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The Supreme Court struck down a Hawaii law requiring people to get permission to carry guns into stores and hotels on Thursday, in its latest opinion backing Second Amendment rights.

The high court's 6-3 decision means people can carry guns onto privately owned property like shopping malls and gas stations, unless the owners specifically say guns are banned at their establishments. It comes shortly after the court found that marijuana users can't be completely banned from owning firearms.

It's a win for President Donald Trump's Republican administration, which argued the law violates the Second Amendment. The measure was sometimes referred to as a "vampire rule" because it required people with guns get permission to enter, like vampire lore says bloodsuckers need an invitation to enter a home.

Hawaii argued that the 2023 measure ensured private owners could decide whether they wanted firearms on their property. The state passed the law as thousands more people got legal permission to carry guns in the wake of a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that found the Second Amendment gives most people the right to have guns in public.

About four other states have enacted similar laws, though presumptive restrictions for guns on private property open to the public have also been blocked elsewhere.

Hawaii also restricts guns in places like parks, beaches and restaurants that serve alcohol, but those rules weren't before the court. They are being challenged in lower courts, however.

The suit before the Supreme Court was filed by a gun rights group, the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, and three people from Maui. A judge originally blocked the measure, but an appeals court allowed it to be enforced. Trump's Republican administration backed the Supreme Court appeal.

The Second Amendment Foundation applauded the ruling. "This law was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to disarm peaceable citizens, and we're grateful the Supreme Court saw through the ruse," said Alan Gottlieb, its founder and executive vice president.

The gun-control group Everytown Law called the decision disappointing but pointed out that business owners can still post signs forbidding firearms on their properties. "The Supreme Court may have changed the default rule, but it cannot take away a private property owner's authority over their own land," said Janet Carter, managing director of Second Amendment Litigation.

The two Second Amendment decisions this term are the latest in a series of gun cases that have come before the Supreme Court in the wake of its 2022 ruling that led to a flood of challenges to firearm restrictions around the country. The justices have since struck down a ban on bump stocks, gun accessories that enable rapid firing, but upheld a federal gun law intended to protect domestic violence victims as well as strict regulations on firearms known as ghost guns, which are nearly impossible to trace.



Austrian-Canadian billionaire and automotive business founder Frank Stronach was found guilty Friday of sexual assault and indecent assault of two women decades ago.

Stronach, who is 93, had been accused of alleged incidents involving seven complainants and pleaded not guilty to 12 charges.

Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy, who is overseeing the case, said the two women who brought those allegations were credible and careful witnesses and she believed their accounts of what happened all those years ago.

Outside court, Stronach's lawyer said they would take time to thoroughly review the decision but were satisfied he had been found not guilty on most of the charges.

"Mr. Stronach has been found guilty on the least serious offenses for two complainants who were not exposed in any way, he was not exposed … no one had their clothes off," Leora Shemesh said.

Despite the two findings of guilt, Shemesh said Stronach "really is a national treasure and should be treated as such, in my respectful opinion."

Stronach became one of Canada's wealthiest people by creating auto parts giant Magna in his garage in 1957. He also founded The Stronach Group, a company that specializes in horse racing.

Stronach resigned as Magna's chairman in 2011 and founded his own political party in his native Austria the following year.

His trial started in February, and by the time arguments wrapped up in April, prosecutors had withdrawn one charge and agreed Stronach should be found not guilty on four more. He was found guilty of two of the remaining charges Friday. The allegations spanned from the late 1970s to the 1990s.

A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for September.

Stronach faces a separate trial on similar charges in Newmarket, Ontario, which is set to take place in May.



Linda Sun, a former aide to New York governors, was accused of selling her influence to the Chinese government. Sun pleaded not guilty to charges that she failed to register as an agent of a foreign government, conspired with her husband to launder money and helped people commit visa fraud to enter the U.S. illegally. A December trial ended in a mistrial when a federal jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Charles Burnham, Pauken's defense lawyer, said in a statement that, by his guilty plea, Pauken "has accepted responsibility for working as an agent of the People's Republic of China without first completing certain required U.S. Government forms."

Burnham said Pauken had hoped his work would "promote peaceful relations and advance the cause of religious freedom in China."

Pauken was arrested in February after arriving in Washington from China. He met with someone who had sought a job in the Trump administration to provide that person with a SIM card and offer $10,000 to write reports to be read by Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to the affidavit.

He appeared to see himself as a middleman between Chinese agents and "human resources" who could provide classified information to Beijing, according to the affidavit. His lawyer didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Since at least 2019, Pauken had been working with Chinese agents, including "Cathy," who he believed to be working for China's security apparatus. Between 2019 and 2025, Pauken received $100,000 for the reports he provided to Cathy, in addition to paid trips to the U.S., the affidavit says. Cathy told him the reports were to be read by Xi.

Pauken was stopped by Customs and Border Protection agents when he returned to the U.S. in January 2025. In interviews with CBP and FBI agents, Pauken said he was meeting a person who was seeking a job in the Trump administration and would provide that person with a Samsung phone and a laptop computer. He said he was "80% sure" that person, if hired by the new administration, would provide classified information to Beijing, according to the affidavit.

U.S. agents let Pauken go and instructed him to carry on with his plans. Pauken's contact said in an interview that Pauken asked for open-source information but also indicated his clients in China frequently asked for more secretive information. That person indicated having no intention of working with Pauken, the affidavit said.



The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with President Donald Trump's administration in a lawsuit over speech restrictions for immigration judges that touched on the rights of federal workers.

The justices overturned a lower-court ruling that had allowed the case to proceed and raised questions about whether a complaint system for federal employees is still working as intended after the Republican president fired some of its top officials.

Immigration judges are federal employees, unlike those in federal courtrooms. They want to sue over a policy restricting their public speeches that started in Trump's first term in office and continued under President Joe Biden's Democratic administration. The judges argue it is a free speech issue that belongs in federal court.

The Trump administration disagreed, saying the judges must instead take their dispute to the complaint system for federal employees overseen by the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The court ruled on procedural grounds, but Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, wrote to rebuke the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for responding to "political controversies of the day."

Tuesday's decision comes as the court weighs another lawsuit about Trump's power to fire heads of independent agencies. The outcome is also expected to affect firing power over Merit Systems Protection Board members.

The judges first sued in 2020, and the Supreme Court previously temporarily sided with them on an emergency basis in December 2025. A union said in a statement that the judges were disappointed by the decision, but the case is "far from over."

"Justice cannot endure when judges are intimidated into silence, nor can a nation remain free when the rule of law is subordinate to the whims of political ambition," the National Association of Immigration Judges said.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche applauded the decision, saying it "sends a clear message: lower courts must accept that the law is the law, no matter the 'political controversies of the day,'" he wrote in a social-media post.


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