The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a New York state law that had restricted who could obtain a permit to carry a gun in public. Under the law in place since 1913, New York residents needed to show proper cause, or an actual need, to carry a concealed handgun in public for self-defense..

The justices said that law conflicts with the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. It drew swift reaction from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who called the decision reckless and said she was prepared to call the Legislature back into session to form a response.

“We do not need people entering our subways, our restaurants and movie theaters with concealed weapons,” she said. “We don’t need more guns on our streets.”

New York and a half a dozen other states with similar laws now must decide their next steps. As with New York, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island all have legislatures controlled by Democrats who could propose measures to ensure that guns will not be allowed in certain places.aws.

An appellate court judge has upheld Seattle’s payroll tax, affirming a decision made in King County Superior Court last year.

In an opinion published Tuesday, the Division I Court of Appeals deemed Seattle’s JumpStart tax lawful, The Seattle Times reported.

“Engaging in business is a substantial privilege on which the city may properly levy taxes,” the opinion reads. “And the use of a business’s payroll expense is an appropriate measure of that taxable incident.”

The tax, passed by the Seattle City Council in 2020, requires businesses with at least $7 million in annual payroll to pay between 0.7%-2.4% on salaries and wages paid to Seattle employees who make at least $150,000 per year. The highest rate is applied to salaries of at least $400,000 at companies with at least $1 billion in annual payroll.

In 2021, the tax brought $231 million in revenue to the city.

The lawsuit, filed by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce in December 2020, asked the King County Superior Court to strike down the tax, calling it illegal.

The lawsuit was dismissed by a King County Superior Court judge last summer, and the chamber appealed the decision.

The chamber in a statement Tuesday said it will review the latest decision and determine their next step with members and attorneys.

Lawyers on Monday renewed calls for the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim groups in China’s Xinjiang region as they presented a dossier of evidence to prosecutors.

Activists and lawyers accuse Beijing of crimes against humanity and genocide against the groups. China’s ruling Communist Party has vehemently denied all reports of human rights violations and genocide in Xinjiang.

Monday’s filing is the latest attempt to have the global court open an investigation into widespread allegations of abuse against Uyghurs by Chinese authorities.

The group that submitted the evidence said it includes testimony from a witness who escaped from a camp in 2018 and alleges that he and others were tortured and forced to undergo medical procedures including “being injected with unknown substances.”

The latest dossier also seeks to support their assertion that ICC prosecutors have jurisdiction despite China not being a member of the court by arguing that Uyghurs and others are being rounded up on the territory of an ICC member state and transferred to China.

That assertion seeks to use a precedent set when the court’s judges ruled that the ICC has jurisdiction to investigate abuses against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority, despite Myanmar not being a member of the court, because thousands of Rohingyas were force to flee to Bangladesh, which is an ICC member.

British lawyer Rodney Dixon said evidence presented to the court’s prosecutor’s office uncovers “a pervasive plan to round up Uyghurs in neighboring countries, including an ICC member State, and elsewhere, to force them back into China.”

“The ICC has jurisdiction over these crimes that commence on ICC territory and continue into China, and is urged to act immediately to open an investigation,” the group filing the dossier Monday said in a statement.

The filing comes a year after lawyers called on the ICC to open an investigation.

Construction is scheduled to begin this week on a long-planned road project in the south end of Burlington, Mayor Miro Weinberger said.

The comments came after a federal judge lifted an order that blocked work on the first phase of what is known as the Champlain Parkway.

The first phase of construction will include tree removal and work to protect a brook running through the area.

Opponents say the project does not match current transportation needs and will harm residents in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

In the Friday order, U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford said beginning construction of the parkway would not cause irreparable harm to those who oppose the project and there will be time to address in court those underlying issues.

The Champlain Parkway is designed to be a two-lane road that will eventually connect Interstate 189 with downtown Burlington.

The $45 million, two-mile (three-kilometer) project is designed to improve traffic circulation, alleviate overburdened roadways, protect Lake Champlain through enhanced storm water management, and improve vehicular, bike, and pedestrian safety.

The North Carolina Supreme Court reinstated a man’s murder and robbery convictions in the death of his co-worker on Friday, reversing an appellate ruling that had declared the circumstantial evidence at trial was too weak for guilty verdicts.

A divided panel of the state Court of Appeals last August had vacated the 2019 convictions of David Myron Dover in the 2016 stabbing death of 79-year-old Arthur “Buddy” Davis in Kannapolis. Dover and Davis worked at the same automobile sales store. Their boss found Davis in his home, stabbed more than a dozen times. Dover was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In a 5-2 ruling, the state’s highest court said the trial judge had been right to deny Dover’s motion to dismiss the case after prosecutors presented their evidence.

According to court opinions, Dover had a substance abuse problem and had asked his girlfriend to look in a trash can near his house for about $3,000 in cash to help him post bail on a charge unrelated to Davis. Evidence from cellphone records also shows his phone was in the vicinity of Davis’ home, even as Dover told police initially he had been at home the night before Davis was found dead.

“Here substantial evidence supports the reasonable inference that defendant murdered the victim and took $3,000” from Davis, Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote in the majority opinion. The evidence also was sufficient to infer that Dover had gone to Davis’ home that night, Newby wrote, and case law establishes that when an accused person makes conflicting statements about a crime, it may be considered a circumstance of someone “possessed of a guilty conscience” seeking to divert suspicion.

While the nation waits for the Supreme Court’s opinion on a blockbuster abortion case that could overturn Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood of Washington is getting ready for an increase in out-of-state patients seeking an abortion.

“We are already seeing patients from Texas, from Oklahoma. I saw a patient a couple of weeks ago from Alabama,” Dr. Erin Berry, gynecologist and Washington state medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands, told KING-TV.

Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest said it’s working to see which locations in Washington could open up for additional days if needed and upping its patient navigation teams, which help patients with appointments and travel arrangements.

“There’s a lot of unknown,” Berry said. “We also ultimately do not know how many people will be coming in from where and what their needs will be.”

Twenty-six states are likely to have total or near-total bans on abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Idaho’s trigger law bans all abortions with exceptions for rape, incest and if the mother’s life is at risk.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, 230,000 patients could travel across state lines from Idaho seeking an abortion.

Berry said it’s expensive for patients to travel across the country to access medical care and fears for funding in the long term.

The looming decision is creating uncertainty for more than just patients. The Washington Medical Commission, which regulates physician license in Washington, said if Roe v. Wade is overturned it could raise practice concerns for Washington licensees.

The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for lawmakers to severely limit or ban abortion in the state, reversing a decision by the court just four years ago that guaranteed the right to abortion under the Iowa Constitution.

The court, now composed almost entirely of Republican appointees, concluded that a less conservative court wrongly decided abortion is among the fundamental privacy rights guaranteed by the Iowa Constitution and federal law.

Friday’s ruling comes amid expectations that the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. If that happens, Iowa lawmakers could ban abortion without completing the lengthy process of amending the state constitution.

The Iowa decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed by abortion providers who challenged a 2020 law that required a 24-hour waiting period before a woman can get an abortion. A judge who struck down the law cited the state high court’s 2018 ruling. The judge also concluded that the law violated rules prohibiting passage of bills with more than one subject.

The state Supreme Court returned the waiting-period case to district court.