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      Hochul Pushes Proposals Cracking Down on Unlicensed Cannabis Shops

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      Legal retailers are struggling to get their footing in the face of a much larger illicit market.Gov. Kathy Hochul visited New York City on Wednesday to drum up support for her latest proposals for shutting down the unlicensed marijuana shops that have exploded in number in the wake of the legalization of recreational cannabis.There are more than 400 illicit weed shops in Manhattan alone — outnumbering Starbucks stores in the borough and far surpassing the few dozen licensed cannabis retailers in the entire state.At a news conference at the governor’s office in Midtown Manhattan attended by several owners of licensed dispensaries, Ms. Hochul sought to allay concerns about a return to the heavy-handed enforcement tactics of the war on drugs while pushing for measures that she said would give “some teeth” to the so far ineffective efforts to wipe out the unlicensed shops.Her appearance came as state lawmakers were considering her proposal to strengthen the hand of local agencies by giving them the power to padlock stores. She was joined by licensed dispensary owners who said that the legal market could not compete with the cut-rate prices in illicit shops. The governor and business owners also called on search engines and social media companies like Google and Yelp to remove content about unlicensed shops, which they said added to the confusion among consumers about what weed shops were licensed and which were not.The governor said that the illicit shops posed a public health hazard and undermined the state’s effort to build a cannabis industry that could provide opportunities for people harmed by the war on drugs. She said that efforts to deter the stores with raids and fines over the last year had been concentrated in the hands of too few agencies and had not been effective. Her proposal would make it easier for the state’s Office of Cannabis Management to obtain court orders to padlock stores and would allow for the orders to be executed by local agencies that had more personnel.“More and more cash keeps going in their doors and not the doors of our legitimate operators — and that’s what needs to change,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Appeals Court Allows Indiana Ban on Transition Care for Minors to Take Effect

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      A lower court had mostly blocked enforcement of a state law that banned gender-transition care for minors, but a federal appellate court lifted that injunction on Tuesday.Indiana’s ban on hormone treatments and puberty blockers for transgender minors can go into effect, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday, undoing a lower court decision last year that had largely blocked the law.The three-paragraph ruling by a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago, said it was staying a preliminary injunction that the district court had issued in June, just before the law was scheduled to take effect last summer.The appellate judges did not explain their reasoning but simply said that a full opinion on the case would be issued in the future.The decision further unsettles the national legal landscape around transgender care for minors, with bans blocked in some states but not others, and it could lead to abrupt changes in treatment for young people in Indiana.“This ruling is beyond disappointing and a heartbreaking development for thousands of transgender youth, their doctors and their families,” the American Civil Liberties Union and the A.C.L.U. of Indiana, which brought the lawsuit challenging the ban, said in a statement. “As we and our clients consider our next steps, we want all the transgender youth of Indiana to know this fight is far from over,” the statement added.The Indiana attorney general, Todd Rokita, whose office defended the law in court, said on social media that “we are proud to win this fight.”“Our common-sense state law, banning dangerous and irreversible gender-transition procedures for minors, is now enforceable,” said Mr. Rokita, a Republican. Republican-led states have raced to ban gender-transition care for minors in recent years, leading to a series of lawsuits in federal and state courts that so far have had mixed results. Many legal experts on both sides of the issue expect the legality of the bans to ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.The Indiana ban passed the Republican-controlled legislature last spring by large margins and was signed into law by Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican. Supporters of the law claimed they were seeking to protect young people from making life-altering decisions that they might later regret.Families of transgender children sued to block the law, saying that it would put transgender youths at immediate risk of unwanted changes to their bodies, which would have lifelong consequences.A federal district judge, James Patrick Hanlon, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, temporarily blocked portions of the law banning hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors while the lawsuit proceeded. He allowed a ban on gender-transition surgeries for minors to take effect as scheduled.But after hearing arguments this month, a three-judge panel from the Seventh Circuit, made up of two judges appointed by Republican presidents and one appointed by a Democratic president, lifted Judge Hanlon’s injunction. More

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      Supreme Court to Decide How the First Amendment Applies to Social Media

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      Challenges to laws in Florida and Texas meant to protect conservative viewpoints are likely to yield a major constitutional ruling on tech platforms’ free speech rights.The most important First Amendment cases of the internet era, to be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday, may turn on a single question: Do platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X most closely resemble newspapers or shopping centers or phone companies?The two cases arrive at the court garbed in politics, as they concern laws in Florida and Texas aimed at protecting conservative speech by forbidding leading social media sites from removing posts based on the views they express.But the outsize question the cases present transcends ideology. It is whether tech platforms have free speech rights to make editorial judgments. Picking the apt analogy from the court’s precedents could decide the matter, but none of the available ones is a perfect fit.If the platforms are like newspapers, they may publish what they want without government interference. If they are like private shopping centers open to the public, they may be required to let visitors say what they like. And if they are like phone companies, they must transmit everyone’s speech.“It is not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in a 2022 dissent when one of the cases briefly reached the Supreme Court.Supporters of the state laws say they foster free speech, giving the public access to all points of view. Opponents say the laws trample on the platforms’ own First Amendment rights and would turn them into cesspools of filth, hate and lies. One contrarian brief, from liberal professors, urged the justices to uphold the key provision of the Texas law despite the harm they said it would cause.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      German Lawmakers Move Closer to Legalizing Marijuana

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      The measure still requires approval from the Council of States, but the vote brings the country closer to becoming the largest nation in Europe to legalize the drug for recreational use.Lawmakers in Germany approved legalization of cannabis on Friday, bringing the country a step closer to becoming one of the few European nations — and by far the largest — to fully legalize limited amounts of the drug for recreational use.“By legalizing it, we are taking cannabis out of the taboo zone,” said Karl Lauterbach, who as health minister is largely responsible for the law, on public television before the vote, which ended up being 407 votes for and 226 against.The proposal must be approved by the Federal Council next month.Several other European countries, perhaps most notably the Netherlands, tolerate the use of cannabis, but legalization is rare: With in the European Union, Only Malta and Luxembourg have gone that far.If the law passes the Federal Council and is signed by the president, it will be rolled out in two steps. Starting in April, all adults will be allowed to carry up to 25 grams, own up to 50 grams, and grow up to three adult plants for private consumption. Then, in July, adults in Germany will be permitted to form social clubs that can produce cannabis plants for their members.Critics have objected to the new law on the grounds that it could normalize the drug and make it easier for minors to obtain it. To try to prevent this, the measure limits carrying and use of the drug to people over 18 years old and bans consumption of the drug close to schools or other places where young people gather.States have warned that the legalization would cause an extra burden for the traffic police, who expect to see an increase in the number of people driving under the influence of the drug on German roads. More

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      Biden Considering Executive Order That Could Restrict Asylum at the Border

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      The action under consideration could prevent people from making asylum claims during border crossing surges. The White House says it is far from a decision on the matter.President Biden is considering executive action that could prevent people who cross illegally into the United States from claiming asylum, several people with knowledge of the proposal said Wednesday. The move would suspend longtime guarantees that give anyone who steps onto U.S. soil the right to ask for safe haven.The order would put into effect a key policy in a bipartisan bill that Republicans thwarted earlier this month, even though it had some of the most significant border security restrictions Congress has contemplated in years.The bill would have essentially shut down the border to new entrants if more than an average of 5,000 migrants per day tried to cross unlawfully in the course of a week, or more than 8,500 tried to cross in a given day.The action under consideration by the White House would have a similar trigger for blocking asylum to new entrants, the people with knowledge of the proposal say. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.The move, if enacted, would echo a 2018 effort by President Donald J. Trump to block migration, which was assailed by Democrats and blocked by federal courts.Although such an action would undoubtedly face legal challenges, the fact that Mr. Biden is considering it shows just how far he has shifted on immigration since he came into office, promising a more humane system after the Trump years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Oregon Tries and Fails to Eliminate Daylight Saving Time, for Now

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      Also, did you know Oregon has two time zones?Oregon’s state senate failed to advance a bill on Tuesday that would have abolished daylight saving time in most of the state and switched it to standard time for the entire year, the latest chapter in an effort by states to settle on whether clocks need to fall back or spring forward at all.The bill proposed that the part of the state in the Pacific Time Zone — almost all of the state is, save Malheur County, which is on Mountain time — abolish “the annual one-hour change in time from standard time to daylight saving time.”The measure isn’t entirely dead: The state senate sent the bill back to committee to be amended to make sure that if it were to happen Oregon wouldn’t be the only state in the region switching to permanent standard time.Lawmakers in Oregon’s neighboring states have proposed similar bills. In Idaho this week, a bill was introduced to get rid of daylight saving time, and there is a similar bill in front of California’s Assembly. In Washington State, a bill to abolish daylight saving time and return to permanent standard time failed last month.“We are leading the way,” Kim Thatcher, a sponsor of the Oregon bill, said on the State Senate floor this week before the bill’s failure. “I think we’re not going to be alone in this, but there might be a little weirdness at first, just know that.”Oregon would have been the first West Coast state to spend its entire year on standard time. Arizona (except for the Navajo nation) and Hawaii also observe standard time year-round. And in 2022, Mexico ended daylight saving time for most of the country, but carved out an exception for the area along the U.S. border.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A State Court Ruling on I.V.F. Echoes Far Beyond Alabama

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      Frozen embryos in test tubes must be considered children, judges ruled. The White House called it a predictable consequence of the overturn of Roe v. Wade.An Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos in test tubes should be considered children has sent shock waves through the world of reproductive medicine, casting doubt over fertility care for would-be parents in the state and raising complex legal questions with implications extending far beyond Alabama.On Tuesday, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said the ruling would cause “exactly the type of chaos that we expected when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for politicians to dictate some of the most personal decisions families can make.”Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as President Biden traveled to California, Ms. Jean-Pierre reiterated the Biden administration’s call for Congress to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into federal law.“As a reminder, this is the same state whose attorney general threatened to prosecute people who help women travel out of state to seek the care they need,” she said, referring to Alabama, which began enforcing a total abortion ban in June 2022.The judges issued the ruling on Friday in appeals cases brought by couples whose embryos were destroyed in 2020, when a hospital patient removed frozen embryos from tanks of liquid nitrogen in Mobile and dropped them on the floor.Referencing antiabortion language in the state constitution, the judges’ majority opinion said that an 1872 statute allowing parents to sue over the wrongful death of a minor child applies to unborn children, with no exception for “extrauterine children.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ICE Considers Slashing Detention Capacity Because of Budget Shortfall

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      The agency has circulated a money-saving proposal after Republicans in Congress blocked a bill that would have provided billions in funding.U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is considering a plan to reduce its detention capacity significantly after Republicans in Congress blocked a bill that would have provided the agency with more than $7 billion, officials said Wednesday.To stay within its current budget, ICE would need to cut detention levels by more than 10,000 spots within months, according to documents laying out the proposal, which were obtained by The New York Times. The agency could either release some of the 38,000 people currently in custody, or decline to fill vacant spots as cases get resolved.Three officials familiar with the plan said it was under active consideration within ICE. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss what they described as contingencies.Erin Heeter, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not comment on specifics of the proposal. “The fact that we are always considering options does not mean we will take action immediately, or at all,” she said.The proposal was first reported by The Washington Post.The plan comes at a moment of crisis over immigration in the United States, with record numbers of people crossing into the country and the asylum system all but broken. Bitter politics have paralyzed any movement on the issue, as Republicans seize on it as a political weapon against President Biden.Mr. Biden has implored Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that would have clamped down on migration at the southern border. But his predecessor and likely challenger in this year’s election, former President Donald J. Trump, pressured Republicans to block the deal, saying it would be a “gift” to Democrats.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More