New York is on track to ban cashless businesses after the city council voted to join San Francisco and Philadelphia in requiring brick-and-mortar stores to accept cash.
Under the law, food and retail establishments would have to accept American bills and coins or face a fine. Mayor Bill De Blasio is expected to sign the bill, his office told CNN.
“When you open a dollar bill, it reads ‘This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private,’” said Councilman Ritchie Torres, the sponsor of the bill. “Cash ought to command universal acceptance.”
In a 24–10 vote, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would effectively end marijuana prohibition on Wednesday. The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act of 2019, or H.R. 3884, was introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and currently has 55 co-sponsors. This is the first time that a congressional committee has approved a bill to make cannabis legal. The MORE Act would federally decriminalize cannabis by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act, and would require the expungement of past federal cannabis convictions.
The bill would also establish a Cannabis Justice Office to administer a program to reinvest resources in the communities that have been most detrimentally impacted by prohibition, funded by a 5% tax on state-legal cannabis commerce.
Moreover, it will allow the Small Business Administration to provide loans and grants to cannabis-related businesses and support state and local equity licensing programs, and would permit doctors within the Veterans Affairs system to recommend medical cannabis to patients in accordance with applicable state laws.
The Australia wildfires are a countrywide catastrophe, mainly caused by drought and extreme heat, but dozens of people are directly to blame for some of the problem, officials say.
Police have charged at least 24 people for intentionally starting bushfires in the state of New South Wales, according to a statement the New South Wales Police released Monday.
NSW Police have taken legal action against 183 people, 40 of whom are juveniles, for fire-related offenses since November 8, the statement said. The legal actions range from cautions to criminal charges.
Guardian of the Amazon! — Come hear the recent ideaXme (http://radioideaxme.com/) episode where we are joined by Ms. Nemonte Nenquimo, President of the Waorani Pastaza Organization, CONCONAWEP (Coordinating Council of the Waorani Nationality of Ecuador), following their recent landmark legal victory against the Ecuadorian government, leading to 500,000 acres of Amazon rainforest protected from oil drilling and timber companies (English voice over — Spanish audio link to be posted soon) — #Ideaxme #Amazon #Rainforest #Jungle #Ecuador #Waorani #Huaorani #Amerindian #Environment #Trees #Herbal #EthnoMedicine #Sustainability #Ayahuasca #ClimateChange #GretaThunberg #Health #Wellness #Longevity #Aging #IraPastor #Bioquark #Regenerage
Ira Pastor, ideaXme exponential health ambassador, interviews Ms. Nemonte Nenquimo, President of the Waorani Pastaza Organization (CONCONAWEP — Coordinating Council of the Waorani Nationality of Ecuador). This is an English language voice over of Ms Nenquimo’s audio interview.
For the moment, massive job losses from automation and artificial intelligence are a largely theoretical worry. But tax economists and lawyers are thinking through the economic circumstances in which robot taxes might make sense and the tricky legal decisions and definitions needed to implement them.
A debate is heating up over whether businesses should pay up when they replace human workers with machines.
The European patent authorities have rejected an attempt to register an AI as an official inventor.
The possibility’s been a subject of debate for some time, and last summer a group of legal experts decided to force the issue. The group, led by Professor Ryan Abbott of the University of Surrey, submitted designs developed by an AI to the authorities in the US, UK and Europe, and later Germany, Israel, Taiwan and China.
The AI concerned, named Dabus, was created by Stephen Thaler, and is described as a connectionist artificial intelligence.
What are new practice areas that solo, small, and medium firms should prepare for in their 5 to 10-year plans for the future?
In the search for the next wave of growth, future-focused law firms are learning to embrace the futurist perspective as they evaluate the opportunities arising from cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). These technologies will enable new organizational structures, services, and business models in the business horizon. Here are three new practice areas that firms might want to prepare for in the coming few years.
1. Evidence and liability issues from autonomous machine “testimony”
A growing array of “smart” objects are enveloping our homes, workplaces, and communities and the volume of legally admissible data from these devices is likely grow at an exponential rate over the next decade. Firms need to start building expertise around the admissibility and verifiability of the data collected. For example, the design trend for voice-activated technology is driving a rash of seemingly sentient technology in the form of digital assistants, smart appliances, and personal medical and wearable devices. Law firms may be asked to represent clients in cases dealing with evidence, witnesses, accidents, or contracts hinging on theoretically immutable digital proof such as time-stamped video and audio recordings. Attorneys may seek to specialize in addressing the data issues related to domains such as digital twins and personas, surveillance capitalism (companies exploiting customer data for commercial gain with and without full approval), and digital privacy rights.
But no, privacy isn’t dead. A path to reclaiming it — fuzzy and almost too late — is starting to emerge. We just have to be angry enough to demand it.
Trying to get straight answers has been, literally, a full-time job. I’ve digested the legal word salad of privacy policies, interrogated a hundred companies and even hacked into a car dashboard to grab my data back. There are lots of stories about online threats, but it feels different watching your personal information streaming out of devices you take for granted. This year I learned there is no such thing as “incognito.” Just stepping out for an errand, I discovered, lets my car record where I shop, what I listen to and even how much I weigh.
Steven L. Kwast is a retired Air Force general and former commander of the Air Education and Training Command at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph. A graduate of the United States Air Force Academy with a degree in astronautical engineering, he holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is a past president of the Air Force’s Air University in Montgomery, Alabama, and a former fighter pilot with extensive combat and command experience. He is the author of the study, “Fast Space: Leveraging Ultra Low-Cost Space Access for 21st Century Challenges.”
There may soon be serious financial and legal ramifications to the proliferation of deepfake technology. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that a UK energy company’s chief executive was tricked into wiring €200,000 to a Hungarian supplier because he believed his boss was instructing him to do so. Instead, it was a thief using deepfake tech.
