State Representative Applauds New Executive Order Banning TikTok on Arizona Agency Devices

Arizona State Representative Matt Gress (R-Phoenix) released a statement Thursday praising the newest Executive Order from Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) banning the social media app TikTok on state agency devices. Gress has a bill moving through the Legislature to achieve a similar result.

“I applaud the Governor for taking action to address the security and data collection threats posed by TikTok and similar apps. The Legislature still needs to act, and the Governor should sign HB 2416, a comprehensive plan to keep the state’s critical information secure and strengthen public safety. It would expand on the Governor’s order, codifying it permanently into state law, and apply to all government entities, employees, and contractors,” Gress said.

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Arizona State Representative Introduces Legislation to Prohibit TikTok from Devices Used by the State

State Representative Matt Gress (R-Phoenix) is introducing an amendment at the Wednesday House Governance Committee meeting dubbed the “No TikTok on Arizona Government Devices Act.”

“When I was sworn into office, I took an oath to defend my constituents and all Arizonans from enemies both foreign and domestic,” said Gress. “This legislation fulfills this promise as the security risks associated with the use of TikTok – an application owned and operated by the Chinese Communist Party with the capabilities of gathering crucial details about personal, private internet activity – can’t be ignored.”

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Virginia Budget Includes Delay on Styrofoam Ban Effective Dates

The recently-passed Virginia budget for fiscal years 2023-2024 includes legislation delaying implementation of state bans on polystyrene for five years. The ban, sponsored by Delegate Betsy Carr (D-Richmond) required large food vendors to stop using the packaging material by July 2023, and all vendors by July 2025. But those deadlines are now July 2028 and July 2030, respectively.

After the ban’s final passage in 2021 under Democratic control, Virginia earned praise for its position from environmental groups. At the time, restaurant lobbyists warned that restaurants needed the containers amid an increase in takeout due to COVID-19. At the same time then-Governor Ralph Northam signed the bill, he also signed a ban on executive branch agencies using single-use plastics, which was reversed this year by Governor Glenn Youngkin.

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Arizona Legislature Passes 15-Week Abortion Ban

On Thursday, the Arizona State Legislature passed a bill that would ban all abortions after 15 weeks.

ABC News reports that the Arizona House of Representatives voted along party lines to approve the bill, which is similar to a law already passed in Mississippi that has sparked perhaps the most influential Supreme Court case on abortion since 1973’s Roe v. Wade. Having already passed the State Senate, the bill now goes to the desk of Governor Doug Ducey (R-Ariz.), who is expected to sign it.

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Menthol Cigarettes Ban Could Cost Virginia More Than $121 Million in First Year

A recent report found a nationwide ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes could cost Virginia hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

If the proposed Food and Drug Administration ban on menthols was to go into effect, the commonwealth would lose more than $121.6 million in its first full year of implementation, according to a report from the Tax Foundation. The losses would be caused by lower excise tax revenue, lower sales tax revenue and lower Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) payments.

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Law Journal Bans ‘Hurtful’ Questioning of Systemic Racism, Prompting Exodus of Contributors

Emory University’s student-led law review is facing a revolt by contributors for demanding that one drop “insensitive language” from a “hurtful and unnecessarily divisive” critique of the concept of systemic racism.

Two contributors confirmed to Just the News they withdrew their essays from a forthcoming “festschrift” issue honoring the work of Emory’s Michael Perry, in protest of Emory Law Journal’s attempt to censor an essay by the University of San Diego’s Larry Alexander.

Alexander told Just the News that he, USD’s Steve Smith and Northwestern’s Andrew Koppelman are now publishing their essays in the Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues, which he edits.

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Oregon School Board Bans Educators from Displaying BLM and Gay Pride Symbols

A school board in Oregon is receiving backlash following its recent ban on educators displaying Black Lives Matter signs and gay pride symbols.

Newberg, which is situated just outside of Portland, now finds itself the site of the latest skirmish in a pitched struggle between traditional and woke approaches to education being waged in school systems across the country.

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North Carolina Senate Votes to Ban Critical Race Theory Concepts in Schools

The North Carolina Senate has approved legislation that prohibits K-12 schools from promoting more than a dozen concepts about racism and discrimination.

The legislation bans school districts from pushing critical race theory, which is centered around the idea that race is a social construct used to oppress people of color. The theory, developed by legal scholars in the late 1970s and 1980s, concludes racism in America is systemic.

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Fifth Circuit Upholds Texas Abortion Ban

Woman holding an infant in her arms

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2017 Texas law outlawing a second trimester abortion procedure called D&E (dilation and evacuation), or dismemberment.

In 2017, the Texas legislature passed the Texas Dismemberment Abortion Ban with bipartisan support, making D&Es a felony and banning them from being performed except in the case of an emergency. After the law passed and before it went into effect, Whole Women’s Health, several Planned Parenthood groups, several doctors, and others, sued in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

The district court ruled in their favor, blocking the law from going into effect. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office appealed, and a three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling last October.

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Utah Legislature Passes Resolution to Ban Critical Race Theory from Schools

House Speaker Brad Wilson

Republicans in Utah’s state legislature passed a resolution on Wednesday to instruct the state’s schools to ban Critical Race Theory from their curriculum, as reported by Breitbart.

During the vote in the Utah House of Representatives, every single Democrat walked off the floor in protest of the bill, thus allowing the legislation to pass with only Republican votes. The “House Resolution on Critical Race Theory in Public Education” was subsequently passed by the Utah Senate. Because the measure is a resolution rather than a bill, it did not need the signature of Governor Spencer Cox (R-Utah) in order to pass.

House Speaker Brad Wilson (R-Utah) said that with the resolution, the state legislature was “calling on the state school board to look at the curriculum and determine what the right parameters for this discussion to happen.”

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Amazon Says Email to Employees Banning TikTok Was a Mistake

Roughly five hours after an internal email went out Friday to Amazon employees telling them to delete the popular video app TikTok from their phones, the online retailing giant appeared to backtrack, calling the ban a mistake.

“This morning’s email to some of our employees was sent in error,” Amazon emailed reporters just before 5 p.m. Eastern time. “There is no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok.”

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Bill Typo, If Unchanged, Would Make Felons Out of Half A Million Ohioan Gun Owners

Ohio Gun Owners, a citizens’ Second Amendment advocacy organization, discovered Thursday that House Bill 228 (HB 228) would make many widely-used firearms illegal throughout Ohio. The bill’s current language defines illegal “dangerous ordnance” as: (7) Any firearm with an overall length of at least twenty- six inches that is approved for sale by the federal bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives under the “Gun Control Act of 1968,” 82 Stat. 1213, 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(3), but that is found by the bureau not to be regulated under the “National Firearms Act,” 68A Stat. 725 (1934), 26 U.S.C. 5845(a). This section of the bill, however, should have been included in a section that defines what weapons do not count as “dangerous ordnance.” This makes it highly probable that those who drafted the legislation simply placed this passage in the wrong section. If unchanged, the bill would mistakenly ban hundreds of common weapons, including AR-15’s and shotguns with pistol grips because of what appears to be a clerical error. It would also make felons out of hundreds of thousands of legal gun owners in Ohio. The bill’s primary sponsors are Terry Johnson (R-90) Sarah LaTourette (R-76). Neither legislator has issued a statement on the bill. As…

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Ohio Legislation Sets Age Requirement for Marriage

On Thursday, the Ohio Senate unanimously passed a bill that would effectively end child marriage in the state of Ohio. House Bill 511 (HB 511), introduced on February 14th, 2018, would establish eighteen as the minimum age to get married, regardless of gender, with few exceptions. As the law currently stand, under Ohio Revised Code 3101.01, the minimum age of marriage is eighteen for men and sixteen for women. However, if certain conditions are met, marriage can be legal at almost any age, should the parent and judge consent. In addition, Ohio is one of only seven states that permits the minimum age to be lowered when a woman is pregnant. The other six are Arkansas, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oklahoma. In early September 2017, the Dayton Daily News published their findings of an investigation into the practice of child marriage in the state of Ohio. The report revealed a shocking litany of statistics, most notably that: 4,443 girls age 17 or younger were married in Ohio between 2000 and 2015, including 59 who were 15 or younger. Ohio saw statewide, bipartisan, outrage over the practice and two bills were introduced addressing the issue, one in the Senate and…

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