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Concord, NH (AP) -Two students who query the ban on transgender athletes in New Hampshire in girls -sports teams can even fight against President Donald Trump's executive order against president “to keep men out of women's sports” after a Judge had approved her application on Wednesday.

It is believed that the constitutionality of the constitutionality signed by Trump last week will probably be contested in court, in response to the GLBTQ lawyers and defenders based in Boston, also referred to as Glad Law, considered one of the groups that represent the young people.

“The systematic targeting of transgender people in American institutions is to judge young people in schools who refuse to support them in their most endangered years,” said Chris Erchull, a completely satisfied lawyer.

Last autumn, a federal judge in New Hampshire decided that the 2 students can check out girls' sports teams and play within the teenager while the teenagers challenge the state ban.

The families of Parker Tirrell (15) and Iris Turmelle (14) sued in August to overthrow fairness within the Women's Sports Act that former Republican governor Chris Sununu was signed within the law in July.

Tirrell is a tenth grade student who plays in her highschool football team, and Turmelle is a student of the ninth grade who desires to try a tennis in spring.

“I love playing football and we had a great season last autumn,” said Tirrell in a explanation. “I just want to go to school like other children and keep playing the game I love.”

Trump's command prior to now week gives federal authorities a big selection to be certain that corporations that receive federal financing in relation to titles IX in accordance with the view of the Trump government, interpreted “sex” as a gender, interpreted as gender that somebody was assigned at birth.

GLAD and ACLU from New Hampshire asked the judge for permission, Trump, the US Ministry of Justice, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, the US Ministry of Education and the incumbent secretary Denise Carter as accused.

An e -mail seek for a comment was sent to the press office of the White House.

In a brief order, the US district judge Landya McCafferty said that she was “a good reason” for the lawyers to alter the lawsuit.

The lawyers say that Trump's executive order along with parts of an executive regulation on January 20 prohibits the federal profit used to “promote gender -specific ideology”, divide the teenagers and all transgender girls the discrimination against the identical protective guarantees of the Federation and their rights under title IX.

The lawyers also say that the manager regulations illegally perform the colleges of the teenagers of the specter of federal financing because they will do sports.

technology

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court's decision could come Friday within the case of whether TikTok ought to be shut down in a couple of days under a federal law designed to force its sale by the Chinese company that owns the social media platform utilized by 170 have to be tens of millions of individuals within the USA

The justices are weighing a free speech challenge to the law, which takes effect Sunday, against the national security concerns that led to its passage with broad bipartisan support last yr. A lawyer for TikTok and ByteDance, its Chinese owner, told the court last week that TikTok will “disappear” on Sunday unless judges grant it a short lived reprieve or strike down the law.

During court hearings, most judges appeared prone to follow the law.

In addition to the continuing court case, a possible lifeline for TikTok has emerged. President-elect Donald Trump, who once favored banning the app, is exploring ways to “preserve” TikTok, his recent national security adviser, Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, said in a television interview on Wednesday.

It's not clear what authority Trump has to intervene, although he could order the Justice Department to not implement the law, threatening sanctions against the tech corporations that make available and host the app.

The Supreme Court announced Thursday that justices will make a minimum of one decision on Friday, sticking to its habit of not saying which one. But it also deviated from standard practice in some ways, increasing expectations that it would be the TikTok case that might be passed on.

Except as its term nears the top of June, the court almost at all times makes its decisions on days when justices are scheduled to take a seat. The next scheduled court day is Tuesday.

And apart from the coronavirus pandemic, when the court was closed, the justices almost at all times read summaries of their opinions within the courtroom. They won't be there on Friday.

All opinions might be posted on the court's website starting shortly after 10 a.m. EST on Friday.

Three Bay Area high schools received grants from the National Parent-Teacher Association, funded by the social media platform TikTok, to assist teens and their families discuss digital safety.

The PTA organizations on the three schools — American High School in Fremont, Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco and the Oakland School for the Arts — each received $3,000 to determine a program called “Create with Kindness.” This would allow students and their parents or guardians to return together to speak about their experiences on social media and what sort of support they need.

TikTok has also put together a comprehensive toolkit of the platform's security tools and resources. The company's future within the United States is uncertain; A bill signed in April 2024 would ban the social media service by January 19 unless it separates from its China-based parent company. However, the Supreme Court agreed to listen to arguments on its constitutionality on Friday.

“This digital world is not going away, so we need to be proactive about how we deal with it,” said Yvonne Johnson, president of the National PTA. “Through this partnership with TikTok, we are working with them to educate families, bring them together, have open conversations, listen to teens, listen to parents and invent together.”

The grants may be utilized by PTA organizations to prepare events related to this system, equivalent to providing translation services, child care or meals. TikTok provided a complete of $300,000 for the grants, which were distributed to 100 local and regional PTAs in high schools across the country.

Ronald Taylor, head of Youth Safety Outreach and Partnerships at TikTok, said this system goals to assist bridge the knowledge gap between teenagers and their parents about social media. He said parents desired to know what safeguards were in place to guard their children and the way they may use them. On the opposite hand, Taylor said he has heard teens say they need more transparency about what deems certain content “volatile” in comparison with others.

Taylor said one in all the safety features they wish to promote is the “Family Pairing” feature, which allows an adult to pair their TikTok account with their child's account to observe their use of the app, including their searches . Taylor highlighted TikTok's efforts to advertise secure use of its platform, equivalent to through standard safety features that direct people looking for potentially harmful content to links to assist centers to discourage teens from viewing inappropriate content.

When asked if there are concerns about censorship around race, gender and sexuality on the platform resulting from parental oversight features, Taylor said TikTok is designed to “really facilitate that conversation between teens and adults in their lives” and The program focuses on modeling these conversations and providing support.

“Working with the National PTA and listening to the experiences of teens and parents is critical to helping build safe platforms,” Taylor said. “That’s really the biggest thing that I think is the most important takeaway from our work; It’s really about putting youth at the center as experts in their own experiences.”

Johnson said this system is a proactive effort to provide families the resources to have these conversations about digital safety and practice positive interactions online. She said the rules taught in these workshops could help parents ensure their children are usually not bullied online and are usually not exposed to content that shouldn’t be good for them. And while TikTok is the main focus of those events, Johnson said this recommendation may be applied across all social media platforms.

“We believe that when an individual family allows their teens to access an app or a platform like TikTok, it is so important that everyone in the household knows how to navigate this platform safely,” Johnson said.

Nick Cawthon, PTA president at Oakland School for the Arts, said they hope to attain a balanced perspective on social media, especially given the negative impact it might probably have on teenage girls. He said he hoped this system would also display how social media platforms may be used for good and illustrate the potential pitfalls that arise from interacting with these platforms.

Mugdha Ghole, PTA president at American High School, said her organization plans to carry a “Create with Kindness” event during lunchtime sometime in February or March. She said they plan to ask psychologists to their event and offer refreshments to encourage students and their families to attend.

Valerie Vitullo, PTA president at Abraham Lincoln High School, said she connects along with her children by sharing videos on TikTok. And while she said her children have never needed to take care of greater than an inappropriate direct message that was easily blocked and ignored, she said she's looking forward to this system to see how other parents interact with their children and social media interact.

“If parents know how these programs work, we will be better prepared,” Vitullo said.

All three PTA presidents said they hope to host their “Create with Kindness” events by March, but each TikTok creators and users have concerns a few possible ban. President-elect Donald Trump has signaled his opposition to the measure signed by President Joe Biden.

Vitullo said she was concerned that banning TikTok can be a violation of free speech.

“We need access to information. “We see things on TikTok and Instagram that we don’t see in mainstream media,” Vitullo said. “With a TikTok ban, we will be much more disconnected from each other and we will not be able to consciously share ideas and educate each other about what is happening in anything, be it political, social, our health, our lives and mental well-being. “

Still, Vitullo said her PTA chapter is still planning the “Create with Kindness” event.

“I hope it will be a success. I hope the parents and students we present this to get a lot out of it,” she said. “It’s important to have that kind of connection with your children.”

Originally published: January 9, 2025 at 6:15 am PST

By BERNARD CONDON

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump family business released a voluntary ethics agreement Friday that permits it to do business with private foreign firms, a move that might help outside actors gain influence with the brand new administration.

The Trump company also announced that starting in his first term, it could commit to several protections to forestall its private financial interests from influencing politics. This also includes commissioning an external ethics consultant to review transactions.

“The Trump Organization is committed to not only meeting but exceeding its legal and ethical obligations during my father's presidency,” said Executive Vice President Eric Trump.

The Trump Organization recently Deals accomplished for hotels and golf resorts in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, raising concerns amongst government ethics experts that President-elect Trump's personal financial interests could influence policy toward those countries.

The family-owned company has expressed interest in doing business in Israel and elsewhere and has financial interests in two firms with listed shares that might get a lift from foreign investors. These include Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of the social media platform Truth Social, and a brand new cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial.

“The level of corruption will be orders of magnitude greater than what we saw in the first Trump administration,” said Kathleen Clark, a government ethics lawyer at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. People attempting to win Trump's favor now have a straightforward approach to achieve this, she said, by “taking advantage of massive inflows of money through 'investments' in Trump's crypto and real estate ventures.”

The Trump Organization said it’s hiring William A. Burck, a managing partner at Quinn Emanuel LLP, to review deals that might conflict with public policy.

Like the last ethics agreement, the five-page white paper also bans Trump from “day-to-day” decision-making on the Trump Organization, limits the financial information concerning the company shared with him, and requires the corporate to donate to the U.S. Treasury to learn from foreign government spending on its properties.

Under U.S. law, federal government officials will not be allowed to carry financial interests in firms that might influence their opinions on the general public policies they assist shape and are sometimes forced to sell their shares. US presidents are exempt from the Watergate ethics ban, but all presidents have voluntarily agreed to follow the law, excluding Trump.

The first billionaire president would have needed to sell greater than a dozen golf courses around the globe, office and residential towers in Las Vegas, Chicago and New York, and several other resorts Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

In his first term, Trump promised to avoid even the looks of conflicts of interest early in his presidency, but in the long run he as a substitute openly courted business dealings along with his property. He once tried to host a G-7 meeting of world leaders at his golf resort in Doral, Florida. He needed to Give up the concept after outcry from critics.

Be Trump Hotel in Washington DC was also a significant source of concern for ethics watchdogs in his first term. The Trump International Hotel, across the road from the White House, quickly became a gathering place for domestic and foreign lobbyists in addition to foreign diplomats.

Several groups accused Trump of violating the Constitution's “ban on remuneration” for gifts and payments to the president, particularly referring to the hotel. The hotel has since been sold and the Supreme Court declined to rule on a emoluments violation after Trump left office, saying the matter was moot.

Now the compensation clause could once more pose legal problems for Trump given his company's sprawling operations, including two recent publicly traded firms.

His financial stake in one in every of them, Trump Media, is value billions of dollars.

Critics fear that individuals in search of to curry favor with the president, including foreign officials, could buy shares in the corporate, driving up the value further together with its paper assets.

Another recent Trump family enterprise, World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency trading platform, can be controversial.

In his first term, Trump said he was “Not a fan” of cryptocurrency and tweeted in 2019: “Unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trafficking and other illegal activities.”

He has since reversed that position, promising to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet.” a Bitcoin conference in Nashville this yr. He has attracted two cryptocurrency champions to his government: Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has warned that cryptocurrencies are volatile assets with few safeguards to guard investors from manipulation and fraud and has cracked down on some firms. It just isn’t clear whether the agency's strict oversight of the industry will proceed under the brand new administration. Trump's nominee to move the SEC, Paul Atkins, is a cryptocurrency supporter.

Eric Trump, the son most involved in running the Trump Organization, has expressed disappointment that the corporate had develop into a lightning rod for critics of conflicts of interest during his father's first term as president, despite the corporate's certain determinations Businesses had voluntarily banned for ethical reasons. He has said he wants a freer hand in running the corporate this time.

In a Vietnam deal in October, the Trump Organization partnered with a Vietnamese developer with ties to the ruling Communist Party on a $1.5 billion luxury golf resort, raising questions on whether it could influence U.S. policy .

The deal comes at a very sensitive time for Vietnam, with Trump promising to extend tariffs on many countries. Vietnam has a big U.S. trade surplus, making it an appropriate goal for Trump's threat to punish countries he says engage in unfair trade practices.

The Trump Organization also has buildings bearing the Trump name in India, Turkey and several other other countries. The company owns two golf courses in Scotland and one in Ireland and has plans for resorts in other countries, including Oman and Indonesia, that are in various stages of development.

Originally published: January 10, 2025 at 2:15 pm PST

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The law that could ban TikTok comes before the Supreme Court on Friday, with the justices keeping the app's fate largely of their hands.

The popular social media platform says the law violates the First Amendment and ought to be repealed.

TikTok's parent company relies in Chinaand the US government says meaning it’s a potential threat to national security. Chinese authorities could force them at hand over sensitive data concerning the large variety of Americans who use it or influence the distribution of data on the platform, they are saying.

An appeals court has upheld the law banning TikTok unless it’s sold.

The law is about to take effect on January 19, a day before the beginning of the brand new term of President-elect Donald Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on the platform. The Republican says he desires to “save TikTok.”

Here are some vital things to know concerning the case:

Is TikTok banned?

Not now, however the short video sharing app may very well be shut down in lower than two weeks if the Supreme Court upholds the law.

Congress passed the measure with bipartisan support, and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed it into law in April.

TikTok's lawyers have challenged the law in court, together with users and content creators who say a ban would result in this turn their livelihoods the other way up. According to TikTok, the national security concerns are based on inaccurate and hypothetical information.

But a unanimity Court of Appeals The law consists of judges appointed by each Republican and Democratic presidents.

When will the Supreme Court resolve?

The judges will make a call quickly after discussions on Friday Movement in response to judicial standards.

The conservative-majority court could drop hints about its stance during oral arguments.

TikTok's lawyers urged judges to intervene before the law takes effect, saying even a month-long shutdown would cause the app to lose a couple of third of its each day American users and significant promoting revenue.

The court could quickly block the law from taking effect before issuing a final ruling if not less than five of the nine justices find it unconstitutional.

What did Trump say about that?

The law is scheduled to take effect on January 19, someday before Trump takes office as president.

He took the weird step Filing Court Documents He is asking the Supreme Court to place the law on hold so he can negotiate a deal to sell TikTok after he takes office. His position was the newest example of his interference in national affairs before taking office. It was also a change from his last term as president, when he desired to ban it.

Parent company ByteDance had previously said it had no plans to sell. Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, last month.

Who else weighs in?

Free speech advocacy groups comparable to the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have asked the court to dam the law, saying the federal government has failed to supply credible evidence of harm and that a ban would cause “extraordinary disruption” within the lives of Americans.

On the opposite hand, Senator Mitch McConnell, the previous Republican Senate leader, and a gaggle of twenty-two states have filed briefs in support, arguing that the law protects free speech by protecting Americans' data and stopping possible manipulation of Information on the platform prevented by Chinese authorities.

Originally published: January 10, 2025 at 4:18am PST

policy

President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to suspend the entry into force of the potential TikTok ban until his administration can pursue a “political solution” to the issue.

The request got here as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs with the court wherein the corporate argued that the court should strike down a law that would ban the platform by January 19, while the administration emphasized its position that the law a national security risk is needed for abolition.

“President Trump takes no position on the merits of this dispute. Instead, “he respectfully requests that the Court consider suspending the statute’s January 19, 2025 divestiture deadline while it considers the merits of this case,” said Trump’s amicus transient, which isn’t a celebration to the case Case supported and authored by D. John Sauer, Trump's pick for attorney general.

The argument presented to the court is the most recent example of Trump meddling in national issues before taking office. The Republican president-elect has already begun negotiating with other countries over his plans to impose tariffs, and earlier this month he intervened in a plan to fund the federal government, calling for the rejection of a bipartisan plan and sending Republicans back to the negotiating table.

As he assembles his government, he has held meetings with foreign leaders and business representatives at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, including a gathering last week with TikTok CEO Shou Chew.

Trump has modified his stance on the favored app after attempting to ban it on national security grounds during his first term. He joined TikTok during his 2024 presidential campaign, and his team used it to have interaction with younger voters, particularly male voters, by distributing content that was often macho and aimed toward going viral.

He said earlier this 12 months that he still believes TikTok poses national security risks but that he opposes a ban.

Friday's filings come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 10 on whether the law requiring TikTok to separate from its China-based parent company or face a ban unlawfully restricts speech and subsequently violates the previous Constitutional amendment violates. The law was signed by President Joe Biden in April after passing Congress with broad bipartisan support. TikTok and ByteDance then filed a lawsuit.

Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the law, prompting TikTok to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

Trump's transient said he opposes a ban on TikTok at this juncture and “seeks the opportunity to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”

In their letter to the Supreme Court on Friday, lawyers for TikTok and its parent company ByteDance argued that the federal appeals court erred in its decision and based its decision on “alleged 'risks' of China pressuring the U.S. platform.” “TikTok could exercise control over TikTok’s US platform.” foreign subsidiaries.

The Biden administration has argued in court that TikTok poses a national security risk due to its ties to China. Officials say Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to release details about TikTok's U.S. customers or use the platform to spread or suppress information.

But the federal government “acknowledges that it has no evidence that China has ever made such an attempt,” TikTok’s legal filings say, adding that the U.S. fears are based on future risks.

In its filing Friday, the Biden administration said TikTok's corporate structure creates risks because TikTok is “integrated with ByteDance and relies on its proprietary engine developed and maintained in China.”

The Supreme Court agreed to a hearing Wednesday of arguments that a law that may effectively ban TikTok if its parent company doesn't sell the favored social media app violates free speech protections within the U.S. Constitution.

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments within the case for January 10. That's nine days before the law targeting the app, which is utilized by an estimated 170 million Americans, is about to take effect.

The law would require TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell or foreclose on the app Google, Appleand other platforms to stop supporting the app within the US.

Congress passed the law, the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, amid concerns that Chinese ownership of TikTok posed a national security risk.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the law on December 6, ruling that the DOJ had presented “compelling evidence that” the divestment law was “narrowly tailored to protect national security.”

The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will hear challenges to the law filed jointly by TikTok and ByteDance, in addition to by a bunch TikTok user.

These users include a rancher who produces short videos about agricultural topics, a girl who creates videos about parenting and mental health, and one other woman who advocates for survivors of sexual assault.

TikTok spokesman Michael Hughes said: “We are pleased with today’s order from the Supreme Court. We believe the court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so that the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their right to free speech.”

The company says that if the app were banned, small U.S. businesses that use TikTok for marketing would suffer greater than $1 billion in lost revenue within the month following the ban, in addition to individuals who create videos using the app , would lose nearly $300 million in revenue.

The Supreme Court's announcement on Wednesday that it’s going to hear TikTok's appeal got here two days after the corporate filed a request for an injunction against the law that takes effect next month.

In that filing, TikTok had said, “Congress's unprecedented attempt to single out applicants and ban them from operating one of the most prominent speech platforms in this country raises serious constitutional issues that this Court is unlikely to allow.”

The Supreme Court's order allowing an appeal hearing required lawyers for TikTok and ByteDance to submit briefs to app users and the Justice Department discussing whether the law applied to TikTok “violates the First Amendment.” Constitution violates.

However, the court didn’t issue an interim injunction that may prevent the law from coming into force and said it postponed consideration of this application “until the hearing” on January 10.

The court could rule on the injunction before the law takes effect on Jan. 19, a day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, the identical day the corporate asked the Supreme Court to just accept its case.

Earlier within the day, Trump told reporters: “We're going to take a look at TikTok” when asked in regards to the possible ban.

“You know, I have a heart for TikTok,” Trump said, suggesting the app boosted young voters’ support for him within the November election.

Jeff Yass, one in every of Trump's top supporters, is co-founder and CEO of Susquehanna International Group, a significant investor in ByteDance.

A lawyer for Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican caucus leader, said in an announcement submission On Wednesday, the Supreme Court rejected TikTok's request for an injunction against the law.

“TikTok clearly hopes that the 'new Trump administration' will be more sympathetic to their plight than 'President Joe Biden's administration,'” the filing said.

“In other words, delay is the point” of the injunction, argued McConnell’s attorney, Michael Fragoso.

Fragoso said TikTok's “First Amendment arguments are baseless and without merit.”

“While the forced divestiture could cause them irreparable harm, any delay caused by an injunction would be contrary to the public interest,” Fragoso wrote.

“This is a common litigation at the end of a government, in which a plaintiff hopes the next government will grant a stay of execution,” the attorney wrote. “This court should no more tolerate it coming from foreign adversaries than from hardened criminals.”

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia's Senate began considering a ban on social media for youngsters under 16 on Thursday after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly supported the age restriction.

The world's first bill to ban platforms resembling TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, that is the last session of Parliament for the yr and possibly the last before the elections due in a number of months.

Major party support for the ban is sort of a guarantee that the law will go into effect. However, many child welfare and mental health advocates are concerned about unintended consequences.

Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie complained in regards to the limited time the federal government gave the Senate to debate the age restriction, which she described as “insufficient”.

“I believed that might be idea. Numerous people on the market thought it was idea until we checked out the main points and, let's face it, there have been no details,” Lambie told the Senate.

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the bill on Wednesday by a vote of 102-13.

Once the law comes into effect, platforms would have a yr to think about how you can implement the ban before penalties are imposed.

The platforms complained that the law was unworkable and called on the Senate to delay the vote until a minimum of June next yr, when a government-commissioned evaluation of retirement security technologies would deliver its report on how young children could possibly be excluded .

Criticisms include that the laws was pushed through Parliament without adequate scrutiny, is ineffective, poses a risk to the privacy of all users and undermines parental authority to make decisions for his or her children.

Opponents of the bill also argue that the ban would isolate children, deprive them of the positive features of social media, drive them to the dark web, deter children too young for social media to report harm, and reduce incentives for platforms to enhance online security.

Health

BOSTON (AP) — A handful of Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to persuade their colleagues to support a proposal that may make the state the primary to enact a ban geared toward curbing the usage of tobacco products over time.

Other locations have considered similar “generational tobacco bans,” which might phase out the usage of tobacco products based not only on an individual's age but in addition the 12 months of birth.

A law signed in Massachusetts in 2018 raised the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products – including cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes – to 21. Massachusetts has also banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products to cut back young people's interest in nicotine.

The recent proposal, which lawmakers plan to file next 12 months, would expand efforts to curb smoking by phasing out all sales of nicotine and tobacco products. If the bill passes, young individuals who will not be sufficiently old to legally purchase nicotine and tobacco would never find a way to legally purchase them in Massachusetts, eliminating the creation of latest users.

It wouldn’t apply to marijuana and the cutoff date could be adjusted upon passage to be sure that it doesn’t affect all individuals who’re 21 years of age or older at the moment.

First city to introduce a generational smoking ban

Brookline, a city of about 63,000 people near Boston, became the primary municipality within the country to enact such a ban in 2020. Instead of raising the age for purchasing cigarettes, the statute prohibits the sale of tobacco to individuals born on or after January 1, 2000. The regulation took effect in 2021.

This would mean that in some unspecified time in the future nobody could be allowed to purchase tobacco products in the town. The measure was challenged, however the state's highest court agreed earlier this 12 months and upheld the ban.

Other cities and towns in Massachusetts have already approved similar tobacco bans, including Malden, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield and Winchester.

Unclear support levels

Democratic Sen. Jason Lewis, one among the sponsors of the statewide proposal, said the bill would “save countless lives and create a healthier world for the next generation.”

“We all know the devastating health effects of nicotine and tobacco products, particularly on our youth,” he said.

Nicotine and tobacco products are addictive and might increase the danger of lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and other illnesses.

Almost 9 out of 10 adults According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, students who smoke cigarettes day by day first tried smoking at age 18. In 2024, about two in five students who had ever used a tobacco product were currently using it.

Peter Brennan, executive director of the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, said the proposal would undercut small mom-and-pop stores that depend on cigarettes for a good portion of their sales.

Additionally, stores near neighboring states that allow the sale of cigarettes to all adults could be at a competitive drawback.

“That’s a terrible idea,” he said. “You’re basically just taking away adults’ right to buy a legal, age-restricted product.”

It is probably going unconstitutional to deprive some adults of certain rights and never others, he said, adding that other prohibition efforts haven’t worked, equivalent to previous bans on alcohol, marijuana and gambling.

It's unclear how much support the proposal has within the Legislature.

Massachusetts has taken other steps to curb smoking in recent many years, including increasing cigarette taxes. These taxes would likely be reduced and eventually eliminated through a phased nationwide smoking ban.

A discount in cigarette tax revenue could be greater than offset by lower health care costs and other savings, Lewis said.

According to the state Department of Health, 10.4% of adults in Massachusetts reported smoking cigarettes in 2022.

Other places are weighing similar bans

Some California lawmakers have pushed to ban all tobacco sales and filed a bill last 12 months that may make it illegal to sell cigarettes and other products to people born after Jan. 1, 2007.

In 2022, New Zealand became the primary country to pass a law that may impose a lifetime ban on young people from buying cigarettes by mandating that tobacco should never be sold to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009. The law was later struck down.

In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proposed raising the legal age to purchase cigarettes in England by one 12 months annually until it’s eventually illegal for your complete population. The proposal failed to realize approval earlier this 12 months.