US eases access to marijuana for medical use

An invitation to the December G20 summit in the United States will be sent to Russia as a member of the organization, a senior US official said Thursday.

Such an invitation would come as the Trump administration pushes to further ease the international isolation Russia brought on itself by invading Ukraine in 2022.

"All G20 members will be invited to attend ministerial meetings and the leaders' summit," a senior Trump administration official said in a statement.

The Kremlin said earlier in the day that Russian President Vladimir Putin had not yet decided if he would attend.

"No such decisions have been made yet," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow.

Putin has not participated in a meeting of the world's top economies since 2019, first because of the coronavirus pandemic and then due to the war in Ukraine.

Russia was invited at "the highest level" for the December 14-15 summit in Miami, the state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin as saying.

After sending troops into neighboring Ukraine in 2022, Russia was slapped with numerous international sanctions and faced diplomatic isolation from the West.   

In 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the war, limiting the Russian leader's travel. 

The United States is not a member of the ICC and Putin travelled to Alaska last August for a summit with US President Donald Trump. 

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has sought to revive long-frozen relations with Russia in a bid to end the war in Ukraine. 

Initially promising to end the war in 24 hours, Trump's attempts so far have delivered few tangible results, even as Moscow and Kyiv met multiple times for talks.   

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Shares in Intel soared on Thursday after it smashed quarterly earnings expectations in what could be a sign that the US chip maker is on a path to recovery.

Intel reported revenue of $13.6 billion in a 7 percent increase from the same quarter a year earlier, but logged a $3.7 billion loss that was less than the market had anticipated.

It forecast revenue in the current quarter would range from $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion.

Shares soared more than 15 percent in after-market trades.

"The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic," Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in the earnings release.

"This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel's CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings."

A hot AI trend of digital "agents" specializing in handling computer tasks independently means more work for networks using the kinds of processing units made by Intel local networks rather than cutting edge GPUs in datacenters, according to Tan.

Shares in Intel took off late last year after AI giant Nvidia announced it would invest $5 billion in its lagging rival.

Nvidia joined Japanese investment giant SoftBank and the US government in backing the once-dominant chipmaker, which has fallen behind in recent years after missing key technology shifts.

President Donald Trump's administration surprised the tech industry last year by taking a 10 percent equity stake in Intel, recognizing the strategic importance of the company that powered the PC and internet revolution with its processors.

Intel largely missed the smartphone boom and failed to develop competitive hardware for the AI era, allowing Asian manufacturers TSMC and Samsung to dominate the custom semiconductor market.

Most notably, Intel was blindsided by Nvidia's rise as the world's leading AI chip provider.

Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs), originally designed for gaming consoles, have become the essential building blocks of artificial intelligence systems, with tech giants scrambling to secure them for their data servers and AI projects.

Tan, who took over as Intel CEO a year ago amid layoffs and market challenges, has acknowledged the difficulty of turning the company around, particularly as US-China trade tensions complicate the semiconductor landscape.

"Intel delivered the kind of report that the bulls needed to justify a stock that's soared over the past year, with data center momentum and foundry progress both pointing in the right direction," Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne said of the earnings.

"These results make Intel's turnaround look less like a hope-fueled blip and more like a steadier longer-term trajectory."

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(The Center Square) – After two attempts last week to reauthorize a controversial spy power of the federal government, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has unveiled the text of a three-year extension.

The new proposal, however, fails to include key privacy reforms that dozens of House Republicans are demanding to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires April 30.

“The United States Constitution is NOT a suggestion – the Fourth Amendment is the law of the land,” Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, posted on X after the bill text dropped Thursday. “Warrantless searches of American citizens are ongoing. We cannot allow this gross abuse of government overreach to continue.”

Self had voted with more than a dozen other House Republicans to tank both a five-year extension and an 18-month extension of FISA Section 702 last Friday.

On paper, FISA Section 702 allows federal intelligence agencies to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance on foreign nationals of suspicion.

But in practice, the electronic data of American citizens – including emails, text messages, and phone calls – are routinely collected as well.

The major controversy lies in the fact that federal intelligence agents will routinely search through that database without obtaining a warrant, which many critics view as a violation of Americans’ Fourth Amendment Rights.

As part of the overall pushback against warrantless surveillance, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., introduced the Surveillance Accountability Act on Thursday as well.

The bill would not only prohibit federal agencies from searching or obtaining Americans’ metadata without a warrant based on probable cause, but would also allow individuals to sue for damages if the federal government infringes on their Fourth Amendment rights.

“There’s been a lot of talk about FISA and [Section] 702 and warrants for the past few weeks now, but I don’t think that’s where the issue ultimately lies,” Boebert told reporters. “Sure, it is a problem when anyone, any American citizen is looked into without a warrant, but it doesn’t end under FISA, it doesn’t end under 702.”

Declassified government documents and oversight reports show that federal intelligence agencies have performed millions of these so-called “backdoor searches” since FISA Section 702 was created, including 57,000 in 2023 alone.

The House Rules Committee will meet Monday to mark up the three-year extension. Both Democrats and Republicans on the committee are expected to object to the bill in its current form.

(The Center Square) – U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and three of his colleagues have introduced a bill that would allow beneficiaries enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to buy hot rotisserie chicken with their benefits.

Called the “Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act,” it’s just the latest in a series of proposals from the first-term senator that would modernize the program, which is used by 2 million low-income Pennsylvanians.

“America’s best (and delicious) affordability play is Costco’s $4.99 rotisserie chicken,” said Fetterman. “It’s one of my family’s favorites and I’m proud to join this bill with Senator Justice for all to try.” 

U.S. Sens. Jim Justice, R-W.Va.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., are leading the charge with Pennsylvania’s senior senator.

“SNAP funds would be well spent to feed our nation’s families who need it,” Fetterman said. 

Under current statute, SNAP recipients can purchase cooked rotisserie chickens that have been cooled down, but it does not allow the purchase of hot prepared foods. The proposal would change that by amending the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to modify the definition of food to include “hot rotisserie chicken.” 

Justice described it as “just common sense.”

“It’s as basic as you can get to help busy parents or grandparents put something as simple as this on the table to feed their families,” he said. “We have to give people the option to put a healthy, protein-dense choice on the table that actually tastes good and doesn’t take an hour and a half to cook.”

Capito called the bill a “simple, practical step to make the program work better for the people it serves.” 

“For seniors, working families, and those without reliable access to cooking equipment, this is about convenience and dignity,” Capito said. “With multiple states—including West Virginia—already requesting flexibility in this area, this bill brings SNAP in line with real-world needs while making smart, efficient use of taxpayer dollars.”

At around $5 a piece at grocery stores, supporters argue that rotisserie chicken is “unmatched in value, especially when factoring in how much time it saves.”

The proposal does not increase funding or participant eligibility for SNAP or include all other hot food. It also only applies to eligible retailers, maintaining that SNAP will not be expanded to restaurants.

“Congress should be making it easier, not harder, for families to put food on the table,” Bennet said.

About 70% of SNAP participants are children, elderly, or have disabilities, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores.

The hot foods ban has been in place since the 1970s, when most Americans prepared meals from scratch. A 2021 USDA report found that 30% of SNAP participants cite lack of time as a barrier to cooking, while 15% cite physical disability and 11% cite lack of kitchen equipment.

Federal data shows 12.3% of U.S. residents receive SNAP benefits. Two million in Pennsylvania, or roughly 15% of the population, use the program, spending more than $350 million monthly across 38,000 stores, some of which depend mostly on these sales to survive.

Fetterman, a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, has also backed Bennet’s Hot Food Act, which would allow all hot foods to be eligible under the program, and the Cybersecurity for SNAP Act, which would increase the security of EBT cards to prevent skimming. 

The Fairness for Victims of SNAP Skimming Act, which Fetterman also introduced, would allow USDA to repay recipients whose EBT funds were stolen from their cards.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday ruled out striking Iran with a nuclear weapon, after his previous threats to completely destroy Iranian civilization.

"No, I wouldn't use it," Trump told reporters at the White House.

"Why would I use a nuclear weapon when we've, in a very conventional way, decimated them without it?" he asked.

"A nuclear weapon should never be allowed to be used by anybody."

Trump on April 7 issued a genocidal threat to Iran that a "whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back," but within hours agreed to a ceasefire that he has since extended in the war launched by the United States and Israel.

Vice President JD Vance during the conflict warned that the United States was ready to intensify damage on Iran with weapons not previously used, but the White House denied he was threatening nuclear strikes.

Vance in failed negotiations had pushed Iran for greater concessions on its contested nuclear work.

Trump told reporters that he was seeking an Iran "without a nuclear weapon that's going to try and blow up one of our cities or blow up the entire Middle East."

Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon and the UN nuclear watchdog says that an atomic bomb was not imminent before the war.

The United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in combat, obliterating the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, killing some 214,000 people.

Israel is widely known to have nuclear weapons but does not publicly acknowledge them.

Trump's blanket statement against any nuclear use would appear to be at odds with longstanding US nuclear doctrine, which reserves the right to use nuclear weapons.

Trump has previously called for an end to a US moratorium on nuclear testing in response to US allegations of secret testing by China and Russia.

Former president Barack Obama had called for an eventual goal of a world without nuclear weapons, but his administration also said that so long as they existed, the US arsenal would serve as a deterrent.

The United States has rejected calls to declare that it will never use nuclear weapons first in a conflict.

sct/msp

(The Center Square) – Two female teenagers have been charged in connection to what authorities say was a plot to commit a terrorist attack against a Jewish synagogue and day school in Houston. 

A multistate investigation involving the FBI in North Carolina and Texas resulted in the state’s oldest congregation going on lockdown Wednesday. Within 24 hours, two arrests were made in two states. 

On Wednesday, Congregation Beth Israel and The Shlenker School on its property both were closed after the Houston Police Department notified them of a potential targeted attack, authorites said. The notification came from an FBI Charlotte Joint Terrorism Task Force, which began an investigation Tuesday night after receiving a tip from a North Carolina law enforcement agency. 

The Reform Jewish congregation serves more than 1,500 households in the Houston area and is the oldest Jewish congregation in Texas.  

“HPD Major Offenders Division was made aware of a threat directed towards certain Jewish institutions in our area," police said in a statement. "With the assistance of FBI Houston and Alief ISD Police Department, a 16-year-old has been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit capital murder. At this time there is no other known credible threat. No other information is available at this time.”

Authorities also arrested an 18-year-old woman in North Carolina, accused of conspiring to “kill as many Jews as possible.” 

“A fast-moving, multistate FBI investigation led to the arrests of one adult and one juvenile accused of planning an attack at a Jewish Day School in Houston, Texas,” FBI Charlotte announced Thursday afternoon. “18-year-old Angelina Hicks is currently facing two state charges brought by the Davidson County Sheriff's Office in Lexington, North Carolina. A juvenile was charged in Harris County, Texas.” 

The task force investigation working with local law enforcement was “an exceptional example of when you see something concerning, you say something to law enforcement,” FBI Charlotte said. It also recognized FBI-Houston partners and the Jewish community in North Carolina, Texas, and nationwide, including the Jewish Federation for their assistance. 

A joint FBI multistate investigation is ongoing, it said.

Authorities said the plan involved driving into the building to harm congregants and school children, similar to what occurred in Michigan last month. 

In March, a Lebanese man drove into Temple Israel, also a reformed synagogue, in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit. None of the synagogue’s staff, teachers or 140 children in its early childhood center were injured. The driver was shot dead by police.

The Davidson County, North Carolina, Sheriff’s Office said its Criminal Investigation Division working with the FBI launched an investigation. Deputies went to Hicks’ home and found evidence “showing Hicks and co-conspirators were planning a mass casualty event at a synagogue in Houston. The planned attack was targeted at the Congregation Beth Israel.” 

Hicks was arrested and charged with felony conspiracy to commit assault with a deadly weapon to kill or commit serious injury and felony conspiracy to commit murder. The judge set bond at $10 million. 

The Jewish Federation of Greater Houston said on Wednesday that it had been in communication with law enforcement “related to information around potential threats to the [Beth Israel] campus.” The Shlenker School said closing its campus came “out of an abundance of caution and after speaking with authorities.” Both were reopened on Thursday.

The federation also said local law enforcement agencies were increasing patrols around Houston-area Jewish institutions. The federation also posted information about security, including a way for the public to report threats, incidents, and suspicious activity related to Jewish organizations, facilities or community members. 

After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack against Israel, Gov. Greg Abbott directed additional security measures statewide, especially around Jewish organizations and schools, and surged antiterrorism resources, The Center Square reported. Abbott and the legislature have also advanced several measures to combat antisemitism. 

Within one year, the number of antisemitic attacks tracked by the Anti-Defamation League were the largest on record in the U.S. in 2024 of 9,354. They included harassment, vandalism and assault against Jewish- and Israeli-Americans or Jewish institutions and houses of worship, The Center Square reported.

Beth Israel is hosting a 30-minute gun safety training for its congregants on Sunday to promote “responsible gun ownership to reduce deaths, injuries, and trauma among children and teens.”

Taylor Jenkins, who spent six seasons as coach of the Memphis Grizzlies, was set to be hired as coach of the NBA Milwaukee Bucks, according to multiple reports on Thursday.

The 41-year-old American served as an assistant coach for the Bucks in the 2018-19 season on coach Mike Budenholzer's staff.

Jenkins departed in June 2019 to become head coach at Memphis and went 250-214 before being fired in March 2025 with nine games remaining in the season.

Jenkins would replace Doc Rivers, who resigned as head coach of the Bucks 10 days ago after three seasons at Milwaukee, losing twice in the first round of the playoffs before missing the post-season this year after nine years in a row in the playoffs.

Rivers, 64, guided Boston to the 2008 NBA crown and has a career NBA coaching record of 1,194-866.

The move comes as the Bucks are trying to convince Greek star Giannis Antetokounmpo to remain with the club.

js/rcw

The US Justice Department's internal watchdog said Thursday it will investigate its compliance with a law mandating the release of millions of pages of documents in the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The law passed last November obligated the Trump administration to exhibit total transparency on the politically explosive case file of Epstein, the billionaire playboy who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

But after making reams of documents public in a process that culminated with a drop of some three million pages in late January, the Justice Department (DOJ) came in for heated criticism.

Lawmakers from both parties complained about information being withheld, in particular the redaction of parts of the massive case file.

At the same time the department released names and photos of Epstein victims who until then had not been named publicly, triggering outrage. These sensitive parts of the file were later removed from the public domain.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act compelled the DOJ to release all documents in its possession related to Epstein within 30 days.

It required redaction of names or other personally identifiable information about Epstein's victims, who numbered more than 1,000, according to the FBI.

But powerful figures who were friendly with Epstein could not be shielded "on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity," the law states.

The department's Office of the Inspector General announced Thursday it was opening a probe into how the department complied with the law called the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The probe will "evaluate the DOJ’s processes for identifying, redacting, and releasing records in its possession as required by the Act." A final report will be issued.

In February, lawmakers from both parties who were allowed to view the fully unredacted Epstein files at DOJ facilities complained that some information in the publicly released files was still improperly shielded.

Simply being mentioned in the Epstein files does not denote the commission of wrongdoing.

But since the huge document drop on January 30, prominent people around the world have been rocked by revelations of their ties with Epstein. This has led to criminal probes, arrests and resignations, mainly in Europe.

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(The Center Square) – Regeneron is the latest pharmaceutical manufacturer to make a deal with the administration to offer some of their drugs at most-favored-nation pricing.

Now, 17 of the largest drug manufacturers in the world have announced similar deals with the White House to offer some of their medicines at rates no higher than other economic peer countries because for decades, Americans have often paid much higher prices for prescription drugs.

The deals have been announced over the course of less than a year, after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in May 2025 aimed at securing most-favored-nation pricing. The president has said that the U.S. has effectively been paying for the high costs of pharmaceutical research and development and subsidizing prescription drugs for other countries.

The companies have agreed to sell their drugs to state Medicaid programs at most-favored-nation pricing, as well as offering some drugs at deeply discounted rates on government website TrumpRx for Americans not using insurance. Many of the agreements have also mentioned guaranteeing most-favored-nation pricing on all “new, innovative medicines” they bring to market, though it’s unclear whether that only applies to state Medicaid programs or commercial sales.

The president said these deals would result in “the largest drop in prescription drug prices in the history of the United States of America,” but he expressed doubt that it would factor into Americans’ decisions at the polls come November. 

“It's the biggest price reduction in drugs in history. By itself, we should win the midterms. But it doesn't work that way,” Trump said. “Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. People forget too quickly.”

As part of its joint announcement with Regeneron Thursday, the White House also announced that the Food and Drug Administration had just approved one of Regeneron’s drugs, Otarmeni, which the president described as a “gene therapy curing a rare disease that causes deafness.”

He added that Regeneron would, for a time, be offering the drug for free.

A mother and two-year-old boy who was born with the ultra-rare condition were there Thursday to attest to the drug’s impact.

“It's absolutely incredible,” she said. “With Regeneron and this amazing surgery, he can listen to music, and he loves it, and he loves to dance, and he loves instruments.”

Meta plans to cut a tenth of its workforce, looking for productivity gains from its remaining workers as it invests heavily in artificial intelligence.

Meta will lay off about 8,000 employees and leave thousands of other positions unfilled next month, a source told AFP.

The move comes as co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg makes a priority of delivering "superintelligence" in a costly AI race against rivals including Amazon, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI.

Reports on Thursday also indicated that Microsoft is looking to trim its ranks with voluntary buyouts of some US employees in an unprecedented move by the tech stalwart founded in 1975.

About seven percent of US employees at Microsoft were reported to be eligible for an offer aimed at workers senior director level or lower whose years of employment and age add up to 70 or more, according to a CNBC report.

Microsoft, which has also been pouring billions of dollars into AI, did not respond to a request for comment.

Meta and Microsoft are both set to report quarterly earnings next week.

Meta in January reported quarterly earnings that topped market expectations, as revenue grew along with investments in AI.

Meanwhile costs tallied $35.15 billion, an increase of 40 percent from the same period a year earlier, the earnings reported noted.

Capital expenses, including infrastructure such as data centers to power AI, were $22.14 billion in the quarter, according to the company.

Meta anticipated capital expenditures in the $115 billion to $135 billion range this fiscal year, driven by increased investment in Meta Superintelligence Labs and its core business.

"I'm looking forward to advancing personal superintelligence for people around the world in 2026," Zuckerberg said on an earnings call.

Meta is locked in a bitter rivalry with other tech behemoths racing to invest heavily in AI, aiming to ensure the technology generates profits in the not-so-distant future.

Most analysts believe Meta will make the investment pay off by improving advertising efficiency and creating new opportunities, such as with its smart glasses through a partnership with Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica.

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