Last month, dozens of cannabis businesses were told they were located too close to schools after state officials realized they had misinterpreted regulations.
The Housing Works Cannabis Company, New York State’s first legal recreational dispensary when it opened in 2022, may need to relocate because it is too close to a school.
Watch: Moment Trump and Putin meet in Alaska for summit
This is the moment US President Trump and Russia's President Putin simultaneously disembarked their planes in Alaska to meet for talks about the Ukraine war.
They shook hands on a red carpet and had what appeared to be a friendly but animated conversation before walking together to a nearby car.
Ukraine's President Zelensky, who is not invited to the summit, says his country is "counting on America" and there's "no indication" Russia is preparing to end the war.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet in Alaska on Friday
Speculation has swirled over whether the Trump-Putin summit will result in the map of Ukraine being forcibly – and fundamentally – altered.
Russia has laid claim to vast parts of Ukraine since 2014, when President Vladimir Putin made his first move.
At the time, in the space of a short few months, Moscow carried out the relatively bloodless occupation and annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
But that was followed by a Russian-backed separatist movement in the eastern Donbas region – specifically the two regions, or "oblasts", known as Donetsk and Luhansk.
A war simmered there for eight years.
Ukraine after 2014 and before the start of the 2022 full-scale invasion
Ukraine lost around 14,000 soldiers and civilians during this period.
But in February 2022, Putin launched his full-scale invasion. Russian troops quickly reached the outskirts of Kyiv and seized huge swathes of the south, including big chunks of two more oblasts, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
The war has ebbed and flowed ever since. Russia now controls rather less territory - down from about 27% in the spring of 2022 to around 20% now. In the east, Russian forces are advancing, but very slowly and at great cost.
Ukraine in 2022 - one month into the full-scale invasion
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine says an unconditional ceasefire is needed now. European allies also insist on on a halt in fighting. US President Donald Trump says that is what he has been trying to achieve.
But in the run-up to his Alaska summit with Putin, Trump has started talking, instead about territorial swaps. That has sent shockwaves across Kyiv and Europe.
It is not at all clear what land Trump is referring to, or what those swaps could look like, given that all the territory in question legally belongs to Ukraine.
As of August 2025, the territory of Ukraine looks as follows:
Russia would dearly love to expand its control over the entirety of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Some reports suggest that Putin is demanding that Ukraine hand over the remaining territory it controls in both oblasts.
But that would mean Kyiv giving up on places which tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died trying to protect - cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, and a fortified line protecting Ukrainian territory to the north and west.
For Kyiv, such a concession would be a bitter pill to swallow. For Moscow, whose losses have been even more catastrophic, it would be seen as victory.
Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukraine "could not" leave the Donbas as Moscow would use the region as a springboard to attack the rest of the country.
In recent days, Russian forces appear to be pushing hard, and making progress, near the town of Dobropillya. But it's not yet clear whether this marks a significant strategic move or just an effort to show Trump that Moscow has the upper hand.
What about Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, captured in 2022?
Here, it's reported, Russia is offering to halt its offensive and freeze the lines.
But would Russia be prepared to give any of it back?
On Monday, Trump talked vaguely about "ocean-front property" – presumably a reference to some of this shoreline, along the Sea of Azov or Black Sea.
But this is all part of Putin's strategically vital land bridge connecting Russia to occupied Crimea.
It's hard to see the Russian leader agreeing to give any of it up. Like Donetsk and Luhansk, Putin regards these places as part of Russia, and illegally annexed them three years ago in four referendums widely regarded as a sham.
For Ukraine, and Europe, territorial swaps – at this very early stage of the talks – are a non-starter.
A discussion about future borders may eventually come, but only when the war has stopped and Ukraine's security has been guaranteed.
Five thousand miles from Alaska, and feeling left out, Ukrainians were bracing themselves on Friday for the outcome of negotiations to which they were not invited.
The talks, between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, will begin later in the day with no seat for the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump signalled earlier this week that "land swaps" could be on the table - largely interpreted to mean the surrender of Ukrainian land to Russia.
In Ukraine, where polls consistently show that about 95% of the population distrusts Putin, there is a uneasy mix of deep scepticism about the talks and deep fatigue with the war.
"This question touches me directly," said Tetyana Bessonova, 30, from Pokrovsk - one of the eastern cities whose future is in question if land were surrendered to Russia.
"My hometown is on the line of fire. If active fighting stops, would I be able to return?" she said.
Questions of negotiations, of land swaps, of the redrawing of boundaries were deeply painful to those who grew up in the affected regions, Bessonova said.
"This is the place I was born, my homeland," she said. "These decisions might mean I could never go home again. That I and many others will lose all hope of return."
But Trump can be unpredictable. He is often said to favour the views of the person he spoke to most recently. So there is little faith in Ukraine that he won't be swayed by Putin, particularly in a one-on-one meeting.
The very fact of the closed door meeting was bad for Ukraine, said Oleksandr Merezhko, a Ukrainian MP and chair of the country's parliamentary committee on foreign affairs. "Knowing Trump, he can change his opinion very quickly. There is great danger in that for us."
Merezhko said he feared that, such was Trump's desire to be seen as a dealmaker, he may have privately made advance agreements with the Russians. "Trump doesn't want embarrassment, and if nothing is achieved, he will be embarrassed," the MP said. "The question is, what could be in those agreements?"
Various possibilities have been suggested for arrangements that could lead to a ceasefire, from a freezing of the current frontlines - with no formal recognition of the seized territory as Russian - to a maximalist position of Russia annexing four entire regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Polls suggest that about 54% of Ukrainians support some form of land compromise in order to hasten the end of the war, but only with security guarantees from Ukraine's international partners. So deep and widespread is the distrust of Russia, that many believe an agreement to freeze the frontlines without security guarantees would simply be an invitation to Russia to rest, rearm, and reattack.
"If we freeze the frontlines and cede territories it will only serve as a platform for a new offensive," said Volodymyr, a Ukrainian sniper serving in the east of the country. In accordance with military protocol, he asked to be identified only by his first name.
"Many soldiers gave their lives for these territories, for the protection of our country," Volodymyr said. "A freeze would mean demobilization would begin, wounded and exhausted soldiers would be discharged, the army would shrink, and during one of these rotations the Russians would strike again. But this time, it would be the end of our country."
Across Ukraine, people from all walks of life were making very tough decisions about the reality of their future, said Anton Grushetsky, the director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, which regularly polls the population about the war.
One of the toughest decisions was whether to accept the idea of giving de facto control of some Ukrainian soil to Russia, he said. "It's 20% of our land and these are our people. But Ukrainians are showing us that they are flexible, they are telling us that they will accept various forms of security guarantees."
According to the institute's polling, 75% of Ukrainians are totally opposed to giving Russia formal ownership of any territory. Among the remaining 25%, there were some people who were pro-Russian, Grushetsky said, and some who were simply so fatigued by the war that they felt hard compromises were necessary.
"My belief is that the war should be stopped in any way possible," said Luibov Nazarenko, 70, a retired factory worker from Donetsk region, in Ukraine's east.
"The further it goes, the worse it becomes," she said. "The Russians have already occupied the Kherson region and they want Odesa. All this must be stopped, so the youth do not die."
Nazarenko has a son who is not yet fighting but could be called up. She said she believed that three years into the war, with hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded on the Ukrainian side alone, the preservation of life superseded all concerns over land.
"I just don't want people to die," she said. "Not the youth, not the old people, not the civilians who live on the frontline."
On Friday, as the clock ticked down to the beginning of the talks in Alaska, Ukrainians were celebrating a holy day - the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is the day when she is believed to listen to the prayers of all who need her.
Priest Oleksandr Beskrovniy said it was hard to find words to describe the unfairness of the talks
At St Michael's Monastery, a church in central Kyiv, priest Oleksandr Beskrovniy was leading a prayer service for several dozen people. Afterwards, he said it was hard to find words to describe the unfairness of the coming talks, but called it a "great injustice and madness" to leave Zelensky out.
Like others, the priest recognised the grim reality facing Ukraine, he said - that it was not in a position to recapture its stolen territory by force. So some deal needed to be made. But it should be thought of less in terms of land, Beskrovniy said, and more in terms of people.
"If we are forced to cede territory - if the world allows this - the most important thing is that we gather all of our people. The world must help us get our people out."
In his prayers on Friday, the priest did not refer directly to the talks in Alaska, he said - "no names or places of meetings".
But he prayed for the future strength of Ukraine, he said. "On the frontline, and in the diplomatic space."
Elvis’s ex-wife has traded lawsuits in a financial dispute with former advisers that has grown ugly with an allegation that she prematurely “pulled the plug” on her late daughter, Lisa Marie.
THE FINAL STRAW? Construction executive Erden Arkan must not have friends in the Trump administration like Mayor Eric Adams does. So while the Department of Justice moved to dismiss the mayor’s case, the wheels of justice kept turning for Arkan.
The Turkish-American co-owner of KSK Construction Group was given a light sentence of one year probation today in Manhattan federal court. He’ll also pay a $9,500 fine and $18,000 in restitution after pleading guilty in January to giving 10 employees $1,250 each to donate to Adams’ campaign.
But even while accepting that he broke New York City campaign finance laws, Arkan’s lawyer Jonathan Rosen presented him as a victim of “an unprecedented act of prosecutorial discretion,” suggesting that federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York wanted to salvage some sort of a win following the tumult and rounds of resignations over the dismissal of Adams’ case.
Rosen also suggested Arkan’s case never should have been brought in federal court in the first place, arguing he was “targeted… to serve some greater end in a bureaucratic power struggle over the Adams case.”
While an official from the Turkish consulate helped coordinate Arkan’s May 2021 fundraising event for Adams, Rosen said that Arkan “never had any knowledge of foreign interference” alleged by federal prosecutors. He maintained that neither the Adams campaign nor the Turkish consulate knew about Arkan’s straw donor scheme, which he’d cooked up himself.
Judge Dale Ho dismissed the arguments. While he conceded “it is true that there is some incongruency between the government’s handling of Mr. Arkan’s case and Mayor Adams’ case,” he was firm that “there is not a shred of evidence in the record” indicating that the prosecutors acted wrongly prosecuting Arkan.
Another related case hasn’t been resolved yet. Former Adams aide Mohamed Bahi pleaded guilty Tuesday to helping to organize a separate straw donor scheme for Adams’ 2021 campaign.
While Adams himself hasn’t been accused of coordinating straw donations, the practice has been a serious problem for his campaign. Adams’ old friend Dwayne Montgomery pleaded guilty last year along with other co-conspirators to giving Adams illegal donations, and THE CITY has reported on numerous examples of more apparent straw donations to Adams.
Rep. Dan Goldman, a former federal prosecutor, told Playbook earlier this week that this wasn’t an ideal outcome for Adams’ case.
“As a prosecutor, I never liked when, ultimately, the only people held accountable for their crimes were the lower level people,” he said. “But under the circumstances, when you've charged someone and there's a legitimate reason to charge that person, the right thing to do is to finish off the case.” — Jeff Coltin
LET’S ALL GO TO THE (ASSEMBLY) LOBBY: New York moviegoers might soon have an easier time skipping the increasingly lengthy block of advertisements and trailers shown before the film starts, if a bill introduced this week becomes law.
Assemblymember Clyde Vanel wants to require theaters to display the time a movie actually starts when promoting showings or selling tickets. His proposal comes as movies increasingly start as much as half an hour after the advertised time.
“For the consumer, this can have a real monetary and social impact,” he wrote in his memo accompanying the bill. “Consumers not only may leave obligations earlier than they needed to in order to see the motion picture, but they may also consume their snacks purchased at the theater prior to the movie beginning.”
“There is no justification for deceiving consumers,” he wrote, especially since moviegoers “cannot bring their own snacks to eat if they consumed their purchased snacks within the extremely long 30-minute preview period.”
The bill would not apply to broadcasts of the Assembly session — where starting within half an hour of the scheduled time would be a major improvement. — Bill Mahoney
NO ‘SHOOK ONES’: Queens Borough President Donovan Richards pledged today to help turn out Black voters for Zohran Mamdani in November, evoking both Martin Luther King Jr. and Mobb Deep in his enthusiastic endorsement.
The Democratic mayoral nominee’s policies — including a rent freeze and free and fast buses — are common sense, not socialism, Richards said in the borough that he and Mamdani both call home. Richmond Hill, Queens was the last stop of Mamdani’s “Five Boroughs Against Trump” tour.
“Count me in as a democratic socialist if it means that everyday New Yorkers will be able to afford this city,” Richards said, adding that civil rights icon King “was called a socialist and communist as well” and referencing hip-hoppers Mobb Deep by boasting that there are no “shook ones” in the borough, a reference to the group’s hit song. Richards had previewed his endorsement of Mamdani a day earlier.
One of Mamdani’s biggest weak spots electorally has been politically moderate Black voters in areas like southeast Queens. And while he now has Richards as a surrogate, Queens Democratic Party leader Rep. Greg Meeks has yet to endorse him. (A Meeks spokesperson did not respond today to a query on whether the House member plans to meet with Mamdani.)
Mamdani’s support in the primary was stronger in parts of the city that are heavily gentrified. Southeast Queens includes neighborhoods that have resisted being priced out.
Mamdani acknowledged the critical balance between creating homes for new residents without pushing out longer-term residents.
“One of the many things I appreciate about the borough president is how he has been able to chart a course of building more housing (though) not at the expense of displacing those who already live there,” he said. —Emily Ngo
SEX WORK DEBATE: Andrew Cuomo went on the offensive today over Mamdani’s past support for state legislation that would decriminalize sex work in New York.
The former governor said in a statement that he spent years fighting iterations of the bill over concerns it would lead to an increase in sex trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable New Yorkers.
“Mark my words: This is the real world and if passed, this legislation will open the floodgates,” Cuomo said in the statement. “Mamdani may not remember the bad old days of New York City, where Times Square was seedy and crime infested and New Yorkers knew which neighborhoods to avoid at all costs. We do, and no one should be eager to return to that era.”
Cuomo’s stance was backed by Sonia Ossorio, executive director at National Organization for Women New York City. Ossorio has previously criticized Mamdani’s position on decriminalization.
“Full decriminalization doesn’t protect vulnerable people — it expands a market that thrives on exploitation, human trafficking, and crime in our neighborhoods,” she said in a statement.
Mamdani twice co-sponsored a bill that would decriminalize sex work and clear past arrest records related to prostitution while still allowing law enforcement to go after trafficking operations.
Campaign spokesperson Dora Pekec declined to say whether Mamdani still supports the concept and whether he would advocate for the legislation from City Hall if elected. But she noted that the Democratic nominee has pledged additional resources to assist victims of prostitution and sex trafficking.
“While Andrew Cuomo is only interested in ‘governing’ behind a phone screen, Zohran is committed to genuine public safety, including combatting sex trafficking,” Pekec said in a statement that referenced a new department Mamdani plans to create. “His Department of Community Safety will invest $40 million towards victims services including for programs like Safe Horizon, for which funding has been cut in past budgets.”
The issue of whether to decriminalize sex work has been the subject of heated debate over the years. Organizations like DecrimNY, a coalition of sex workers and various organizations aligned with the decriminalization movement, argue the changes would make sex workers safer by allowing them to report violence or unsafe working conditions to authorities without fear of arrest while delivering more autonomy to consenting adults. — Joe Anuta
CANNABIS REGULATORS SUED AGAIN: A dozen cannabis dispensary licensees are suing the state over a flip-flop on the cannabis agency’s interpretation of the state’s 2021 legalization law.
“The consequences are staggering. Petitioners’ investments, often more than a million dollars, are now at risk” the petition reads. “Their livelihoods are being threatened.”
The petitioners are licensed under the Conditional Adult-use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) and Social and Economic Equity (SEE) licensing programs, which prioritize entrepreneurs with past cannabis convictions, women and minorities.
The legal challenge seeks to block regulators from enforcing a new interpretation of school distance requirements in the state’s cannabis legalization law, which would force licensees out of their dispensary locations that had been previously approved by the agency.
Agency about-face: Earlier this month, the Office of Cannabis Management notified more than 100 licensees that their dispensary locations could be impacted due to the agency’s misinterpretation of state law.
The licensees are asking the court to annul the agency’s new interpretation of the law, declare their locations compliant and block the state from taking any enforcement actions against them over the school distance requirement.
A spokesperson for the OCM said that the office does not comment on pending litigation.
The agency is proposing a legislative fix that would allow licensees to remain in their locations, but emphasized on its website that passing such legislation “is not a guarantee.” The state is also creating an $15 million applicant relief fund for up to $250,000 per applicant to help find new locations. — Mona Zhang
—26 FED PLAZA: As fewer immigrants show up for their court hearings, arrests at 26 Federal Plaza’s immigration courthouses are nearing a standstill. (THE CITY)
— GOV. CLEMENCY: Hochul pardoned a Laotian immigrant Friday to stop his deportation. (The New York Times)
— CUT THE CHECK: Progressive Democrats in the New York Legislature are decrying Hochul’s $2 billion rebate program as fiscally irresponsible amid looming federal cuts. (Gothamist)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Spared from flying a suicide mission in World War II, he became a grandmaster of Japan’s venerable tea ceremony and used his stature to speak out against all wars.
Hanna Correa and her son Milan attend a protest in Anchorage
"Putin is supposed to be in jail, and he just comes to Alaska like that."
Hanna Correa is amongst a sea of Alaskans waving Ukrainian flags on road leading into the capital city, Anchorage.
"When I entered through that parking lot, and I see a lot of Americans, they're supporting, it made me cry," she says.
Ms Correa, 40, left Ukraine in 2019 for love, and six years later, the future of her country could be decided in her adopted home town.
US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to touch down at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a 30 minute drive away. Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky is not invited, something Ms Correa says is "pretty sad".
Among those protesting their arrival is Christopher Kelliher, a 53-year-old military veteran and Alaskan native.
"It's gross, it makes you want to take a shower," he says of the meeting.
"Putin doesn't need to be in our state, much less our country. We have an idiot in the White House that will kowtow to this guy."
Hundreds lined a street in Anchorage on Friday to oppose Putin's arrival
This region's history with Moscow gives Friday's summit added significance. The US purchased Alaska from the Russians in 1867 for $7.2m (£1.48m).
Critics called the purchase 'Seward's Folly', arguing the land amounted to a frozen wasteland. But later discoveries of rare earth minerals and abundant oil and gas put paid to that label.
Ornate churches are among the most visible symbols of Alaska's Russian heritage. The St Tikhon Orthodox Church in Anchorage has been holding three days of prayer ahead of leaders' arrival.
Priest Nicholas Cragle, an American who recently moved to Alaska after living in Russia for seven years, says the conflict is "particularly painful and close to the hearts" of parishioners.
"We're hoping that this meeting will lead to something... lead to a culmination of this conflict," says Mr Cragle.
Nicholas Cragle has settled in Anchorage with his wife, who he met in Russia
That feeling is shared by fishermen ankle-deep in creek bed on the outskirts of town, drawn to the area by the allure of some of the world's finest salmon.
"I think it's a good idea [the summit], I wish Zelensky would be out here too... get this thing over with," says Don Cressley, who lives in the Alaskan city of North Pole and is visiting on a fishing trip with his grandson.
He wants an end to the war "because of the destruction they're doing to all the cities, all the buildings, making everybody more homeless, taking their foods away, their supplies away, their living right away,".
Donald Trump, he says, is doing an "awesome job" in ceasefire negotiations.
Alaska draws fisherman in search of some of the world's best salmon
While the US president often talks warmly of his relationship with Vladimir Putin, superpower tensions persist and are more keenly felt here.
Moscow's military planes are routinely detected flying near the coast of Alaska. And in January, Canadian and American fighter jets were scrambled after multiple Russian jets were spotted in the Arctic, according to the North American Aerospace Defence Command.
That breeds a sense of unease for some Alaskans who live closer to Russia than Washington DC.
"Although the Cold War is over between Russia and the US, they're constantly patrolling our airways," Anchorage resident Russell Wilson tells me while fishing.
"If the president doesn't put the hammer down, we could be the next Ukraine."
However other Alaskans consider a return to Cold War hostilities are far-fetched fantasy.
I ask Army veteran Christopher Kelliher if he is concerned about a Russian invasion. "Not really, everybody in Alaska owns a gun," he replies.
Danish police direct people involved near the the derailment
At least one person has died and several others injured after a train collided with a slurry tanker and derailed in southern Denmark, officials said.
Police said the crash happened between the towns of Tinglev and Kliplev in southern Jutland, and that officers were at the site.
Local outlet TV2 reported helicopters had been sent to the scene and quoted local rail officials as saying the train had "hit a slurry tanker" at a level crossing.
The country's rail operator DSB said that it had shut down services between Tinglev and Sønderborg near the German border.
Pictures from the scene showed a carriage lying on its side, with passengers stood around the train tracks.
Police said 95 passengers were on board, including pupils from a school in Sønderborg. Two of the injured were carried away by helicopter.
The national rail agency Banedanmark wrote on X that the collision happened at a railway crossing. According to local media, at least two of the train carriages were derailed.
Workers with Washington’s Department of Public Works loaded a tent into a garbage truck after Metropolitan Police cleared a homeless encampment in Washington Circle.
New Treasury Department guidance limiting eligibility for lucrative tax credits follows Trump’s executive order to “strictly enforce” restrictions on the incentives.
Their union says one of its core demands, to receive pay for groundwork, is unlikely to be introduced in arbitration. The airline began canceling flights ahead of the potential strike.
A strike by the carrier’s flight attendants could disrupt 130,000 travelers a day, including international fliers. Here’s what to know if your flight is affected.
Pressure is mounting on Republicans in Indiana to take up redistricting ahead of the midterms, with both White House officials privately pressuring lawmakers and a mysterious group urging voters to call their elected officials in support of it.
White House Intergovernmental Affairs Director Alex Meyer in his personal capacity has called several lawmakers in the state pressing them to redistrict, according to a person familiar with the calls granted anonymity to discuss them.
One lawmaker said to have received a call declined to comment.
The White House is also inviting Indiana Republicans to a meeting in Washington, according to invitations reviewed by POLITICO. More than four dozen — including the state House speaker and Senate president — have agreed to attend and two have declined, according to a Republican close to the White House.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The calls are part of its broader strategy to use redistricting in order to gain an advantage in the midterms and help Republicans cling to their small House majority.
It's not just the White House that's amping up the pressure. MAGA faithfuls, like influencer Charlie Kirk, have also been telling Indiana lawmakers to get on board. In a recent post on X, Kirk asked if Indiana state officials are “going to ignore President Trump, the majority of their voters, and the GOP Grassroots across the country by REFUSING to redistrict Indiana’s Congressional Seats? Let’s hope they are better than that!”
At the same time, a recent robocall received by a POLITICO reporter living in Indiana accuses Democratic Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and Kathy Hochul of New York of using redistricting with a goal of “ending the Trump presidency” and urges listeners to call GOP state Rep. David Hall and tell him to back the effort.
“We can stop these radicals by doing our own redistricting here in Indiana,” the call said.
The call went to residents of the district of Republican State Rep. Danny Lopez, who came out against redistricting. The narrator identifies the call as paid for by Forward America. There is little public information about the group.
Lopez declined to comment.
The intensive public and private pressure comes as Newsom pushes forward with his plan to offset the potential five-seat gain for Republicans in Texas. The Texas state legislature has been at a standstill since Democratic lawmakers left to prevent the state House from reaching quorum to pass the map. Abbott called a second special session on Friday, and Democratic lawmakers have indicated they are willing to return soon.
“Trump is playing for keeps this time,” said an Indiana GOP official allied with Trump’s efforts granted anonymity to speak freely. “And I don’t think they understand that.”
“Those guys frankly have not felt the slightest iota of the pressure that might be coming down the bend if they oppose Trump on this,” the person added.
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