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No more urine tests: Proposed California law would end most workplace marijuana tests
California adults can smoke marijuana without fear of going to jail, but using it after hours can still have consequences at work. A new bill in the Legislature aims to end a still common employment practice five years after Californians voted to legalize recreational cannabis in which private companies require can workers to test for marijuana use. Assembly Bill 1256, introduced by Assemblyman Bill Quirk, D-Hayward, is intended to prevent employers from using past evidence of marijuana use, such as a hair or urine test, as justification for discrimination against an employee, such as denying ...
The Sacramento Bee
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'An abomination': Group offers $10,000 to remove Kansas City-area Confederate statue
Although she is 70 years old, Theresa Byrd can still feel the sting of growing up Black in Liberty, Missouri — forced in the era of legal segregation to walk away from the white elementary school just blocks from her home to the Black Garrison School nearly a mile away. "In my route, " Byrd recalled, "I went up through town and frequently I was ridiculed, or relegated off the sidewalk, told to get in the street, called the N-word, was spat at." A statue always loomed nearby: At some 20 feet tall, it is a granite likeness of a Confederate soldier, atop a Confederate flag in relief, that some ar...
The Kansas City Star
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US Supreme Court lifts Santa Clara County’s ban on indoor religious services once and for all
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected Santa Clara County’s ban on indoor worship services, ordering California’s only holdout to fall in line with the rest of the state. The ruling from the Supreme Court comes less than three weeks after Santa Clara County instructed places of worship within the county to keep their doors closed and pews empty until further notice, regardless of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that lifted California’s ban on indoor religious services and allowed them to reopen to up to 25% of capacity. By a 6-3 vote, the court ruled that the county must allo...
The Mercury News
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In uprising against Amazon, Indian traders want it banned, fairplay for e-commerce
By Atul Ranjan NEW DELHI, NNA - Local retail associations in India are up in arms again about alleged discriminatory practices by foreign e-commerce players which seem to favor a minority of big sellers rather than helping the millions of small businesses. The associations, which have long been demanding stricter regulations or even a ban on foreign-funded platforms like Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart, have raised a ruckus over revelations by Reuters last week that the Indian unit of Amazon had helped a small number of sellers prosper on its India platform by giving them discounted fees and hel...
NNA Business News
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My worst moment: Isiah Whitlock Jr. (yes of 'The Wire' and that draaawnn out epithet) and the missed entrance
The sharply sardonic “I Care a Lot” on Netflix stars Rosamund Pike as a glossy-looking scam artist who persuades a judge to make her the legal guardian of retirement age people, who she then strips of their assets. The judge in question is played by Isiah Whitlock Jr., who “unwittingly allows her to do what she’s doing,” he said. Whitlock knows a thing or two about playing corrupt characters himself, most memorably on “The Wire” as state Sen. Clay Davis, who had a particular way of stretching out a certain profanity, a word that has become so associated with Whitlock’s trademark delivery that ...
Chicago Tribune
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Victory for 'net neutrality' law in California
San Francisco (AFP) - A federal judge late Tuesday cleared the way for California to begin enforcing a net neutrality law opposed by US telecom titans. The judge denied a request by cable and telecom service companies to stop implementation of the law, which is intended to prevent them from favoring their own services and blocking or slowing rival services like Netflix. "The federal court just rejected the effort by telecom and cable companies to block enforcement of the net neutrality law I authored," state senator Mark Wiener said in a tweet. "California can now fully protect an open interne...
AFP
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Kansas lawmakers consider measure to bar transgender youth from girls sports
TOPEKA, Kan. — Ryan Brooks stood in front of a Kansas Senate panel Tuesday and cried as she described seeing her daughter smile for the first time in years after she came out as transgender on her 12th birthday. For years, Brooks said, her daughter showed clear signs of depression and warnings that she was thinking of suicide. "When she finally told me, 'Mom, I'm a girl,' everything made sense," Brooks said. But Brooks said she feared the message her daughter would take away from legislation under consideration to prevent transgender girls in K-12 and higher education from participating in gir...
The Kansas City Star
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Beijing official signals changes to Hong Kong's electoral system
Xia Baolong. Image from Chinese government's official site. This story was written by Kelly Ho and was originally published by Hong Kong Free Press. An edited version is republished here under a content partnership agreement. A Beijing official in charge of Hong Kong affairs has signaled that Hong Kong will undergo a set of electoral reforms under the leadership of the Chinese authorities, with an aim to block “anti-China” opposition forces from the city’s governing bodies. The Director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO) Xia Baolong outlined a sort of code of conduct for Hong Ko...
Global Voices
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Giuliani tried to dodge being served with $1 billion Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, source says
NEW YORK — Rudy Giuliani spent a week dodging service of a $1.3 billion lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems after publicly declaring he was ready for the legal fight, a source told the Daily News. Dominion hired the process servers to hand Giuliani its 107-page lawsuit after the former mayor ignored requests to simply accept it via email, the source said. The voting machine company claims Giuliani destroyed its reputation by knowingly spreading lies that it helped steal the election for President Biden. On Tuesday, the company filed a separate defamation suit, also seeking $1.3 billion, a...
New York Daily News
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NJ Gov. Phil Murphy signs bills to legalize adult-use cannabis in the Garden State
Gov. Phil Murphy announced Monday that he had signed three bills that will legalize adult-use cannabis in the state of New Jersey. The new laws do three things. The first creates a “carefully regulated” cannabis industry in the Garden State. The second decriminalizes the possession of up to 6 ounces of marijuana. The third will remove low-level marijuana arrests from the records of up to a quarter million people. New Jersey voters approved a measure in November that created a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana for adults. Murphy had balked at signing the bills because ...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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