward broader marijuana legalization? That possibility is among the takeaways from a Pew Research Center study looking at Latino voting trends. PRC found that Hispanics are less likely than white or black voters to favor such policies.
The report, entitled “Latino Voters and the 2014 Midterm Elections,” notes that proposals to legalize marijuana for recreational use are on ballots in Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia, with medical-marijuana measures up for voting in Florida and Guam. Such votes are important, say cannabis-reform advocates such as the Marijuana Majority’s Tom Angell, because positive results are likely to lead to a tipping point that would cause the federal government to alter pot policies for the country as a whole.