Mississippi
Circuit court agrees with ban on medical marijuana advertising
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Medical marijuana businesses in Mississippi don’t have the right to advertise on billboards or other places because marijuana itself remains illegal under federal law, an appeals court says.
The owner of a medical marijuana dispensary argued that the First Amendment protects the right to advertise because Mississippi law permits the sale of cannabis products to people with debilitating medical conditions. The state enacted its law in 2022.
A three-judge panel of 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected the arguments about advertising. They cited the federal Controlled Substances Act, which since 1970 has prohibited the manufacture, distribution, dispensing and possession of marijuana.
The federal law applies in all states, and Mississippi “faces no constitutional obstacle to restricting commercial speech relating to unlawful transactions,” the judges wrote.
An email seeking comment was sent to the state attorney general’s office Monday.
Clarence Cocroft II operates Tru Source Medical Cannabis in the northern Mississippi city of Olive Branch. He sued the state in 2023 to challenge its ban on medical marijuana advertising on billboards or in print, broadcast or social media or in mass email or text messaging.
“Upholding this ban makes it incredibly difficult for me to find potential customers and to educate people about Mississippi’s medical marijuana program,” Cocroft said in a statement Monday. “I remain committed to continuing this fight so my business can be treated the same as any other legal business in Mississippi.”
Cocroft is represented by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit libertarian law firm. The firm said Monday that it is considering its next steps in the lawsuit, including possibly asking the entire appeals court to reconsider the case or an appeal to the Supreme Court.
“Mississippi cannot on the one hand create an entire marketplace for the sale of medical marijuana, and on the other hand rely on an unenforced federal law to prohibit buyers and sellers from talking about it,” said Ari Bargil, an Institute for Justice attorney.
California
Judge rejects request to sideline volleyball player on grounds she’s transgender
A judge on Monday rejected a request to block a San Jose State women’s volleyball team member from playing in a conference tournament on grounds that she is transgender.
Monday’s ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Kato Crews in Denver will allow the player, who has played all season, to continue competing in the Mountain West Conference women’s championship scheduled for later this week in Las Vegas.
The ruling comes after a lawsuit was filed by nine current players who are suing the Mountain West Conference to challenge the league’s policies for allowing transgender players to participate. The players argued that letting her compete was a safety risk and unfair.
While some media have reported those and other details, neither San Jose State nor the forfeiting teams have confirmed the school has a trans women’s volleyball player. The Associated Press is withholding the player’s name because she has not publicly commented on her gender identity. School officials also have declined an interview request with the player.
Judge Crews referred to the athlete as an “alleged transgender” player in his ruling and noted that no defendant disputed that San Jose State rosters a transgender woman volleyball player.
He said the players who filed the complaint could have sought relief much earlier, noting that the individual universities had acknowledged that not playing their games against San Jose State this season would result in a forfeit in league standings.
He also said injunctions are meant to preserve the status quo. The conference policy regarding forfeiting for refusing to play against a team with a transgender player had been in effect since 2022 and the San Jose State player has been on the roster since 2022 – making that the status quo.
The player competed at the college level three previous seasons, including two for San Jose State, drawing little attention. This season’s awareness of her identity led to an uproar among some players, pundits, parents and politicians in a political campaign year.
The tournament starts Wednesday and continues Friday and Saturday. San Jose State is seeded second. The judge’s order maintains the seedings and pairings for the tournament.
Several teams refused to play against San Jose State during the season, earning losses in the official standings. Boise State and Wyoming each had two forfeits while Utah State and Nevada both had one. Southern Utah, a member of the Western Athletic Conference, was first to cancel against San Jose State this year.
Nevada’s players stated they “refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes,” without providing further details.
Crews served as a magistrate judge in Colorado’s U.S. District Court for more than five years before President Joe Biden appointed him to serve as a federal judge in January of this year.
New York
Drake alleges Universal falsely inflated popularity of Lamar diss track ‘Not Like Us’
Drake alleged in a court filing Monday that Universal Music Group falsely pumped up the popularity on Spotify and other streaming services of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” a song that viciously attacked Drake amid a bitter feud between the two hip-hop superstars.
The petition in a New York court by the rapper’s company Frozen Moments LLC demands the preservation and divulgence of information that might be evidence in a potential lawsuit against UMG, which is the distributor for the record labels of both Drake and Lamar.
In allegations that UMG calls “offensive and untrue,” the filing says the record company “launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves with a song, ‘Not Like Us,’ in order to make that song go viral, including by using ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.” It said the company and Spotify “have a long-standing, symbiotic business relationship” and alleges that UMG offered special licensing rates to Spotify for the song.
The petition also says UMG has fired employees seen as loyal to Drake “in an apparent effort to conceal its schemes.”
Universal Music Group said in a statement in response that the “suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue. We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
“Not Like Us,” the wildly popular Lamar single released in May as part of a flurry of dueling tracks by the two artists, includes the lyrics, “Say, Drake, I hear you like ‘em young, You better not ever go to cell block one.” It has gotten more than 900 million plays, according to figures listed on Spotify.
Spotify representatives declined immediate comment, but in a statement on a previous case, the company said it “invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform,” and in broader public statements has said it has gone to great lengths to mitigate the effects of bad actors on streaming numbers and royalties.
The feud between Drake, a 38-year-old Canadian rapper and singer and five-time Grammy winner, and Lamar, a 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner who is set to headline the next Super Bowl halftime, is among the biggest in hip-hop in recent years, with two of the genre’s biggest stars at its center.
The two were occasional collaborators more than a decade ago, but Lamar began taking public jabs at Drake starting in 2013. The fight escalated steeply earlier this year. The move to court, while not yet a lawsuit, still represents a major escalation of the feud and involves some of the biggest business partners of both men.
New York
Lawsuit alleges that young dancers for Shen Yun Performing Arts faced abuse
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A former dancer for Shen Yun Performing Arts sued the nonprofit dance company on Monday, saying it has subjected some children who perform for it to harsh conditions, including long hours for little pay.
The lawsuit brought by Chang Chun-Ko in White Plains federal court sought unspecified damages on behalf of Chang and other alleged victims of Shen Yun, which is based in Dragon Springs in Cuddebackville, New York, along with other entities named as defendants.
It said the group has adopted some of the most abusive practices of the Chinese Communist Party, including subjecting children to public humiliation as discipline, even as it faces persecution by the CCP.
The lawsuit said Shen Yun has made hundreds of millions of dollars by exploiting young dancers it recruits from abroad, forcing them to work grueling hours and scaring them into thinking they’d face harm if they quit.
Shen Yun did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Its website said 85% of its performers were adults. It called touring with Shen Yun a “chance of a lifetime” for aspiring young artists, enabling them to receive $50,000 worth of scholarships to attend schools registered with the New York State Department of Education or accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.
According to the website, Shen Yun, along with Fei Tian Academy of the Arts and Fei Tian College — which were also named as defendants — were founded by followers of the Falun Gong faith.
The lawsuit said Chang joined the Fei Tian Academy of the Arts on a full scholarship after her father died when she was 11 because she believed she could help her family by dancing for Shen Yun.
It said she began performing with Shen Yen in December 2009 and received no pay for the first year despite working up to 18 hours a day preparing for shows, including seven at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan.
After the first year, she was paid $500 a month until she “graduated” from Fei Tian College in 2019, when her salary was raised to $1,000 a month, according to the lawsuit.
She trained from May through November before touring from December to May as a dancer at over 100 shows in the United States and internationally, all while being disallowed from seeing her mother except during a two-week holiday once a year, it said.
The lawsuit said she contracted measles when she was 14 but was not permitted to see a doctor. Instead, the lawsuit said, she was told to meditate to feel better and was required to work while she recovered.
Chang was terminated from Shen Yun in 2020 when she was 24 years old and was returned to Taiwan, where she was diagnosed with clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the lawsuit.
Circuit court agrees with ban on medical marijuana advertising
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Medical marijuana businesses in Mississippi don’t have the right to advertise on billboards or other places because marijuana itself remains illegal under federal law, an appeals court says.
The owner of a medical marijuana dispensary argued that the First Amendment protects the right to advertise because Mississippi law permits the sale of cannabis products to people with debilitating medical conditions. The state enacted its law in 2022.
A three-judge panel of 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected the arguments about advertising. They cited the federal Controlled Substances Act, which since 1970 has prohibited the manufacture, distribution, dispensing and possession of marijuana.
The federal law applies in all states, and Mississippi “faces no constitutional obstacle to restricting commercial speech relating to unlawful transactions,” the judges wrote.
An email seeking comment was sent to the state attorney general’s office Monday.
Clarence Cocroft II operates Tru Source Medical Cannabis in the northern Mississippi city of Olive Branch. He sued the state in 2023 to challenge its ban on medical marijuana advertising on billboards or in print, broadcast or social media or in mass email or text messaging.
“Upholding this ban makes it incredibly difficult for me to find potential customers and to educate people about Mississippi’s medical marijuana program,” Cocroft said in a statement Monday. “I remain committed to continuing this fight so my business can be treated the same as any other legal business in Mississippi.”
Cocroft is represented by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit libertarian law firm. The firm said Monday that it is considering its next steps in the lawsuit, including possibly asking the entire appeals court to reconsider the case or an appeal to the Supreme Court.
“Mississippi cannot on the one hand create an entire marketplace for the sale of medical marijuana, and on the other hand rely on an unenforced federal law to prohibit buyers and sellers from talking about it,” said Ari Bargil, an Institute for Justice attorney.
California
Judge rejects request to sideline volleyball player on grounds she’s transgender
A judge on Monday rejected a request to block a San Jose State women’s volleyball team member from playing in a conference tournament on grounds that she is transgender.
Monday’s ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Kato Crews in Denver will allow the player, who has played all season, to continue competing in the Mountain West Conference women’s championship scheduled for later this week in Las Vegas.
The ruling comes after a lawsuit was filed by nine current players who are suing the Mountain West Conference to challenge the league’s policies for allowing transgender players to participate. The players argued that letting her compete was a safety risk and unfair.
While some media have reported those and other details, neither San Jose State nor the forfeiting teams have confirmed the school has a trans women’s volleyball player. The Associated Press is withholding the player’s name because she has not publicly commented on her gender identity. School officials also have declined an interview request with the player.
Judge Crews referred to the athlete as an “alleged transgender” player in his ruling and noted that no defendant disputed that San Jose State rosters a transgender woman volleyball player.
He said the players who filed the complaint could have sought relief much earlier, noting that the individual universities had acknowledged that not playing their games against San Jose State this season would result in a forfeit in league standings.
He also said injunctions are meant to preserve the status quo. The conference policy regarding forfeiting for refusing to play against a team with a transgender player had been in effect since 2022 and the San Jose State player has been on the roster since 2022 – making that the status quo.
The player competed at the college level three previous seasons, including two for San Jose State, drawing little attention. This season’s awareness of her identity led to an uproar among some players, pundits, parents and politicians in a political campaign year.
The tournament starts Wednesday and continues Friday and Saturday. San Jose State is seeded second. The judge’s order maintains the seedings and pairings for the tournament.
Several teams refused to play against San Jose State during the season, earning losses in the official standings. Boise State and Wyoming each had two forfeits while Utah State and Nevada both had one. Southern Utah, a member of the Western Athletic Conference, was first to cancel against San Jose State this year.
Nevada’s players stated they “refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes,” without providing further details.
Crews served as a magistrate judge in Colorado’s U.S. District Court for more than five years before President Joe Biden appointed him to serve as a federal judge in January of this year.
New York
Drake alleges Universal falsely inflated popularity of Lamar diss track ‘Not Like Us’
Drake alleged in a court filing Monday that Universal Music Group falsely pumped up the popularity on Spotify and other streaming services of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” a song that viciously attacked Drake amid a bitter feud between the two hip-hop superstars.
The petition in a New York court by the rapper’s company Frozen Moments LLC demands the preservation and divulgence of information that might be evidence in a potential lawsuit against UMG, which is the distributor for the record labels of both Drake and Lamar.
In allegations that UMG calls “offensive and untrue,” the filing says the record company “launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves with a song, ‘Not Like Us,’ in order to make that song go viral, including by using ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.” It said the company and Spotify “have a long-standing, symbiotic business relationship” and alleges that UMG offered special licensing rates to Spotify for the song.
The petition also says UMG has fired employees seen as loyal to Drake “in an apparent effort to conceal its schemes.”
Universal Music Group said in a statement in response that the “suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue. We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
“Not Like Us,” the wildly popular Lamar single released in May as part of a flurry of dueling tracks by the two artists, includes the lyrics, “Say, Drake, I hear you like ‘em young, You better not ever go to cell block one.” It has gotten more than 900 million plays, according to figures listed on Spotify.
Spotify representatives declined immediate comment, but in a statement on a previous case, the company said it “invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform,” and in broader public statements has said it has gone to great lengths to mitigate the effects of bad actors on streaming numbers and royalties.
The feud between Drake, a 38-year-old Canadian rapper and singer and five-time Grammy winner, and Lamar, a 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner who is set to headline the next Super Bowl halftime, is among the biggest in hip-hop in recent years, with two of the genre’s biggest stars at its center.
The two were occasional collaborators more than a decade ago, but Lamar began taking public jabs at Drake starting in 2013. The fight escalated steeply earlier this year. The move to court, while not yet a lawsuit, still represents a major escalation of the feud and involves some of the biggest business partners of both men.
New York
Lawsuit alleges that young dancers for Shen Yun Performing Arts faced abuse
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A former dancer for Shen Yun Performing Arts sued the nonprofit dance company on Monday, saying it has subjected some children who perform for it to harsh conditions, including long hours for little pay.
The lawsuit brought by Chang Chun-Ko in White Plains federal court sought unspecified damages on behalf of Chang and other alleged victims of Shen Yun, which is based in Dragon Springs in Cuddebackville, New York, along with other entities named as defendants.
It said the group has adopted some of the most abusive practices of the Chinese Communist Party, including subjecting children to public humiliation as discipline, even as it faces persecution by the CCP.
The lawsuit said Shen Yun has made hundreds of millions of dollars by exploiting young dancers it recruits from abroad, forcing them to work grueling hours and scaring them into thinking they’d face harm if they quit.
Shen Yun did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Its website said 85% of its performers were adults. It called touring with Shen Yun a “chance of a lifetime” for aspiring young artists, enabling them to receive $50,000 worth of scholarships to attend schools registered with the New York State Department of Education or accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.
According to the website, Shen Yun, along with Fei Tian Academy of the Arts and Fei Tian College — which were also named as defendants — were founded by followers of the Falun Gong faith.
The lawsuit said Chang joined the Fei Tian Academy of the Arts on a full scholarship after her father died when she was 11 because she believed she could help her family by dancing for Shen Yun.
It said she began performing with Shen Yen in December 2009 and received no pay for the first year despite working up to 18 hours a day preparing for shows, including seven at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan.
After the first year, she was paid $500 a month until she “graduated” from Fei Tian College in 2019, when her salary was raised to $1,000 a month, according to the lawsuit.
She trained from May through November before touring from December to May as a dancer at over 100 shows in the United States and internationally, all while being disallowed from seeing her mother except during a two-week holiday once a year, it said.
The lawsuit said she contracted measles when she was 14 but was not permitted to see a doctor. Instead, the lawsuit said, she was told to meditate to feel better and was required to work while she recovered.
Chang was terminated from Shen Yun in 2020 when she was 24 years old and was returned to Taiwan, where she was diagnosed with clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the lawsuit.
