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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years ago

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Witches, Chapter 14: the prelude to the one you’ve all been waiting for.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

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“Chief! Chief!”

“Phoenix, you can’t come screaming in here banging doors and - what if we had a client? That hardly looks professional.”

“Er, right, sorry, Chief. But, look! I got my badge! I passed the Bar!”

“You did? - You did! Phoenix, that’s incredible! You deserve to be proud - scream that to the world, show off that you have your attorney’s badge! I expected no less of you, of course. I knew you could!”

“Heh, really? I wasn’t so sure there, myself.”

“Would I lie to you?”

“Well, you couldn’t, so there’s that - seriously, Chief, I - I couldn’t have done this without you. I wouldn’t be here without you. I don’t know how I could ever thank you enough, or pay you back, or—”

“You don’t need to thank me, Phoenix, really. You don’t owe me anything. As long as I can help, I’ll be here.”

Was his badge always this light and this tiny in his palm? It should be heavier. It should be weightier. It’s supposed to be weightier after it’s saved lives and ruined them. Everything it means, and it’s just this little sliver of metal, as shiny as when he was a rookie. After he put three years of wear onto his first one, too, looked like he’d been around the block as a lawyer once or twice, and now he’s starting over from the bottom again.

Or worse than that, because when he started out he had no reputation but Mia’s, and now he has his own name, the highs and lows of it. Who is Phoenix Wright? The man who defended Will Powers, Max Galactica, Mask de Masque. (Scratch Matt Engarde.) The man who felled Manfred von Karma, Damon Gant. The man who defended Zak Gramarye. (Zak goddamn Gramarye.) The man who felled Kristoph Gavin.

(Though there’s some who still think he positioned Kristoph Gavin to take the fall for him.)

If it wasn’t for Edgeworth (again; first to save him, now to save someone else at his behest) he wouldn’t have bothered. Not with his name bitter on the tongues of half the legal system and this new little badge with its sheen dulled by tarnish and grime only Phoenix can see. But it’s Edgeworth, so Phoenix is here, and while he’s here, he supposes he can show Athena that all her admiration of him, all her faith in him, wasn’t hollow. That he can be who she thinks he is.

He can show Apollo that he’s more than the director hiding in the wings, the puppetmaster behind set. That he can be more than Apollo knows he is.

They won’t have to run his errands anymore. He won’t give them more reason to resent him.

But even thinking that - and even knowing that this accomplishment he wants to share stems inextricably from to all his failures that won’t be far from their minds - he’s still excited to tell them, to present this new badge to them.

Sometimes he’d swear he’s running a daycare.

He’ll freely admit he’s not an organized person and that his daughter has learned from him. She doesn’t put her magic props away because “I’ll just need them again soon anyway!” which is absolutely fair reasoning. But the playing cards and hula-hoops and plastic spaghetti don’t make the place look dignified, and it’s even less when he enters, ready to proudly show off his badge, to find the couches turned around to face the ancient TV that usually only plays the news, and Athena flinging herself up off the couch, a notebook raised as a weapon, at Apollo who has begun to walk away.

“How can you suggest such a thing!” she demands, indignant and raring for a fight. “This show is therapeutic!”

“You’ve watched it five times already!” Apollo roars back. His loud voice is about the only thing that lets him keep up with Trucy and Athena, Phoenix is pretty sure. They have the energy, but he has the volume. “That inane pirate song getting stuck in my head is not therapeutic!”

“Uh, guys?” Phoenix interrupts. “Boss here, asking a question, y’know, what do you think?” He gestures at his lapel area where the new badge - he still has trouble thinking of it as his badge - is pinned.

“But animal-assisted therapy is a real and valid thing and that’s why getting membership cards to the local aquariums here is paramount to my study of psychology—”

“Are you trying to justify it to write it off on your taxes?”

“Is there any work you should be doing?” Phoenix says, louder this time, and apparently the word work flips some switch in their brains, causing both to jump, and Athena to lower the notebook.

“We both already cleaned the toilet—” Apollo says.

“A couple times because he thinks I didn’t do good enough,” Athena adds.

“—and watered Charley.”

“But not with toilet water,” Athena adds, which instead of reassuring Phoenix makes him worry about a matter he had no reason to be concerned about a second ago. “So y’know.” She flashes a reflexive peace sign.

“And what if it was a potential client who walked in, instead of me? That hardly looks professional.”

“Er.” Athena’s eyes dart toward Apollo, searching for help.

“Sorry.”

Phoenix sighs. They barely respect him, but why should they? He’s given them space to work out of and left them alone enough that whatever unprofessional mess they make is their problems, not his. “Back to whatever you’re arguing about,” he says wearily.

They glance at each other again, obviously aware that he’s bothered, that it’s probably something about them - how many complexities must Athena hear in his voice right now? - but she’s also still passionately heated about whatever this aquarium argument is and can’t drop it yet. “And the orca pirate song is not any more inane than whatever tunes you hum while you do paperwork, Apollo!”

She probably doesn’t know what tunes those are, but Phoenix can absolutely guess what they are by the way Apollo’s face flushes. Oh, to be in his twenties and just casually crushing on his courtroom rival instead of being thirty-something and pathetic about it.

He starts past them, back to his desk. Athena raises the notebook threateningly again, Apollo puts the couch between himself and her, and all the lights in the office burn out with a horrible burst of static. The blinds clatter heavily down over the windows. Athena shrieks - christ, has he told her about Mia? No, he didn’t. (“It’s all need-to-know with you,” Edgeworth grumbled, once, some or another time within a seven year span, “and you think no one else needs to know.” Apollo asked about the office, so Phoenix told him. Athena hasn’t asked.)

Apollo, a little more used to her whims, still jumps, but silently.

“Why?” Phoenix asks. The light directly above him hums back to life, a makeshift spotlight. “Okay, that’s a little much.”

But he only realizes what she’s doing when Apollo blurts, “Wait, Mr Wright, that badge—”

It’s extra shiny in this light. Mia knows her dramatics.

“You passed the Bar! You got your badge back!” Athena drops the notebook and claps her hands together. “Congrats!”

It might just be a psychological trick of the light, the way it’s focused on him and nowhere else, or maybe it’s Athena beaming at him and Apollo’s astonished expression slowly opening up into a grin, or a combination thereof, but a warmth is gathering in his chest. It replaces the cold confusion that clung to him since he first took this new badge in hand. “Thanks, guys,” he says, and he finds he means it, even if it took Mia smacking them around the head. The rest of the lights spring back on, though the TV remains off. Mia never really cared for television, not even the news; Phoenix later found out, or realized, that she was looking for Redd White’s hand in every broadcast, every spin on a story, and she couldn’t concentrate on anything else if local news rumbled on in the background.

“You look like a real lawyer,” Apollo says, with clear admiration. Almost the way he sounded when Phoenix first met him, though without the stammering and stumbling. “Like you’re capable!”

He is not going to ask if that means he didn’t look capable before. He knows the answer.

“So!” Athena puts her hands on her hips. “When do we get to see the chief in action?”

“Huh?” he asks. The warmth of moments ago is a little too hot now, boiling him. “Who?”

“You, duh! Like Mr Edgeworth is the Chief Prosecutor, you’re the Chief Defense! Chief Anything Agency!”

“No thanks,” he says. Athena’s shoulders hike up slightly, her concentration increasing even as he fights to level his voice. “Just stick with ‘Boss’. Or my name, that works even better.”

Athena isn’t subtle, turning to Apollo for help understanding, help she’s not going to get from him on this.

“I don’t want that much responsibility,” Phoenix jokes, or he’s trying to joke, and it’s true but also not really the reason. “And anyway, ideally you’re not seeing me in action; ideally” - he’s allowed to dream - “we’ll actually have clients and you and Apollo will have your cases, and I’ve got mine, and you’re hopefully too busy to watch me go bungle my second attempt at a career.”

Self-deprecating humor is maybe not the only kind he has left, but it’s definitely that which he knows best how to wield. It started as another weapon in his arsenal against Kristoph: misdirection and diversion by confirming of all the worst that Kristoph thought of him. Phoenix Wright is a lawyer with only luck and no skill; Phoenix Wright has everything he does because some of the fae, and not just any but the royal fae, handed it to him. Phoenix Wright is so goddamn incompetent without them that he stumbled into an enchantment and lost everything he had been given.

(The thing about that last statement was, looking back on the transcript of the trial, he knows even if there hadn’t been enchantments layered on the diary page - Kristoph’s clumsy attempt to fortify Vera’s beautifully-and-unknowingly-cast spell that made it convincing evidence despite its dubious source - he would have presented it anyway. He didn’t have another bluff left. He just had Mia’s advice, believing in his client - he had Mia and that day in court she couldn’t save him. The truth of it: Phoenix Wright, so goddamn incompetent that even with help of the fae he lost everything.)

“Man, all this preparation you do for cases,” Phoenix would say, leaning his elbow on Kristoph’s desk and lazily waving at all the paperwork that he had so carefully organized on his desk. “Ever thought about my tried-and-true wing-it-and-bluff?” he’d ask, and Kristoph would smile tightly and pretend that it was funny and that he didn’t hate Phoenix, and right back Phoenix would pretend that he didn’t hate Kristoph.

(But the thing about carrying on like that was that, at some point, Phoenix came to hate Phoenix too.)

Neither Athena nor Apollo has this in common with Kristoph - because Phoenix is the man who gave Athena her faith that defense attorneys can save people, and because Apollo knows what it’s like to be the flailing, bluffing one, and that it’s not indicative of incompetence but more the kind of bullshit cases they end up saddled with. Neither of them expect the self-deprecation - neither of them agree. (Apollo’s reasons to hate him aren’t these.) And they’re both staring at him trying to figure out whether he believes his own joke, whether “I hope the agency is busy” is just a thin veneer for “I want neither of you around”.

Which - to be fair to them for asking that question, he really doesn’t. Better for them not to find out what it’s like investigating alongside a man as cursed as he is, how those cases twist and turn worse and worse, more than what Apollo has already experienced. The way culprits shift: Redd White moving suspicion from Maya to Phoenix himself; SL-9 falling onto Ema’s shoulders because he tried to save Lana; Ron DeLite going from theft suspect to murder suspect; Godot letting the accusation fall on Maya once Iris was exonerated, just to see if Phoenix was capable of solving the case, whether he’d really been worth it for Mia to save. And then the weirder things: the amnesia, the doppelganger who tried to damn Maggey. Edgeworth escaping a guilty verdict only to make a confession, saved only to die. (“Die”, air quotes. Saving people is a funny thing. They’re only human. And even ones who aren’t human can only do so much.)

All Apollo’s had is a client he personally charged with smuggling, and that was moving a step up from murder.

(Okay, yeah, there were both the Kristoph situations, Apollo exonerating his client by indicting his mentor, and Vera’s poisoning, but Phoenix was there for both of those so he can say those are his fault.)

“Yeah,” Apollo says finally, after he and Athena share a glance that says they’re probably going to be discussing this later, “based on precedent, that’s not happening.”

“Ah, but that’s before you’ve become the heroes of Nine-Tails Vale and Tenma Town, yes?” Phoenix asks with a grin.

Apollo does not share his amusement. “I didn’t set out to be a yokai lawyer,” he says.

Phoenix didn’t want to be a fae lawyer - or, Mia was a fae lawyer, and Phoenix is a lawyer for the fae - and it happened anyway. His career is not something that should be replicated, but it might already be too late for Apollo. “Making names for yourselves, however it happens, is a good start,” he says. “You probably won’t get stuck in a niche from two cases.”

“Y’know, Boss, I hope you’ll sound more confident encouraging your clients than you do with us,” Athena says.

“The clients won’t have your ears, though,” Phoenix says.

“No, you don’t sound at all confident to me either,” Apollo says.

Go figure. Was he always bad at this, or over the years has he lost yet something else? “Noted,” he says. “Thanks for the advice, kids. I’m still gonna recommend you not yell at each other in the front room. Save that shit for after hours.”

Athena chuckles and Apollo sighs and that seems a quick summation of each of their relationships to him. He heads to his desk, finding it cleaner than he remembers it last night, which means either Apollo organized it while he and Athena have been rattling around their cage today, or Mia’s gift to him in honor of passing the Bar again is to give him one day that she’s not on his case for being a disorganized mess.

She’d like Apollo. She does like Apollo, Phoenix sees that plainly, but they should have gotten the chance to work together. Stand in court together. He’s got a whole damn list of people he wishes Mia could have spoken with; all three of the kids are right at the top. It’s not fair, not in the least. It never is.

Athena’s voice drifts loudly in from the front room. “Hey,” Phoenix says, sticking his head back out. “What’d I just say?” he asks. They really don’t respect him at all do they. “If you really have to yell at each other, go back into the kitchen or somewhere.”

“We have a kitchen?” Athena asks.

“Only sometimes,” Apollo says. Right, he’d been taken by surprise by its existence, too.

“Anyway that’s not important right now!” Athena is still yelling. Phoenix ventures further into the room. She points at the television screen. “Apollo! You heard me! We have to go investigate!”

“If we don’t have a client, we’re not gonna be allowed to run around a crime scene,” Apollo says slowly, like that will make the words sink in. “Not unless we were already on site when the crime was discovered, are friends with the detective, and the prosecution is neurotic and stressed enough that he doesn’t care that you’re there, and even then, witnesses aren’t going to talk to you because you aren’t anyone officially on the case.”

Based on how Trucy relayed it, that must be the Tobaye case, over at Sunshine Coliseum, that he’s talking about. “What is it that you want to investigate?” Phoenix asks.

“The aquarium we were just talking about!” Athena sounds frantic, and Widget can’t settle on shock or anger. “The owner was found dead, under suspicion of being murdered! And a suspect in custody! We’ve gotta do something!”

There’d be a lesson here about how she tries to stretch herself thin doing everything that isn’t her job if they had anything else they could possibly be doing, but they don’t.

And then it is their job, because a young woman who looks like she’s just come from a costume party at the beach, barrels in and asks which one of them is Phoenix Wright.

As far as coincidences go, this is one of the sort where Phoenix would worry that Maya had murdered a man and sent the suspect’s friend over to the office to request Phoenix’s help, as a celebration of him getting his badge back. Except Phoenix hasn’t told Maya, yet, and even if it was that, it still wouldn’t account for Athena chattering about the aquarium minutes ago. Chalk one up to the possibility of fate or destiny and move on.

The young woman’s name is Sasha Buckler, and she, as Athena guesses, works at Shipshape Aquarium, the site of one of Los Angeles’ latest murders. Her friend, the accused, is in custody down at the aquarium. And she needs the “Wright” man for the job to help her.

“Don’t tell me she’s here because of a bad pun,” Apollo mutters.

Surely not, and not just because it’s a pretty good pun, all considered. “I’ve been all over the city already, actually,” Sasha says, her mouth set in a hard line, “and all those lawyers said there’s no merit to the case, or they can’t help! Hearts colder than the depths of the Mariana Trench!”

“Ugh!” Now Widget has settled firmly in anger, and Athena once again ready to upend the entire legal establishment. “How awful! To have a friend in need, and no one else on your side…”

This far out of practice and diving in headfirst - he can’t not. It’s why he’s a defense attorney. “Okay, Sasha,” he says, taking a deep breath to steady his stomach, the resuming fear of fucking it all up, “I’ll take your case.”

“You - you will?” The words take a moment to settle, and Sasha lights up. “You will! That’s great! We’d better get to the aquarium right away so you can meet her!”

“All right!” Athena says. “Do you need a lift back? I can drive us!”

“Wait.” Phoenix turns to her. “Athena. You’re not—”

“Not coming? Of course I’m coming! You’ll need a co-counsel, right?” Because the last time he defended without one went so far wrong. “And I’ve been to the aquarium before, and I know a lot more about it, so I can help if Sasha isn’t around!”

That one is a good point, but the sick churning in his stomach resumes. It’s going to go wrong. She’s going to be disappointed in what she finds, what working with him is actually like. How his cases actually go. And she’s already invited herself out the door, taking Sasha with her, asking about the penguins and the puffins and all the other denizens of the sea. Helpless, Phoenix turns to Apollo, who is gesturing at the door with his eyebrows raised questioningly. “You’ve gotta hold down the fort, at least until Trucy gets back,” Phoenix says.

“Right,” he says darkly, seeming to have expected that answer but not happy about it, either. “Got it.”

Phoenix catches up with the girls at Athena’s car, to find himself relegated to the back seat.

The client, Sasha’s friend, the one accused of killing the aquarium owner, is an orca.

Phoenix should have asked Sasha for more details about her friend while they drove over, but she and Athena spent most of their time in loud animated conversation and he hadn’t been sure he could get a word in edgewise. Athena is, apparently, with all her other interests, huge into marine biology, and she establishes her favorite animals practically immediately with Sasha. “I’m more of a dolphins and seals gal, myself,” Sasha said. “You like sea birds though, huh?”

“And dolphins!” Athena says. “They’re so cool - and so smart! I can’t believe you get to work with the orca in the Swashbuckler Spectacular! But birds, yeah, all of them - even sea gulls, ‘cause I hate to project human morality and personal awareness and personality onto animals, but those little bastards definitely know what they’re doing. I remember, way back when I was a little kid, the - the one day we went out to the pier, me and my friend and - my mom and, um, another family friend” - she trips over all the words about people from the past, and she doesn’t talk much about life before Europe, but Phoenix does know that her mother died years ago - “and we tried to get lunch and the gulls—”

After that ride, Phoenix is on the other side of the city, finding out that Sasha either forgot or - he suspects - deliberately didn’t mention the identity of her “friend”, who is a killer whale wearing a pirate hat and fake mustache. “See, when I was asking around for a lawyer for Orla here, I was told about you and your office, that you don’t discriminate against animals - that you’d questioned one as a witness and got your client off the hook that way!” Phoenix wouldn’t call that doesn’t discriminate, but rather fucking desperate, but Sasha is beaming and he doesn’t know how he’s going to turn her down. “And I just knew you were the person who could help me, and save her!”

Who told her about that? Either someone who thought there might be some merit to defending an orca but already had a full caseload on the platter, or someone who’s having a laugh at Phoenix’s expense. Or both. Put both of those thoughts together, and add that ten years after the fact, that someone who spoke with Sasha remembers Phoenix for the parrot stunt and not just the Gramarye debacle, and - oh hell, it was Raymond, wasn’t it.

“I am texting Apollo right now to remind him to tell me about that case,” Athena says, and true to her word she pulls her phone from her pocket. “Right now.”

“That was - that was a lot different.” Phoenix stares at the orca with its head poked up out of the pool. Its little tweets and chirps are cute, certainly, and the hat, but it’s also a fucking orca. It doesn’t talk, is the first of many problems. There’s also got to be a reason they’re called what they are. “So, uh, killer whales, y’know - they don’t eat people, do they?”

Said killer whale pops back out of the water and whistles angrily at him. Sasha glares. “Of course not!” she snaps. “And don’t say things like that in front of her! She’s got feelings, and you’re making her feel bad!”

“Yeah!” Athena chimes in, and Phoenix wonders if he had Apollo here, would Apollo be on his side or not.

“Orla here only eats fish,” Sasha says. “In the wild orcas eat” - she shudders and her pirate jewelry loudly jingles - “seals, too, but we can’t exactly get those, so it’s just tons of fish!” She smiles fondly at the orca, and after several seconds of it making some more noises and smacking the water with its flippers, she says, “Orla says she forgives you for the question.”

Wouldn’t want a killer whale to hold a grudge against him, but either Sasha’s taking the piss out of him, or she actually—

A quick check confirms two things: that Orla the orca is indeed only an orca, which makes this entire situation both better and worse, but Sasha is not merely human.

Shimmering whiskers brush out along her cheeks, and the hands she gestures with are gloved in translucent, grayish-tan flippers, complete with claws on the ends. Dark speckles, most almost star-shaped like the stage makeup around one of Sasha’s eyes, aren’t set against her skin but hover just above it, on the level of her flippers, a second skin invisible in some places but all encompassing. And her features are bold and apparent about her, more than a ghost of a transformation she’s never made - she’s more like Kay, whose feathers are bold along her arms and through her hair, than Lang, who even with the Sight has to be in a certain light for his eyes to glint yellow or a wolf’s ears to show up out of his hair.

The killer whale trainer is a seal. Her other form ranks on the food chain directly below the creature she works with. He could almost laugh.

He doesn’t, of course. That really wouldn’t help shit; Athena would certainly yell at him for it. She’s heated as anything with the detective - a man built like a brick wall as much as Gumshoe is, but even louder and, really, just obnoxious. He introduced himself as “Fulbright” and Athena says they worked opposite him on Mayor Tenma’s case and from that one occasion, three months ago, she obviously has the read on him, and importantly, knows how to manipulate him. She’s ready to fight, teeth bared and fists up, and Phoenix is not going to get in her way.

And Sasha is looking at Phoenix with stars in her eyes, like he’s really the man who can put an end to this nightmare. She’s looking at him the way Athena did all those years ago when she told him she made him believe that it’s possible for a defense attorney to win. The way Apollo did in the courthouse lobby, before Phoenix sent him and the trial both straight to hell.

For someone who actually believes in him, however deserving or not he may be - he’ll do it. Athena’s cracked Fulbright open and provided a window of opportunity. “Detective Fulbright,” he says. “Sasha. I’ll defend Orla in court. Even an orca deserves a fair trial and a thorough investigation. If the aquarium’s owner is dead and can’t take responsibility for her, then I will.”

Sasha beams brighter. Fulbright, finally struck silent, gapes at them. “Oh, so we’re outdoing your last craziness now, huh, Boss?” Athena asks. She smacks her fist into her open palm. “What the helll-eck, what the heck, I’m on board with this! I’ll take responsibility for her too!”

First client with his badge back on his lapel, and it’s a selkie and her orca. The more things change, the more they stay just as goddamn weird as they always have been.

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles

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outweek30 · 5 years ago

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Is adoption an alternative for lesbians and gays seeking legally-sanctioned relationships?

When John and Craig met in an Upper East Side bar in September, 1980, it could have been another classical Manhattan tale of two tricks passing in the night. The pair had little in common. Craig Burns was blond, boyish, 23. He was between jobs, visiting friends in New York. John Eberhardt, 58, was a Fire Island pioneer, having hammered together scores of beach houses in Cherry Grove during the 1940s before constructing his own wedding cake of a mansion, The Belvedere.

Nonetheless, John and Craig did what mismatched people often do. They fell in love. The next week John invited Craig out to the island and, as Craig recalls, "I kinda never left." This past spring, months shy of their ninth anniversary, the couple went one step further to acknowledge their relationship; Craig Burns became Craig Eberhardt. In a judge's chambers in West Palm Beach, John legally adopted his lover. Craig became his son.

* * * *

Adoption is yet another alternative for gays and lesbians who seek legal recognition of their relationships. Many do it to ensure financial protection for lovers in the event of their death; others see it as the only same-sex union likely to be sanctioned by the law in this era.

But adoption is not a foolproof shelter against the bigotry of our legal system. In the early 1980s in New York State, gay adoptions caused a stir in the legal system, challenging the definition of adoption and provoking progressive decisions in two important cases: Adult Anonymous I and II.

In the latter, handled by Lambda Legal Defense Fund's William J. Thom and heard in 1982, a 32-year-old male petitioned to adopt a 43-year-old. Partial motivation was financial; the building where the pair lived was going co-op and the landlord was evicting those not on the lease. Initially dismissed by Family Court, City of New York, the petitioners appealed the case to the State Supreme Court Appellate Division. The decision was reversed and petition granted, since the Family Court decision was based on its narrow interpretation of the nature of family, not the adoption statute itself, which expresses no limitations. "The 'nuclear family' arrangement is no longer the only model of family life in America," the decision challenged.

In addition, constitutional law was cited, where homosexual relations in private are protected in New York under the right to privacy. Through some circuitous logic, it was proposed that a petition for a father-son adoption by two homosexual men raised the spectre of technical incest. However, it was ruled that "incest in general involves blood relatives." More facetious was the subsequent observation: "And, of course, the taboo against incest, grounded in eugenics, has little application in a relationship which can hardly result in offspring."

However, these legal strides were to be reversed two years later. The New York State Court of Appeals, filtering decisions through a screen of homophobia, effectively put a halt to overtly homosexual same-sex adoptions by lovers. In the Matter of the Adoption of Robert Paul P. in 1984, a 57-year-old man was denied his petition to adopt his 50-year-old lover, although they had lived together continuously for 25 years.

Michael Lavery, a New York City lawyer and co-founder of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, handled the case. Lavery, a consistent fighter for gay and lesbian rights, has argued cases for Dignity, the gay Catholic group, and Integrity, the Episcopal sect. He acknowledges the misstep made by the two lovers: they did not attempt to hide the sexual nature of their relationship. The legal gay-bashing continued; the court questioned the validity of adoption as a way to halt an eviction. "It is nothing more than a cynical distortion of the function of adoption."

Most damning of all is this paragraph: "Adoption was never intended as a haven where parties might shelter emotional relationships for which no statutory provision has been made. If the homosexual relationship is to receive legal sanction as a family unit, such recognition must come from the legislature, and not the courts through the guise of adoption."

* * * *

John and Craig were inseparable during the first three months together. In December, the pair were visiting John's cousin, who is also gay, in California. Walking through the celebrated Forest Lawn Cemetery one sunny afternoon, observing the gaudy sculpture and meticulous landscaping, John and Craig came upon a small stone bench. Carved into the decoration was an Irish quotation about true love lasting forever. The lovers impulsively joined hands and recited the quote. "From then on, we decided we were a married couple," Craig said.

But both knew that a two-minute wedding in a cemetery held no legal weight. And as the years passed, and John and Craig grew closer, they began thinking about events that could separate them. The question of a legal relationship became more insistent this past year. A friend of the couple, a septuagenarian psychologist from Manhattan had successfully adopted his 54-year-old lover in order to pass on his magnificent Riverside Drive apartment after he passed on. At the age of 65, John was still hardy and working on constant improvements to The Belvedere. But the issue of a successor loomed, he recalled. Who would look after his 26-room palace?

"For one thing, passing on this empire" — Eberhardt assumes a mock hauteur to his voice — "it takes the right kind of person. I don't know who could do it, except for someone who is talented and capable. My older brother or sister just couldn't manage this, what with the milieu of the town, this gay world." Craig was the only choice.

Craig's concerns about a legal relationship with John were just as keen. "In the case of catastrophic illness, I would be John's next of kin and would have the say about his care and well-being, as opposed to a family throwing me out on the street and putting him in a nursing home." In addition, the pair learned that real estate passed on from father to son is taxed differently than it would be for a commercial transaction. John and Craig were amassing a list of basic rights afforded heterosexuals and denied homosexuals. After several talks with their attorney, who is gay, the two agreed to file papers for adoption.

John recalls the day he and Craig went to the courthouse for their petition, accompanied by their attorney. Amongst rows of mothers and fathers with their small children, John and Craig sat: a smiling gray-haired man of 67, with twinkling mischievous eyes, and a solid, big-limbed blond hunk of 32. Once inside the judge's chambers, Craig recalls, "I told the judge our relationship is like father and son." The matter of ownership of The Belvedere was sidestepped. "They seem to frown on people [petitioning adoption] for financial reasons. They prefer to have people doing it for emotional reasons." The issue of homosexuality was not broached.

Craig required written consent from his parents to agree to the adoption. "They knew that it was, in no way, a slighting of them. I still consider them my parents and our relationship is just as good as it's ever been. This was just a way for John and I becoming legally married like my sister and her husband." In deference to his folks, Craig Richard Burns legally changed his name to Craig Burns Eberhardt. The Burns knew of their son's homosexuality; he had come out to them at age 18 as a prelude to the announcement that he had fallen in love with a man and was moving in with him. The relationship lasted three months.

The final legal step in adoption is the destruction of Craig's original birth certificate, which resides in Chicago. Another one will be issued naming John as his legal parent. Ultimately, there will be no legal record of Craig ever being related to the Burns family.

* * * *

In the case of Robert Paul P., the court avails itself of the same self-reflexive homophobia that was employed in the Hardwick sodomy decision back in 1986. Observing that legislation did not include homosexuals in adoption laws any time since the laws were enacted in 1873, the court questions why the status quo should be upset. Another absurd leap of logic observes that since New York sodomy laws were overturned just in 1980, it seems unlikely that the same legislature would want homosexual relationships themselves acknowledged through adoption. Another decision went so far as to term the notion of sexual intimacy between adopter and adoptee as "utterly repugnant."

In most cases, the court expresses itself carefully in gay or lesbian issues. "Court people are sophisticated enough not to be overt," Lavery said. "The less overt are the ones most difficult to pin down and accuse of anti-gay decisions. No one will say, ‘We're not going to allow this adoption because they're a couple of fags.’”

But read between the lines. The court criticized the men for looking to adoption as a way to legally share a lease and prevent an impending eviction. The legal jargon was merely a smokescreen; once again the court was enacting laws that refused to acknowledge a same-sex relationship. In fact, Lavery points out, "the concept of adopting children is a product of the post-Victorian times." Beginning during the ancient Roman era, adoption was a legal tool for economic, political and social objectives, especially when a wealthy man did not have a natural heir.

But the issue of gay adoption prompts mixed reactions. Paula Ettelbrick, Lambda's legal director since 1985, considers it a flawed strategy, and a compromise to receiving basic gay and lesbian rights. "The effort of our community should be to obtain recognition for our relationships as they are, not subverting nor distorting them into parent-child relationships."

Lavery also has a diplomatic party line. Quietly, he suggests that same-sex couples who maintained the parent-child charade have had their petitions for adoption granted. "One should not assume that after the 1986 Court of Appeals decision, there have been no gay adoptions." After all, he points out, when there is no hitch to the proceedings, the request for adoption is kept confidential. There is no record of successful homosexual adoptions. It is only when the initial petition is denied and the decision appealed that the case finds its way into public record.

Lavery recalls one case where a successful professor in his mid-40s asked to adopt a man in his mid-20s after they had lived together five years. The older man presented himself as advisor and mentor; a role model that the younger man lacked as a child. When challenged as to whether their relationship was actually of a sexual nature, the younger man grimaced and told the court, "No way!" The petition was approved.

He offers an unsettling clarification: "If you were rich and powerful, [lover adoptions] probably could be done," but not for the average guy on he street. Lavery alludes to an internationally- known operatic composer who adopted his young lover, as well as a successful entrepreneur from Chicago who followed suit.

The recent State Court of Appeals case involving Miguel Braschi was a landmark case insofar as acknowledging gay and lesbian relationships. Braschi was awarded his deceased lover's lease after their 10-year union, but this decision will have no impact on the adoption issue, Lavery offered. The courts pulled their punch, he added, in extending the ruling to rent-controlled apartments, not rent-stabilized buildings. Gays and lesbians will still find the need to petition for adoption to maintain cohabitation or property ownership.

The gay psychologist who adopted his younger lover agrees on that count. The man, who requested anonymity, suggested that a real estate pressure group influenced the legislature in the Braschi case. "They've stopped people from using adoption as a way around the problem of losing your apartment if your name is not in the lease. Adoption should be a freedom."

When his lover of 25 years died, the man was left alone in the six-room penthouse apartment on Riverside Drive. Eventually he met his second lover, who moved in six months later. A rash of abusive letters from the man's landlord began to come, insisting that the lover move out since he was not on the lease. "They persecuted us for three years. That was the trick in those days," he said. "They thought the only way to get me out of the apartment was to separate me from my lover. We said 'fuck you' and went through the channels of adoption."

Officially, Lavery will not handle an adoption case where the same-sex petitioners are involved in a sexual relationship. The case is doomed, he insists. NMostcases I handle are done pro bono. It's not worth the time and effort if the case is denied without any advancement." The strategy of gay adoption "is not a winnable battle at this time," he added "A gay sexual relationship will not meet the legal definition of adoption."

"It's necessary to convince heterosexual judges, as well as other gays, that two gay men can have a relationship that is not necessarily sexual." The unspoken message here is: keep a lid on intimacy in court and the petition will sail through. Acknowledge your lover relationship and prepare for rejection. What advice does Lavery give his clients in this situation?

"There's a thin line between deception and downplaying," Lavery says. "If [the partners] can't be frank when the question comes up, it could be disastrous."

Ettelbrick points out alternatives to adoption, adding, "There are ways that we can take care of our vulnerabilities under the law." These include wills, power of attorney designation and conservatorships.

Lavery is guarded in his appraisal of the future of gay legal rights and the recognition of homosexual unions. “We have some ways to go; we are still too conveniently overlooked, unless somebody is waving a sign in your face, saying, ‘What about us?’”

* * * *

John and Craig are sitting in the breakfast nook off the kitchen of The Belvedere, taking a breather from last-minute renovations. By November 1, they will close up the castle and head to Florida to run another guest house called Villa Fontana. Craig ponders the longevity of their relationship, and feels it stems, in part, from a respect for fidelity during sexually liberated days. "We've always been just a monogamous couple," he explained, "and I think that's why it's worked for us this long. We made a commitment to each other, and this year we reinforced the commitment to each other."

— Jay Blotcher, OutWeek Magazine No. 18, October 22, 1989, p. 36.

#outweek #issue 18 #lgbt history #lover adoption #feature #jay blotcher #john eberhardt #craig eberhardt #cherry grove #the belvedere #homophobia #relationship recognition #marriage #photo #scott morgan #michael lavery

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Sales tax attorneys offer essential expertise for businesses during IRS audits, providing guidance, protection, and peace of mind. Discover why legal representation is key for successful audit outcomes and future compliance.

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News top stories daily news hot topics Rescued cat, charging elk, 100 bee stings: News from around our 50 states

News top stories daily news hot topics

News top stories daily news hot topics Alabama

Florence: Agriculture consultants said corn farmers in northern Alabama are seeing some lawful yields on this year’s harvest. Extension Provider coordinators in Colbert and Lauderdale counties said yields will depend on where the cornfields would perhaps presumably be found. The TimesDaily reported that farmers had been out in the fields harvesting for several weeks whereas the climate has been dry. Colbert County Extension Coordinator Danny McWilliams said that elevators are fleshy – a signal of a lawful year with excessive yields. McWilliams said farmers are reporting yields of 170 to 200 bushels per acre. Dealona Bozeman, the grain originator on the Alabama Farmers Coop in Florence, said some farmers are nearing 300 bushels per acre.

News top stories daily news hot topics Alaska

Utqiagvik: Residents of a northern Alaska neighborhood are living to vote on whether to impose the voice’s first tax on most sodas and other sweetened drinks. The Anchorage Day-to-day News reported Sunday that voters in Utqiagvik are scheduled to vote Tuesday on the proposed tax on drinks sold in the city. The proposed ordinance would impose a 1-cent tax per 1 ounce of soda, energy drinks and sugar-sweetened drinks sold in the neighborhood on the voice’s northern tip. Officials said the tax on a 12-ounce can of soda would perhaps presumably be 12 cents. A bottle conserving 20 ounces would perhaps presumably be taxed 20 cents. Officials said the tax doesn't quilt 100% fruit or vegetable juices, milk merchandise, medicinal drinks, baby system, weight-loss drinks, or alcohol.

News top stories daily news hot topics Arizona

Yuma: College of Arizona scientists are embarking on a multiyear find of the Yuma plan in the wake of ultimate year’s E. coli outbreak. The neighborhood will doubtless be partnering with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, voice agriculture officers and local growers to interrogate on the atmosphere and practices in the nation’s “chilly climate vegetable capital.” The College of Arizona announced the difficulty in a release. Researchers with the UofA Cooperative Extension hope to return away with solutions for growers. They're going to score samples of water, sediment and animal fecal subject. The Centers for Illness Control and Prevention came upon a 2018 outbreak linked to romaine lettuce was as soon as to blame for five deaths and the sickening of 200 others. The lettuce was as soon as traced to Yuma. Investigators said the micro organism unfold thru depraved irrigation water.

News top stories daily news hot topics Arkansas

Runt Rock Motorists will pay more to position gas of their vehicles when contemporary sales taxes hunch into attain to aid retain roads and highways. Legislation signed into law by Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson in March will raise $95 million for motorway funding and raises gas taxes in the voice for the first time in 20 years. The rise goes into attain on Tuesday. The gasoline tax will upward thrust by 3 cents to 24.5 cents a gallon and the tax on diesel gas will raise 6 cents to 28.5 cents per gallon. The contemporary law moreover taps into on the very least $35 million in expected income from casinos voters popular final year and imposes an additional registration fee on electric and hybrid vehicles. The price for electric vehicles will raise by $200.

News top stories daily news hot topics California

Palm Springs: A Southern California resident has been hospitalized after being stung by bees bigger than 100 times. The Barren plan Sun reported Saturday that the person was as soon as transported to a wisely being facility after being stung in Banning. The California Division of Forestry and Fire Security said the person was as soon as stung around 12: 25 p.m. Saturday in the city about 23 miles west of Palm Springs. Authorities said one other person had a little want of stings and refused therapy by responders on the scene about 1 mile north of Interstate 10. The second victim drove to the wisely being facility. Neither of the victims was as soon as identified and their scientific conditions were now not identified Saturday.

News top stories daily news hot topics Colorado

Estes Park: Flora and fauna officers are warning of us to retain their distance from elk sooner or later of their mating season after a bull charged of us, knocked a girl down and a glorious deal of times butted her with its antlers. A video on 9News.com confirmed the elk working toward of us and knocking the girl down Thursday stop to the visitor heart in Estes Park stop to Rocky Mountain National Park. The girl escaped after public works employee Brian Berg drove a pickup on the sidewalk and acquired between her and the elk. The elk then rammed the front of the truck. A spokesman for Colorado Parks and Flora and fauna, Jason Clay, told KDVR-TV that bull elks aggressively wrestle over their breeding rights. He said of us must give elk plan even in developed areas and allow them to cross away on their possess.

News top stories daily news hot topics Connecticut

Southbury: Officials said a hiker who was as soon as knocked to the ground by a gloomy endure has been treated for nonlife-threatening injuries. Connecticut Environmental Conservation Police said a 38-year-frail Newtown man was as soon as knocked down by a gloomy endure whereas mountaineering stop to Lake Zoar on Saturday. The man was as soon as able to get away, and the endure took off into the woods. The man was as soon as taken to Danbury Clinical institution and has since been released. Environmental police possess now not been able to search out the endure. Flora and fauna biologists possess living up a trap in the plan. Division of Energy and Environmental Security officers are encouraging the final public to retain their distance in the occasion that they gape a endure.

News top stories daily news hot topics Delaware

New Fortress: County Executive Matt Meyer was as soon as the featured speaker at an match Friday sooner or later of which dozens of county cops confirmed up to say over ongoing contract negotiations between the federal government and the local police union. The county police’s contract expired in March, and negotiations had been underway for nearly just a few year. The negotiations are at loggerheads over wisely being care charges. Friday was as soon as on the very least the second time cops roasted Meyer in public. In July, his face was as soon as placed on a immense inflatable rat out of doors the county’s ice cream competition by picketing police. Jonathan Yard, president of Fraternal Affirm of Police Lodge 5, has said the county has offered contract provides that would perhaps presumably consequence in an overall loss of wisely being care benefits for officers and increased wisely being care charges. Meyer has said every officer was as soon as offered a raise. New Fortress County employs bigger than 300 cops, and the department is one amongst the most costly aspects of local government.

News top stories daily news hot topics District of Columbia

Washington: Residents voiced their considerations about living conditions at a Southeast D.C. condo advanced on Friday evening, WUSA-TV reported. For years, tenants of the Congress Park condo advanced in D.C.’s Congress Heights neighborhood possess complained about mildew and rodent droppings of their housing units. D.C. Councilmember Trayon White held a gathering on the Malcolm X Replacement Center to listen to to considerations about the voice of the housing advanced. The councilmember was as soon as joined by representatives of the D.C. Division of Client and Regulatory Affairs and the D.C. Situation of enterprise of the Attorney Usual as wisely. White admitted the residents’ considerations in Congress Park would perhaps even just still be addressed immediate. However, tenants did now not get a sort of solutions from Congress Park’s property owner and supervisor Friday evening. D.C. tax recordsdata enlighten a neighborhood named “Southeast Washington Pattern Friends LP” owns Congress Park, but they did now not appear like on the assembly. The property supervisor, Edgewood Management of Gaithersburg, Maryland, moreover looked as if it would be absent on the assembly. WUSA-TV emailed the corporate to request a observation relating to the complaints residents possess made about repairs at Congress Park.

News top stories daily news hot topics Florida

Titusville: Carrying gloves to set at bay enamel and claws, firefighters gingerly extricated a cat from the engine compartment of a Mercedes-Benz on Friday morning. The tom cat rescue came about at a home on Las Palmas Drive, in a neighborhood north of La Cita Country Club. The grey cat, Suba Mae, escaped injury, Titusville Fire Battalion Chief Greg Sutton said. “The owner states that she believes the cat bought out an open door final evening,” Sutton said. “The cat’s now not an outdoor cat. And when she went out having a interrogate, she heard the cat meowing beneath the auto.” After being alerted by Suba Mae’s meows, his owner called an emergency dispatcher for aid. “As we tried to get the cat from underneath (the auto), it moved additional and possess was sort of caught. That’s when we had to open the hood and get in that formula to get the cat out,” Sutton said.”It’s something various each day. Most of us mediate cats are getting caught in timber — and I mediate we’ve had as many in cars as we’ve had in the timber,” he said.

News top stories daily news hot topics Georgia

Atlanta: A Georgia-based entirely church neighborhood has returned sacred land in Ohio to the Wyandotte Nation. The Atlanta Journal-Structure reported that the United Methodist Church World Ministries transferred the deed sooner or later of a Sept. 21 ceremony and procession. The land had been held in belief for 176 years by the ministries neighborhood, based entirely in Atlanta. The land – about 3 acres – involves a stone church that dates to 1824 and a cemetery in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. The manager of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma, Billy Buddy, called the land switch “enormous.” He said students, tribal contributors and elders possess visited the positioning to possess a connection to their ancestral land and history. The Wyandotte Nation involves bigger than 6,600 tribal electorate. Most dwell in Oklahoma.

News top stories daily news hot topics Hawaii

Honolulu: An legal reliable representing a neighborhood of Hawaii residents adverse to sort in an Oahu beach park said he plans to opinion a court docket injunction against the venture. The Honolulu Essential person-Advertiser reported Sunday that Tim Vandeveer has filed a lawsuit and expects to purchase additional lawful action against sort inside Waimanalo Bay Sea inch Park. About 140 demonstrators opposing the improvement gathered Saturday on the park’s woodland plan identified as Sherwood Forest, which covers 74 acres. A city spokesman said Honolulu desires to obvious a local to draw a multipurpose field, playground and 11-stall automobile parking zone on the positioning. The official said the $1.43 million venture is a compromise from the city’s 2012 belief to draw a $32 million sports activities advanced and 470-stall automobile parking zone.

News top stories daily news hot topics Idaho

Boise: Officials from Idaho and Taiwan possess signed a two-year, $576 million deal calling for Taiwan flour mills to steal Idaho wheat. The Idaho Press reported the deal requires the purchase of 1.8 million metric many of wheat. Kuo-Shu Fan, director overall of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Situation of enterprise, said Taiwan is Idaho’s second-largest agricultural export destination and Idaho is Taiwan’s sixth-largest export destination. Gov. Brad Runt said he'll lead his first official commerce mission as governor in October to Taiwan’s capital, Taipei. He said the Taiwan Flour Mills Association has introduced delegations to Idaho since 1970. The volume of wheat that Taiwan mills will purchase over the next two years is such as the amount purchased all around the final two years.

News top stories daily news hot topics Illinois

Tinley Park: Two Chicago-plan nonprofit organizations possess collaborated to draw handmade beds for underprivileged formative years and are shopping for more volunteers. David King, president of the Oak Forest chapter of Sleep in Magnificent Peace, said that he and volunteers possess built about 100 beds for formative years in want since he took over the neighborhood in March. Steve Vick, vice president of Tinley Park Lions Club, told the Day-to-day Southtown the neighborhood decided to associate with King’s group and aid them with establishing beds to worth their 70th anniversary. King well-known that Schillings in Mokena donated the inch for building the beds. However other sources, akin to pillows and comforters, were purchased. Vick said their neighborhood is repeatedly shopping for contemporary contributors. He well-known they meet on the third Tuesday of every and every month.

News top stories daily news hot topics Indiana

Evansville: Officials said work will doubtless be completed in November on a venture for permitting the cross of a restored World Battle II naval vessel to a more outstanding space along the Ohio River in downtown Evansville. Crews are in actuality building a company heart and barges so the LST 325 troop touchdown ship can cross to the feeble space of the Tropicana Evansville on line casino boat. Evansville Port Authority chairman Pat Wathen told the Evansville Courier & Press that the $3.6 million venture is on course and inside price range after excessive preliminary building bids delayed work. The ship took fragment in the 1944 D-Day landings in France and has been based entirely in Evansville since 2005. LST 325 board member Chris Donahue said the ship’s cross is deliberate for April.

News top stories daily news hot topics Iowa

Des Moines: The Rev. William Joensen has been ordained because the 10th bishop to lead the Roman Catholic Diocese of Des Moines. The Des Moines Register reported that bigger than 1,500 parishioners witnessed the ordination Friday at St. Francis of Assisi Church in West Des Moines, the diocese’s largest. Pope Francis chosen Joensen, 59, an Iowa native, to interchange feeble Bishop Richard Pates, who retired after conserving the role for bigger than a decade. In his inaugural address, Joensen addressed young of us, asserting that “one of the significant church’s actions in the previous merit reproach” and that reproach of that by younger parishioners was as soon as to be expected. However he implored them to “be open to the info passed down from technology to technology.”

News top stories daily news hot topics Kansas

Emporia: Emporia Narrate College students who are too exhausted to get home can now discover beds on campus. The college is placing in two sleeping pods designed by a San Diego-based entirely company. The soundproof rooms are relatively of wider than a twin bed, with a nightstand and a charging voice. Curtains and window blinds provide privacy. College spokeswoman Gwen Larson said students in overall are seen sleeping in public locations akin to chairs or with their head on a table. She said the sleep pods are safer locations for better sleep. One pod was as soon as installed just as of late in the campus library and one other will doubtless be installed at Memorial Union. The Kansas Metropolis Essential person reported students stationed stop to each and every pod will take a look at students in and be determined that that the majority effective one student at a time is utilizing the sleeping pod.

News top stories daily news hot topics Kentucky

Wurtland: An in a single day fire in a barn has killed thousands of animals in conjunction with 3,000 quails. News retailers reported the fire broke out at Bonzo Farm early Saturday. A assertion from Greenup Volunteer Fire Division said more than one fire departments responded to the blaze, which enthusiastic several barns. Raceland Police said moreover the quails, 1,000 chukars and 100 chickens were moreover killed in the blaze. Neighbor Kayla Wilburn said she would perhaps even undoubtedly feel the warmth from the fire at her home and the flames were about 80 feet in the air. The trigger of the fire is beneath investigation. Bonzo Farm was as soon as purchased by the Bonzo family around 1906. Wilburn said the barn was as soon as an emblem in the neighborhood.

News top stories daily news hot topics Louisiana

Belle Chasse: The federal government is giving a Louisiana parish a $4 million grant to aid enhance the water infrastructure. In a news release, the Division of Commerce says the cash is being given to Plaquemines Parish to present protection to firms from pure mess ups. The grant from the Division’s Economic Pattern Administration will hunch toward building of a recent raw water intake pump voice for the Belle Chasse Water Treatment Plant. The cash comes from a teach federal program designed to aid pay for disaster aid and recovery because Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as wisely as wildfires and other pure mess ups. The grant would perhaps even just still be matched with bigger than $1 million in local cash.

News top stories daily news hot topics Maine

East Machias: An environmental neighborhood said this can release thousands of salmon correct into a river next month as fragment of an effort to aid grow the population of the species. The Downeast Salmon Federation said about 250,000 juvenile Atlantic salmon will doubtless be released into the East Machias River. The venture is fragment of the World Year of the Salmon effort that is taking plan in various nations. The Atlantic salmon is a highlight of conservation in Maine since it’s listed beneath the Endangered Species Act in the US. The fish were as soon as great in U.S. rivers, but populations plummeted because of dams, overfishing and pollution. They now return to perfect a handful of rivers in Maine, in conjunction with the Penobscot River, numbering in overall in the a complete bunch.

News top stories daily news hot topics Maryland

Assateague Island National Seashore: An Assateague Island horse died over the weekend after being struck by an official park automobile, constant with a National Park Provider news release. The incident came about Sunday morning when a chestnut mare identified as Connie’s Lady was as soon as standing on the curve of Bayberry Drive in the predawn hours. Officials said a park automobile struck the horse’s hindquarter before daybreak. The park employee was as soon as now not injured in the collision, constant with the discharge, and the incident remains beneath investigation. Connie’s Lady was as soon as born in April 2018 to mare Ms. Macky, with the doubtless sire being Yankee. The National Park Provider said her band frequented the developed plan and campground of Assateague Island National Seashore and Assateague Island Narrate Park. Connie’s Lady is the 34th Assateague Island horse to be hit by a automobile and killed since 1982, the park said, with one other 17 injured in automobile collisions.

News top stories daily news hot topics Massachusetts

Lawrence: Crews are starting the job of restoring service to the roughly 150 homes and firms whose gasoline service was as soon as disconnected after a leak. Columbia Gas said Saturday all residents displaced by the leak can now return to their homes. Technicians will birth going door-to-door to draw security assessments and relight gasoline appliances. Town is still reeling from a unfavorable assortment of gasoline explosions and fires a year ago. The corporate said Friday’s leak was as soon as an remoted incident in the side road and there was as soon as no affect to customers’ homes.

News top stories daily news hot topics Michigan

Southfield: Oakland County wisely being officers are confirming two contemporary circumstances of rabies in skunks indicate in Southfield and Troy. The confirmations educate a legend final week that a skunk’s carcass moreover indicate in Southfield, supreme north of Detroit, tested obvious for rabies. In March, officers said a skunk in Rochester Hills was as soon as confirmed to possess rabies. Rochester Hills is northeast of Southfield. Residents are counseled to preserve a ways off from skunks, bats, raccoons, foxes, and stray cats and dogs. Rabies symptoms in animals consist of overall illness, swallowing problems and excessive drooling, sluggish and novel circulate, no obvious disaster of folks and aggression. It'll also be deadly to folks after symptoms birth to happen. Deaths will also be completed without with a vaccine administered straight after publicity.

News top stories daily news hot topics Minnesota

St. Paul: Police said there were six drug overdoses in the city in the span of just a few hours final weekend. The police department said in a Fb put up Saturday that investigators suspect in some circumstances of us thought they were utilizing cocaine on the replacement hand it’s doubtless fentanyl or one other drug was as soon as mixed in. KARE-TV reported that the six overdoses came about over a 21/2-hour duration. The incidents caused police to subject an alert to remind the final public of us can’t be prosecuted for looking out for aid for someone who overdoses.

News top stories daily news hot topics Mississippi

Starkville: Agriculture consultants said most of this year’s corn slit in Mississippi is in dazzling-to-lawful condition. The Mississippi Narrate College Extension Provider said in a news release that the voice’s farmers planted 35% more acres in corn this year in contrast to 2018. Corn planting was as soon as delayed by two to three weeks because of heavy rains sooner or later of the spring. The extension service said when corn can’t be planted on the linked old time, farmers in overall swap to soybeans. However, this year’s market outlook was as soon as stronger for corn. The news release said the voice’s corn harvest was as soon as sluggish in August because of a later-maturing slit, on the replacement hand it has long gone immediate in September. The U.S. Division of Agriculture estimated most of Mississippi’s corn slit is in dazzling-to-lawful condition. Fair 7% is taken into story wonderful, and 12% is either sad or very sad.

News top stories daily news hot topics Missouri

St. Louis: The St. Louis Wheel, a 200-foot-great Ferris wheel, opened Monday at Union Space, where a recent aquarium advanced is expected to open in December. The Ferris wheel lights up with 1.6 million LED lights. It involves 42 climate-controlled gondolas that can retain up to eight of us each and every. Rides final about 15 minutes and fee $15 for adults and $10 for formative years. The redevelopment of the feeble prepare voice advanced moreover involves an 18-gap mini-golf route, a carousel and an frail-long-established soda fountain. Union Space for years housed a shopping heart. However its reputation waned, prompting redevelopment into an aquarium and other points of interest.

News top stories daily news hot topics Montana

Billings: A semi hauling a trailer fleshy of roping steers caught fire on Interstate 94 in southern Montana, but now not one amongst the cattle was as soon as injured. The Montana Highway Patrol told The Billings Gazette the motive force was as soon as able to safely purchase away all 103 head of cattle. House residents, some of them on horseback, helped preserve them off the side road till someone volunteered the exercise of a stop-by pen. The cattle had been loaded in Billings on Monday morning and had traveled about 85 miles when one other motorist spotted the fire in the front axle and acquired the motive force to drag over stop to Hysham. The fire in the break melted fragment of the trailer. Trooper Richard Drake said the motorist aged a fireplace extinguisher whereas the motive force unloaded the steers, that are aged in rodeo competitions.

News top stories daily news hot topics Nebraska

Louisville: The Formative years Hunter Training Roar scheduled for Oct. 13 at Platte River Narrate Park provides rivals a chance to hone their shooting abilities and be taught more about wildlife, survival abilities and hunter accountability. The rivals is for youths ages 11 and older who possess successfully completed hunter training and now not yet graduated from excessive college. The project will feature archery, shotgun, muzzleloader, hunter security path, orienteering and a hunter accountability examination. Competitors can register on-line at OutdoorNebraska.org. Contact Christy Christiansen at 402-471-5547 or [email protected] for more data. The project will doubtless be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the Roger G. Sykes Out of doorways Heritage Training Complex. The park sits southeast of Ashland and west of Louisville.

News top stories daily news hot topics Nevada

Las Vegas: Police are investigating a damage-in and vandalism on the Republican Celebration’s headquarters for metro Las Vegas. Officials said a glass door was as soon as kicked in Friday evening, papers were strewn inside the workplace and a espresso-maker was as soon as lacking. Nevada Republican Celebration Chairman Michael J. McDonald said he hoped that these to blame were apprehended “before they commit any other acts of violence …” McDonald said he suspected that “leftist activists” were gradual the damage-in, but Clark County Republican Celebration Chair Dave Sajdak he didn’t mediate the damage-in was as soon as politically motivated.

News top stories daily news hot topics New Hampshire

Concord: As the autumn trying season will get underway, the New Hampshire Food Bank is again amassing donated deer and moose meat for distribution to bigger than 425 food pantries, soup kitchens and other facilities. Closing year, the Hunt for the Hungry program took in bigger than 2,000 kilos of meat. Hunters who participate on this device must process the meat and possess it stamped by a USDA popular butcher. Bruce Wilson, the food monetary institution’s director of operations, said such donations get a mountainous want. He said venison is extremely unique. The food monetary institution is now not accepting endure, bird or wild game birds. Deer season for archers began earlier this month; the season for firearms starts in November. Moose trying season starts in October.

News top stories daily news hot topics New Jersey

Atlantic Metropolis: A lightning strike precipitated energy to cross out in numerous Atlantic Metropolis casinos for several hours early Sunday. Atlantic Metropolis Electrical told the Press of Atlantic Metropolis a energy line was as soon as struck rapidly after 1 a.m., leaving about 9,400 customers without energy. Town’s fire department said it responded to calls from Bally’s Atlantic Metropolis, Borgata Resort On line casino & Spa, Ocean On line casino Resort and Resorts On line casino Resort where patrons were caught in elevators. Workers at Harrah’s were able to get a person out of a caught elevator. Gamblers went on social media to report strolling thru darkened on line casino floors. They were unlikely to lose cash from slot machines due to the the outage. The machines exercise battery-operated, uninterruptible energy provides. Loyalty program playing cards moreover legend all play.

News top stories daily news hot topics New Mexico

Albuquerque: Authorities said bronze shoes at a veterans’ memorial intended to of us who served in the U.S. war on terror had been stolen. New Mexico Veterans Memorial Foundation vice president James Lehner said the bronze shoes were stolen Friday evening. Michael Burd with the New Mexico Veterans Memorial Board of Directors said the five pairs of bronze shoes are worth thousands of bucks. Lehner says thieves moreover took an M16 and helmet that was as soon as on the Vietnam memorial. Albuquerque police and the New Mexico Veterans Memorial said no arrests had been made.

News top stories daily news hot topics New York

New York Metropolis: Hundreds of runners took fragment in the annual Tunnel to Towers 5K Flee and Dawdle on Sunday. The bustle retraces the footsteps of Stephen Siller, a firefighter who was as soon as killed on 9/11 after working in fleshy equipment thru the Battery Tunnel to ground zero. A foundation in Siller’s establish raises cash for wounded veterans and households of fallen first responders.

News top stories daily news hot topics North Carolina

Greenville: Dan Gerlach, the meantime chancellor of East Carolina College, was as soon as placed on administrative leave after photos were printed of him at a bar with students. College of North Carolina Period in-between President Invoice Roper said in a assertion that Gerlach was as soon as placed on leave “in gentle of studies from this previous weekend.” Gerlach said in a assertion on Sunday that he went to a local pub with two adult male acquaintances on Sept. 25. The assertion said movies and photos shared on social media enlighten him “interacting with college-veteran young adults and taking selfies.” The agenda for a determined telephone assembly of the UNC Board of Governors on Tuesday involves a closed assembly to focus on about an govt personnel subject. It’s now not obvious if that dialogue considerations Gerlach, who was as soon as appointed in April.

News top stories daily news hot topics North Dakota

Minot: Sara Medalen, who helps grade college students combating reading and arithmetic, has been named the North Dakota Teacher of the Year for 2020. Medalen is a reading and math interventionist at Minot’s Sunnyside Elementary College. Medalen moreover started capabilities to aid reading, leadership sort, and bodily fitness. Gov. Doug Burgum and Narrate College Superintendent Kirsten Baesler announced the award Monday. Baesler and Burgum will retain a celebration for Medalen in mid-October.

News top stories daily news hot topics Ohio

Toledo: The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority board of administrators voted to rename Toledo Advise Airport after Toledo native and retired NASA flight director Eugene Kranz. The Blade in Toledo reported the board has joined the Toledo Metropolis Council in vote casting to establish the flexibility the Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Advise Airport. Kranz, a feeble fighter pilot, had a 34-year profession with NASA and was as soon as flight director for the Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 moon missions. Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said he casually mentioned the establish swap before broaching the subject on a radio voice in June and the premise won traction. The Federal Aviation Administration must approve officially renaming the airport before the swap will doubtless be made.

News top stories daily news hot topics Oklahoma

Oklahoma Metropolis: Hundreds of of us visited a $132 million park in downtown Oklahoma Metropolis where a weekend sizable-opening included a free dwell performance by Grammy-a success rockers Kings of Leon. Metropolis officers said 28,000 of us attended the enlighten at Scissortail Park, which opened to the final public Friday. More company streamed thru Saturday to ascertain up on out workout routines courses and sample food vans. The park that can in the break quilt 70 acres involves a lake, performance phases and trails. It’s moreover home to a clone of the “Survivor Tree” that lived thru the 1995 Oklahoma Metropolis bombing. The clone will doubtless be transplanted to interchange the common American elm as soon as it dies.

News top stories daily news hot topics Oregon

Salem: Authorities said a prepare derailed north of Salem early Sunday, breaking a utility pole that resulted in energy outages and inflicting a little fire. Michael Williams, a spokesman for Portland and Western Railroad, said by email that there had been no injuries and no risky provides were enthusiastic. He said the trigger is beneath investigation. He said the incident enthusiastic the first eight cars of a 29-automobile prepare and came about at Hopmere. Of the eight cars, he said three carried wood pulp, three carried potassium sulfate and two were empty inch cars. Fire officers in a release said a little, smoldering fire started in the brush because the downed traces and was as soon as extinguished.

News top stories daily news hot topics Pennsylvania

Bloomsburg: Authorities said three of us were injured in a helicopter rupture at a voice dazzling. WNEP-TV reported a pilot and two passengers were in the helicopter when it crashed Saturday about 7: 30 p.m. in the auto parking zone of the fairground. The dazzling was as soon as filled with of us on the time of the rupture. No one was as soon as injured on the ground. The three of us aboard the helicopter were taken to a wisely being facility. Bloomsburg police said the pilot’s condition was as soon as first listed as basic but has been upgraded to stable. The two passengers had minor injuries. Police said the helicopter would purchase fairgoers for a instant rush. The rupture hooked the framing and shattered the windows of several vehicles in the auto parking zone. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Security Board are investigating the rupture.

News top stories daily news hot topics Rhode Island

Newport: The Aquidneck Island Planning Commission has scheduled a dialogue board Wednesday to focus on about coyote habits and the method in which parents possess an affect on their population dimension in Newport, Middletown and Portsmouth. Coyote researcher Numi Mitchell of the Narragansett Bay Coyote Locate will grunt a presentation on coyotes, adopted by a panel dialogue. The Newport Day-to-day News reported the dialogue board is an installment in the Desirable Island Sequence, which is aimed at confronting components the entire island faces. John Shea, govt director of the planning commission, said“What occurs in a single fragment of the island usually affects us all.”

News top stories daily news hot topics South Carolina

Edisto Sea inch: Biologists will draw necropsies on one whale that died and three that were euthanized after becoming stranded on a beach. Lowcountry Marine Mammal Network Director Lauren Rust told WCSC-TV the whales were came upon Saturday morning on Edisto Sea inch, on the replacement hand it was as soon as now not obvious how prolonged they had been there. Marine biologist Peyton Sasnett, who went to the beach, said they looked as if it would be pilot whales. Rust said pilot whales are in overall on the very least 100 miles offshore, “so in case you gape them advance this stop to shore, it’s positively alarming.” Getting outcomes of the necropsies would perhaps even purchase just a few week weeks. Rust said assessments will decide whether the whales suffered inside injuries, a viral an infection or fell in sad health because of human components like ingesting plastic in the ocean.

News top stories daily news hot topics South Dakota

Sioux Falls: The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council has banned the sale, possession and exercise of e-cigarettes on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in gentle of the nationwide outbreak of vaping-linked diseases. The tribal council popular the contemporary ordinance banning e-cigarettes sooner or later of its assembly final week. The most penalty for violating the contemporary ban is either a elegant of $250 or a sentence of 30 days in penal advanced, constant with the ordinance. Tribal President Julian Undergo Runner applauded the council’s “heroic action” final week in response to the deaths that possess came about nationwide because of vaping-linked diseases. Undergo Runner moreover identified as for additional action on tobacco law on the reservation. There had been six circumstances of vaping-linked illness in South Dakota and 805 circumstances total in the US. Twelve deaths had been confirmed in 10 states, constant with the Centers for Illness Control and Prevention.

News top stories daily news hot topics Tennessee

Kingston: The Tennessee Division of Health said trying out by the Tennessee Valley Authority and voice regulators dominated out the presence of coal ash – a toxic stew of chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive materials – in the stop 3 inches of dirt underneath the grass-lined soccer fields on the Swan Pond Sports Complex in Roane County. That linked trying out published the presence in the dirt of many of the substances in coal ash, though at ranges considered protected by the Environmental Security Agency. The wisely being department legend confirmed the dirt is extremely rich in two coal ash substances – arsenic and chromium – but moreover at ranges considered protected by the EPA and conventional of soil sooner or later of Tennessee. The TVA said the legend – made public earlier this month – proves the soccer fields and sport areas are protected for the final public.

News top stories daily news hot topics Texas

Laredo: A boil-water price has been issued for the border city of Laredo because of low chlorine ranges in the municipal ingesting water provide. Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz on Saturday evening announced the boil-water price for the city of about 260,000. He said routine trying out of Laredo’s ingesting water came upon the city did now not retain acceptable disinfection ranges in parts of the system. Saenz said there’s no water shortage in Laredo however the chlorine subject formula a doable wisely being chance. The mayor had no timetable when the boil-water price, issued as a precaution, will doubtless be lifted. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality required Laredo to enlighten all customers to boil their water till additional price. The attention applies to all consumption, in conjunction with for cooking, deepest washing and brushing enamel.

News top stories daily news hot topics Utah

Salt Lake Metropolis: ATVs will doubtless be allowed on determined roads in the five national parks in Utah beneath a recent rule from the National Park Provider that went thru without public observation. The Salt Lake Tribune reported the company told park administrators final week in a memo just a few protection swap that lets in ATVs on predominant access roads and aid roads. It puts the national parks in compliance with a voice law passed in 2008 that lets in any “side road-lawful” automobile on voice and county roads. The guideline takes attain Nov. 1 and perfect applies to national parks in Utah. Agency spokeswoman Vanessa Lacayo said ATVs still can’t hunch off-side road wherever they want. Off-motorway automobile advocacy teams pushed U.S. government officers to make the swap. Conservation teams criticized a rule they said will aggravate web page visitors and parking in parks.

News top stories daily news hot topics Vermont

Burlington: The Rev. Shannon MacVean-Brown has was the first gloomy bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont. A consecration ceremony was as soon as held Saturday for MacVean-Brown. She said her precedence will doubtless be welcoming of us of all backgrounds and ages. MacVean-Brown was as soon as raised in Detroit and most just as of late labored in Indiana. She said she has experienced feeling remoted as a gloomy lady. Now she strives for inclusivity in the church. The Episcopal Church of Vermont has bigger than 6,100 parishioners in 45 congregations sooner or later of the voice. MacVean-Brown succeeds Bishop Thomas Ely, who served for 18 years and is retiring.

News top stories daily news hot topics Virginia

Richmond: Transportation officers are looking out for public input of a find of Virginia’s 179 miles of the Interstate 95 hall. The Commonwealth Transportation Board has initiated a find to draw a belief to establish key subject areas along the hall, between the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Alexandria and the North Carolina border. Feedback offered by communities, industries and others will doubtless be considered as team contributors proceed find of the hall and prepare a draft belief legend in the autumn. The board plans to legend to the Usual Meeting in January. A assortment of conferences will accept as true with doable security and congestion solutions along the hall. The predominant assembly will doubtless be held in Fredericksburg on Oct. 9, following by one in Richmond on Oct. 15 and one in Woodbridge on Oct. 17.

News top stories daily news hot topics Washington

Everett: A ban on single-exercise plastic baggage is living to cross into attain in Everett as fragment of an effort to aid the exercise of recyclable baggage. The Everett Herald reported purchasers in Everett must purchase paper or thicker-plastic score for 5 cents each and every from cashiers because the ban on single-exercise baggage took attain Monday. Officials said the ban moreover applies to ingesting locations and lift-out orders, with an exception for bags aged to prevent spillage. Officials said dry cleansing and newspaper sacks are popular beneath the contemporary ordinance. Staff at a Safeway retailer in Everett said they've already speed out of the thin, plastic baggage and switched to paper baggage. The retailer said this can sell reusable baggage for $1 each and every.

News top stories daily news hot topics West Virginia

Beckley: A competition that celebrates West Virginia’s Rocket Boys has ended its two-decade speed. Author and feeble NASA engineer Homer Hickam told news retailers that the Rocket Boys Competition, which ended Saturday in Beckley, was as soon as the final one. The competition had moved to Beckley in 2012 after it was as soon as held since 1999 in Coalwood in McDowell County. The competition eminent the three years from 1957 to 1960 when Hickam and his buddies launched rockets whereas in excessive college. They in the break won a national science dazzling. Hickam’s novel, “Rocket Boys,” is set these experiences and rising up in Coalwood. The guide was as soon as adapted into the 1999 movie “October Sky.”

News top stories daily news hot topics Wisconsin

Superior: Husky Energy said it has been given approval to rebuild its oil refinery after an explosion and a assortment of fires final year injured 36 of us and required basic of the city to evacuate. Husky, which does enterprise as Superior Refining Company in Wisconsin, said this can open the $400 million belief straight with the target of resuming partial operations in 2021. Wisconsin Public Radio reported that residents and tribal leaders expressed frustration over Husky’s plans to proceed utilizing the extremely toxic chemical hydrogen fluoride as fragment of its refining process. Town’s evacuation was as soon as largely due to the the presence of hydrogen fluoride, which will also be risky to human wisely being. The tank containing the chemical wasn’t broken by the explosion, which was as soon as precipitated by a gap in a valve. The mayors of Superior and adjacent Duluth, Minnesota, moreover identified as on Husky Energy to purchase away hydrogen fluoride from its operations. The Wisconsin Division of Natural Sources popular the allow. Earlier this year, Company CEO Settle Symonds told Wisconsin Public Radio that company officers explored utilizing selections to hydrogen fluoride, but there's no better option. The corporate has said it plans to make security improvements to the existing alkylation unit, in conjunction with a like a flash acid switch system to take grasp of any hydrofluoric acid in case of a release.

News top stories daily news hot topics Wyoming

Laramie: The Laramie Boomerang reported Friday that Joint Training Committee legislatures voted unanimously Thursday to possess the Legislative Provider Situation of enterprise draft a bill limiting the amount of Hathaway Scholarship funds aged for College of Wyoming graduate college. Officials said 70 students aged $270,000 worth of want-based entirely funds to pay for college sooner or later of the 2017-2018 tutorial year and the amount is expected to raise in coming years. Officials said a proposed bill recommends permitting funds to be aged when paying at as soon as for tuition and bills in want to in conjunction with books, room and board and other charges. Officials said one other bill would enable students to petition for a funding raise constant with keeping a excessive grade-point common.

Read or Allotment this yarn: https://www.usatoday.com/yarn/news/50-states/2019/10/01/rescued-cat-charging-elk-bee-stings-news-around-states/40226959/

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selatentp · 5 years ago

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Cave Springs, Arkansas Consumer Credit Counseling Service | (888) 551-1270

https://youtu.be/-Z9lsDJKysg

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from Cave Springs, Arkansas Consumer Credit Counseling Service | (888) 551-1270 via Cave Springs, Arkansas Consumer Credit Counseling Service | (888) 551-1270 November 06, 2019 at 05:52PM Copyright © November 06, 2019 at 05:52PM

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bjblawyerscom · 6 years ago

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Broward County Estate Planning Attorneys

Estate planning in Broward County does not have to be a stressful situation. When you find the right Broward County estate planning attorneys, you will be expertly guided through the process of creating any legal documents you need to provide you and your family with peace of mind.

Some of the services we provide our clients include the preparation of the following:

Will

Power of Attorney

Revocable Living Trust

Irrevocable Trust

Health Care Surrogate

Based in Coral Springs, FL, Brodzki Jacobs & Brook helps individuals, families, and businesses throughout Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade Counties get their affairs in order. Our caring and professional staff of attorneys will help you determine what documents you need.

Why Do I Need to Speak to an Estate Planning Attorney?

Even if you do not have much in the way of assets, there are many reasons why speaking to an estate planning attorney is important:

If you have children, you want to determine who will take care of them if something should happen to you. The only way to ensure that your wishes are carried out is by arranging this legally in advance.

If you do have any assets, you will want to avoid was it called an inheritance tax or estate tax. Without the proper documents in place, your heirs could wind up paying a significant amount of the money you leave them to the government.

In addition to avoiding heavy taxation, it is also important to complete the necessary documents to avoid your estate going into probate. What is probate? Probate is a court-supervised process of determining what will be done with your assets should you die without completing the necessary documents. You can avoid a lengthy and costly legal battle for your heirs by handling all your legal and financial matters in advance.

Advance planning helps you determine what will happen to you should you become incapacitated and unable to speak for yourself. Designating a health care surrogate allows you to decide who will handle your medical needs.

Do you have certain assets you want to give to specific people? If so, designating that in advance will help avoid conflict after you are gone.

Our Broward County estate planning attorneys can help you complete all the necessary documents to protect your loved ones after you are gone. Whether you live in Parkland, Fort Lauderdale, Coconut Creek, Miami, Boca Raton, or anywhere else in South Florida, we can help.

Let Our Professional Team of Broward County Estate Planning Attorneys Protect You

There is no way to know what the future will bring. Waiting until you are older to get your affairs in order is not always the wise move. Accidents and unexpected illnesses happen. The goal is to be prepared in advance for what we hope will never occur. Speaking with one of our experienced estate planners can give you the peace of mind you need that your loved ones will be protected in an emergency. You will be able to designate an executor of estate rather than leave it up to the courts.

For more information, contact our Broward County estate planning attorneys at Brodzki Jacobs & Brook to discuss your options. We are here to provide answers to your questions. Contact us at (954) 344-7737.

The post Broward County Estate Planning Attorneys appeared first on Brodzki Jacobs & Brook.

from Brodzki Jacobs & Brook https://bjblawyers.com/blog/broward-county-estate-planning-attorneys/

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brandrmcom · 7 years ago

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What Is The Process Of Purchasing An Off-Plan Property In Dubai For Offshore Investors?

Dubai has been an attractive property market for offshore investors for some years. Whether you decide to make the move to Dubai or are simply looking to invest in Dubai there are several approaches you can take when buying an off-plan property project in the UAE.

Buying a property in Dubai remains an attractive investment diversification option and a good investment. So, if you’re wondering if offshore investors are welcomed when buying an off-plan property project in the UAE, the answer is most certainly ‘YES’!

Offshore Investors Ownership Restrictions

Freehold titles can only be registered in the name of non-GCC nationals in areas designated for that purpose. These currently include The Palm Jumeirah, Emirates Hills, The Meadows, The Lakes, The Springs, Dubai Marina and Jumeirah Lakes Towers.

Most notably, they exclude most of Deira, Bur Dubai, Jumeirah, and Umm Suqeim.

Similarly, it is no longer legally allowed for property to be registered with the DLD in the name of an offshore company other than one registered in the Jebel Ali Free Zone.

Ownership Paths

Despite these restrictions, there remain several attractive options when buying an off-plan property project in the UAE for offshore investors. Let’s explore the most common ownership structures and review the advantages and disadvantages associated with each approach.

Individual Ownership

Still, the most common form of property ownership amongest offshore investors is to have the title registered in your personal name.

Pros:

It’s simple, quick and relatively easy to buy and sell your off-plan property. You simply go to the Dubai Land Department (DLD) with your passport and sign the documents. Alternatively, you or appoint a representative under a binding Power of Attorney to sign on your behalf.

If the speed of buying and selling is important, individual ownership enabled active off-plan investors to move in and out of property investments with unimpeded agility.

Cons:

Inheritance has always been a slightly murky area in Dubai as individual property ownership exposes you to the uncertainties of Dubai Courts decision on succession issues regarding the property.

Today, however, a legally registered Sharia-compliant will negate most of these issues. For some nationalities, there are also tax implications with rental income and capital gains both possibly falling within the legislative reach of foreign tax regimes.

Joint Individual Ownership

This is most commonly seen in the case of married couples or syndicates coming together to set up an investment portfolio of Dubai properties.

Pros:

It benefits from the same advantages as single individual ownership. It is simple, quick and easy to transfer the off-plan title, albeit you have two or more people to coordinate with legally rather than one.

Cons:

The same concerns regarding inheritance and tax issues remain as with individual ownership. In addition, you should be aware that unlike some jurisdictions where property jointly owned by spouses does not automatically revert to the full ownership of the surviving spouse. In Dubai, the deceased’s share is passed on to his or her heirs and not the surviving spouse.

Again a registered Sharia-compliant will avert most of these issues.

Offshore Company Ownership

This was a popular form of ownership where investors registered real estate assets in the names of corporate entities established in traditional offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands.

Today, unless your offshore vehicle is registered in the Jebel Ali Free Zone it is not permitted for the purposes of owning an off-plan property in Dubai.

Pros:

Corporate ownership avoids the uncertainty of local succession laws. As the company never dies so there is no local inheritance play. Some owners have sought to transfer the shares in the corporate entity to buyers, rather than transfer the property, thereby avoiding the transfer fee otherwise payable to the DLD.

Cons:

Setting up the right offshore Jebel Ali Free Zone structure can take time and is document intensive. There are establishment fees payable to the corporate service providers and, thereafter, annual fees to keep the company in good standing on the offshore register.

Legislative Framework

The critical thing to understand is that not all properties in Dubai are available for sale to foreign or offshore investors. The only properties a foreign investor can legally buy are in special designated “Freehold” Areas.

Article 4 of the Law No.7 ‘Property Law’ permits non-UAE and non-GCC nationals together with companies to own freehold property, the right for a long lease or a use right up to 99 years in the areas of the Emirate of Dubai designated for foreign ownership under regulations delivered by the Ruler of Dubai, the ‘Designated Areas’.

The ownership rights in ‘Designated Areas’ in Dubai depend on the type of the company (offshore or onshore) and the Emirate it is incorporated in.

Currently, offshore companies incorporated in the Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority can hold a property in designated areas in Dubai.

The DMCC (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre) offshore company also has the right to buy a property in Dubai.

However, other offshore companies registered in the UAE in emirates such as Ras Al Khaimah International Corporate Centre and Ajman cannot buy property in Dubai. They can, however, buy property in other Emirates.

The same applies to other international jurisdictions such as British Virgin Islands, Seychelles or Hong Kong. They also are prohibited from buying property in Dubai.

The Process Of Buying An Off-Plan Property Project In Dubai

If buying directly from the developer always check that the developer, the project, and the project’s Escrow account are all registered with RERA. The developer will ask you to sign a Sale Purchase Agreement and pay the initial deposit.

The subsequent payments will follow as per the schedule outlined in the payment plan set out in your contract.

Ensure your developer registers your property with Dubai Land Department via the Oqood registration portal. Depending on what you negotiate with the developer the developer may pay the full fee for registering your apartment or villa, pay half of the cost, or more commonly, you as the buyer will need to pay the full registration cost. Typically this amounts to four percent of the purchase price.

Required Documents

The following documents are typically required when purchasing an off-plan property in the UAE:

Passport copy

Proof of current address

Salary certificates or evidence of regular income

Bank account statements for three to six months, showing salary credits

MOU for the property sale

Title deed of the property being purchased

Seller’s passport copy

No-objection certificate (NOC) from the developer

#Latest Dubai Off-Plan Projects #Off plan properties in dubai #off plan property dubai

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irstaxexpert · 6 months ago

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Are you familiar with regressive taxes? In this blog, we have talked about the use of regressive taxes in an economy, the benefits you can have, and much more. Read the full write-up carefully to learn more.

#tax attorney palm springs ca #lawyer for IRS debt

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brandrm · 7 years ago

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What Is The Process Of Purchasing An Off-Plan Property In Dubai For Offshore Investors?

Offshore Investors Ownership Restrictions

Most notably, they exclude most of Deira, Bur Dubai, Jumeirah, and Umm Suqeim.

Similarly, it is no longer legally allowed for property to be registered with the DLD in the name of an offshore company other than one registered in the Jebel Ali Free Zone.

Ownership Paths

Individual Ownership

Still, the most common form of property ownership amongest offshore investors is to have the title registered in your personal name.

Pros:

If the speed of buying and selling is important, individual ownership enabled active off-plan investors to move in and out of property investments with unimpeded agility.

Cons:

Inheritance has always been a slightly murky area in Dubai as individual property ownership exposes you to the uncertainties of Dubai Courts decision on succession issues regarding the property.

Joint Individual Ownership

This is most commonly seen in the case of married couples or syndicates coming together to set up an investment portfolio of Dubai properties.

Pros:

Cons:

Again a registered Sharia-compliant will avert most of these issues.

Offshore Company Ownership

Today, unless your offshore vehicle is registered in the Jebel Ali Free Zone it is not permitted for the purposes of owning an off-plan property in Dubai.

Pros:

Cons:

Legislative Framework

The ownership rights in ‘Designated Areas’ in Dubai depend on the type of the company (offshore or onshore) and the Emirate it is incorporated in.

Currently, offshore companies incorporated in the Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority can hold a property in designated areas in Dubai.

The DMCC (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre) offshore company also has the right to buy a property in Dubai.

The same applies to other international jurisdictions such as British Virgin Islands, Seychelles or Hong Kong. They also are prohibited from buying property in Dubai.

The Process Of Buying An Off-Plan Property Project In Dubai

The subsequent payments will follow as per the schedule outlined in the payment plan set out in your contract.

Required Documents

The following documents are typically required when purchasing an off-plan property in the UAE:

Passport copy

Proof of current address

Salary certificates or evidence of regular income

Bank account statements for three to six months, showing salary credits

MOU for the property sale

Title deed of the property being purchased

Seller’s passport copy

No-objection certificate (NOC) from the developer

#Latest Dubai Off-Plan Projects #Off plan properties in dubai #off plan property dubai

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jobisitejobs · 7 years ago

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🏡 JOIN ME FLIPPING HOUSES – Will Train 🏡 Your Local Market

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kansascityhappenings · 7 years ago

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New year brings sweeping pot legalization to California

Khalil Moutawakkil, co-founder and CEO of KindPeoples, poses for a portrait with some marijuana plants in his dispensary in Santa Cruz, Calif. Californians may awake on New Year’s Day to a stronger-than-normal whiff of marijuana as America’s cannabis king lights up to celebrate the state’s first legal retail pot sales. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

LOS ANGELES — The arrival of the new year in California brought with it broad legalization of marijuana, a much-anticipated change that comes two decades after the state was the first to allow pot for medical use.

In this Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017 photo pedestrians walk past MedMen a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

The nation’s most populous state joins a growing list of other states, and the nation’s capital, where so-called recreational marijuana is permitted even though the federal government continues to classify pot as a controlled substance, like heroin and LSD.

Pot is now legal in California for adults 21 and older, and individuals can grow up to six plants and possess as much as an ounce of the drug.

But finding a retail outlet to buy non-medical pot in California won’t be easy, at least initially. Only about 90 businesses received state licenses to open on New Year’s Day. They are concentrated in San Diego, Santa Cruz, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Palm Springs area.

Los Angeles and San Francisco are among the many cities where recreational pot will not be available right away because local regulations were not approved in time to start issuing city licenses needed to get state permits. Meanwhile, Fresno, Bakersfield and Riverside are among the communities that have adopted laws forbidding recreational marijuana sales.

In the two decades since the state approved medical marijuana, it was an open secret that if someone was 18, they wouldn’t have to look very hard to find a doctor to write a prescription for a real or imagined health issue requiring marijuana. Now, with weed becoming legal for recreational use, that charade will end for many, and the medical marijuana industry could take a major revenue hit. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

Just after midnight, some Californians were raising blunts instead of champagne glasses.

Johnny Hernandez, a tattoo artist from Modesto, celebrated New Year’s Eve by smoking “Happy New Year blunts” with his cousins.

“This is something we’ve all been waiting for,” he said. “It is something that can help so many people and there’s no reason why we should not be sharing that.”

Hernandez said he hoped the legalization of recreational marijuana would help alleviate the remaining stigma some still believe surrounds marijuana use.

“People might actually realize weed isn’t bad. It helps a lot of people,” he said.

For those who worked for this day, the shift also offered joyful relief.

“We’re thrilled,” said Khalil Moutawakkil, founder of KindPeoples, which grows and sells weed in Santa Cruz. “We can talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of the specific regulations, but at the end of the day it’s a giant step forward, and we’ll have to work out the kinks as we go.”

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin and state Sen. Nancy Skinner were on hand for a ribbon-cutting ceremony as his city began selling marijuana legally. Customers began lining up before dawn Monday outside Berkeley Patients Group, one of the oldest dispensaries in the nation. A big crowd also gathered at Harborside dispensary in nearby Oakland, where customers hoped to be among the first to buy legal pot in the state.

Los Angeles officials announced late last month that the city will not begin accepting license applications until Jan. 3, and it might take weeks before any licenses are issued. That led to widespread concern that long-established businesses would have to shut down during the interim.

However, attorneys advising a group of city dispensaries have concluded that those businesses can continue to legally sell medicinal marijuana as “collectives,” until they obtain local and state licenses under the new system, said Jerred Kiloh of the United Cannabis Business Association, an industry group.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many of those shops, if any, would be open on Jan. 1.

Triple J’s mini cannabis cigarettes in decorative metal containers are displayed at MedMen a marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles. Californians may awake on New Year’s Day to a familiar scent in greater-than-normal concentrations. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

“We are trying to continue to provide patient access,” said Kiloh, who owns a dispensary in the city’s San Fernando Valley area. With the new licensing system stalled in Los Angeles “my patients are scared, my employees are scared.”

The status of the Los Angeles shops highlights broad confusion over the new law.

State regulators have said shops must have local and state licenses to open for business in the new year. But the city’s top pot regulator, Cat Packer, told reporters last month that medicinal sales can continue to consumers with a doctor’s recommendation until new licenses are issued.

The state banned “loco-weed” in 1913, according to a history by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, the pot advocacy group known as NORML. The first attempt to undo that by voter initiative in 1972 failed, but three years later felony possession of less than an ounce was downgraded to a misdemeanor.

In 1996, over the objections of law enforcement, President Clinton’s drug czar and three former presidents, California voters approved marijuana for medicinal purposes. Twenty years later, voters approved legal recreational use and gave the state a year to write regulations for a legal market that would open in 2018.

Today, 29 states have adopted medical marijuana laws. In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana. Since then, five more states have passed recreational marijuana laws, including Massachusetts, where retail sales are scheduled to begin in July.

Even with other states as models, the next year is expected to be a bumpy one in California as more shops open and more stringent regulations take effect on the strains known as Sweet Skunk, Trainwreck and Russian Assassin.

Golden State Greens “budtender” Olivia Vugrin, right, waits on a customer in San Diego, Calif. Dozens of California shops have cleared a final hurdle to sell marijuana for recreational use starting Monday, Jan. 1, 2018, and regulators will work through the weekend to grant more licenses. (AP Photo/Elliot Spagat)

The California Police Chiefs Association, which opposed the 2016 ballot measure, remains concerned about stoned drivers, the risk to young people and the cost of policing the new rules in addition to an existing black market.

“There’s going to be a public-health cost and a public-safety cost enforcing these new laws and regulations,” said Jonathan Feldman, a legislative advocate for the chiefs. “It remains to be seen if this can balance itself out.”

At first, pot shops will be able to sell marijuana harvested without full regulatory controls. But eventually, the state will require extensive testing for potency, pesticides and other contaminants. A program to track all pot from seed to sale will be phased in, along with other protections such as childproof containers.

Jamie Garzot, founder of the 530 Cannabis shop in Northern California’s Shasta Lake, said she’s concerned that when the current crop dries up, there will be a shortage of marijuana that meets state regulations. Her outlet happens to be close to some of California’s most productive marijuana-growing areas, but most of the surrounding counties will not allow cultivation that could supply her.

“Playing in the gray market is not an option,” Garzot said. “California produces more cannabis than any state in the nation, but going forward, if it’s not from a state-licensed source, I can’t put it on my shelf. If I choose to do so, I run the risk of losing my license.”

In 2016, the state produced an estimated 13.5 million pounds of pot, and 80 percent was illegally shipped out of state, according to a report prepared for the state by ERA Economics, an environmental and agricultural consulting firm. Of the remaining 20 percent, only a quarter was sold legally for medicinal purposes.

That robust black market is expected to continue to thrive, particularly as taxes and fees raise the cost of retail pot by as much as 70 percent.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2018/01/01/new-year-brings-sweeping-pot-legalization-to-california/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2018/01/01/new-year-brings-sweeping-pot-legalization-to-california/

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gossipnetwork-blog · 7 years ago

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Pot in 2018: What to Expect

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/pot-in-2018-what-to-expect/

Pot in 2018: What to Expect

When it comes to cannabis, 2017 was a much better year than anyone was expecting. Back in January, stoners and pot moguls alike were super paranoid about incoming Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his plans to shut down legal weed businesses from coast to coast. After a decade of steady progress on marijuana legalization – with about 90 percent of the country now supporting medical use and eight states having legalized recreational use – was the entire movement going to come crashing down?

A year later, almost no one believes there will be a federal crackdown on the entire cannabis industry. State-legal pot markets seem poised to match or exceed the value of black market pot by 2020. Sessions has admitted that marijuana is not as dangerous as heroin, and his tension with Trump is common knowledge. With the biggest state in the country about to begin recreational sales, and more and more politicians enviously eyeing the tax revenue coming out of places like Colorado and Oregon, legal pot is clearly here to stay. So what kinds of developments can we expect in the weed world for 2018?

The first legal marijuana lounges Let’s start with some great news: there are totally going to be legal marijuana lounges in the United States before the end of 2018! The biggest question is which city will get one open first: Las Vegas, West Hollywood, Boston or Denver. Considering nothing in Massachusetts is quite final yet, the smart money is on Denver, which actually passed a ballot initiative allowing licensed consumption spaces for marijuana back in 2016 but has had a fair amount of trouble implementing the law. You won’t be allowed to smoke, you have to bring your own cannabis, and you have to sign a document saying you won’t drive yourself home, but there’s a good chance the country’s first legal weed lounge will be in the capital of Colorado. Right now the front-runners for who might open first are a café called The Coffee Joint and a vape bar with an arcade called… wait for it… Vape and Play.

If you’re looking a pot hotspot where you can actually, you know, smoke pot, you might want to hold out for Vegas. “I think we’ll have an ordinance voted on and approved by late March or early April,” says former Nevada legalization campaign manager and current weed lobbyist Scot Rutledge. “I don’t know that they’ll be open by 4/20, but they should be open by the one year anniversary of recreational sales” – meaning by July. Sadly, the first Vegas pot lounges won’t be on the Strip, which is technically not in the city of Las Vegas, but they’ll be a short Lyft ride away and you’ll be able to smoke. Huzzah!

A few hours to the west, several cities in California have expressed interest in allowing cannabis social spaces, including West Hollywood, Palm Springs, San Francisco and Oakland. Advocate and aspiring lounge owner Jackie Subeck says the first ones will likely open their doors in West Hollywood this fall – including some spots where you will be allowed to buy pot on site and then smoke or vape it, just like a bar. “There’s also going to be standalone lounges where you can’t smoke or vape but you can buy infused products, like a bakery, or a spa with cannabis treatments,” Subeck says.

Confusion and a “bloodbath” in California Even though California will finally begin allowing the sale of recreational marijuana on January 1st, 2018, a lot of people are very nervous about how that is going to go. The state has had a largely unsupervised medical cannabis program in place since 1996 and now is trying to impose a strict regulatory regime on an enormous population of entrepreneurs and criminals, many of whom have never followed rules before.

Dispensaries have cropped up across California, but new regulations could mean the end for many of them. Jim Wilson/The new York Times/Redux

“Look at what happened here for the last 20 years. It was anarchy,” says Lord Jones founder and CEO Rob Rosenheck, whose posh weed-infused chocolates and lotions have become a celebrity favorite. “I think it will be a sloppy, chaotic, rough-and-tumble transition that will take 12 to 24 months to work itself out.”

Multiple people who I spoke with used the term “bloodbath” to describe the number of weed businesses they believe will fail.

“You can’t afford to suck,” says Jeremy Plumb, director of production science at the marijuana growing company Prūf Cultivar and the co-founder of Farma, one of Portland, Oregon’s most successful dispensaries. “There will be a massive oversupply in California, and the only people that will survive are either the ones that are super affluent and able to take every blow, or the ones that are really doing something with care and an unbelievable depth of skill.”

Of course, there is another option for California weed businesses that can’t cut it in the legal market: stay underground and ship their products out of state.

“The key word in 2018 is enforcement,” says Jason Pinsky, the cannabis producer on Viceland’s Bong Appetit and the chief cannabis advisor at marijuana delivery app Eaze. “In California, 90 percent of the brands that are out there are either going to disappear, or they’re going to operate illegally. It’s almost like the California weed industry is like an avalanche: to some degree, it’s unstoppable. You’re going to need to hire a lot more people in the policing business if you want to make it so all of these companies are going to stop doing business.”

The end of “indica” and “sativa” Pot snobs have been complaining about how meaningless the terms “indica” and “sativa” are for years, but I’m starting to think that 2018 will finally be the year when this concept hits the public. According to stoner lore, indica weed produces a sedating “body” high and comes from a plant with shorter, fatter leaves, while sativa weed creates a more uplifting “mind” high and comes from a plant with longer, thinner leaves.

But Plumb, the Portland dispensary co-founder, has been growing cannabis for decades, and finds these terms “absolutely offensive to any intelligent soul. There is no scientific basis where we can parse indica and sativa. You cannot connect morphology, a broad or narrow leaf, to the experience of a chemical phenotype. That’s just a fucking massive disconnect.”

So what, pray tell, will replace this false classification? How will we describe marijuana strains in the future? Most likely we will begin focusing more on the entire chemical mix of what’s in our weed – what’s known as the cannabinoid and terpene profile. THC is the most famous cannabinoid, as it’s the one that gets you high, but there are several other relevant compounds that can affect how a pot product makes you feel, including the physically relaxing CBD, the sleep-inducing myrcene and the lavender-smelling linalool.

“If you think about weed as a vehicle, THC would be the gas pedal, and the terpenes are your steering wheel,” says Pinsky, who has overseen quite a bit of public education regarding the variety of compounds found in cannabis on Bong Appetit.

Instead of indica and sativa, we’ll have a wealth of terms to describe marijuana. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

A few of the people I spoke with suggested that in 2018, more weed businesses will talk about the effects of various compound formulations in tinctures and vape pens, even if the indica/sativa distinction remains part of how dispensaries sell actual pot for another couple of years. Already, well-informed budtenders at high-end pot shops are helping customers make smarter choices that have nothing to do with the false dichotomy of body high versus mind high.

“The tiniest bit of education results in consumers being able to access these distinctive chemotypes, which open the door to novel effects,” Plumb says.

Canada takes over the world In these times of tumult and prohibition, our kindly neighbors to the north are looking more and more savvy. While the federal government in the United States continues to insist that marijuana has absolutely no medical benefit, making commerce exceedingly difficult for anyone working with state-legal weed, Canada began the process of making pot available to all adults as soon as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office in 2015. Now, with millions of marijuana dollars flowing through Canadian stock exchanges and recreational sales set to begin in 2018, the Canadian cannabis industry seems poised to dominate the globe.

“These Canadian companies have access to money that no one in the U.S. has, and they’re going to kill us,” says Kris Krane, the president and co-founder of cannabis operations and consulting firm 4Front Ventures. “We’re ceding the future of the industry to Canada. They’re going to buy everybody.”

Canada will begin recreational sale of cannabis in 2018. Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press/AP

There is a truly mind-boggling amount of weed money flying around up there. The Wall Street Journal reported in September that about half of the trading activity on the Canadian Securities Exchange involved marijuana businesses. That’s right: half of all of the trading on the entire exchange was related to pot. Meanwhile, down in the U.S., there’s pretty much no chance in hell that a dispensary or grow operation could even get listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

At the same time, Canadian pot companies are starting to acquire pieces of pot companies in other countries, as well as export their product to places like Germany, Brazil and Australia. Then again, not every investor is afraid of Canada.

“Once the U.S. opens up, well, Canadians are nice people, but the U.S. will still dominate,” says Evan Eneman, the managing director of Snoop Dogg’s weed-focused venture capital fund, Casa Verde Capital. “The top line revenue of a licensed producer in Canada is probably still smaller than a single retail location in Los Angeles.”

Economic concerns replace philanthropy For a long time, marijuana legalization has been funded by progressive billionaires hoping to improve our criminal justice system – people like tech mogul Sean Parker, investor George Soros and the late Peter Lewis, who started Progressive Insurance. But heading into the elections 2018, fundraisers and political operatives say that the way we’ve been legalizing is changing. Not only are we running out of states that allow the billionaire-funded ballot initiatives that have been the primary driver of legalization, but the billionaires themselves are starting to move on.

“There’s definitely a shift. The social justice folks who had funded legalization up to now seem to have moved on to other issues,” says David Kaufman, a cannabis consultant who served as director of outreach and statewide partnerships for Proposition 64, the 2016 ballot initiative that legalized recreational use of marijuana in California. “The funders behind Proposition 64 are not necessarily going to be the folks that legalize in any other states.”

In the past few years, the political motivations behind marijuana legalization have become increasingly economic, whether it’s politicians hoping to rake in the tax revenue or businessmen paying to lobby for an industry worth over $40 billion. In 2015, a group of investors – including former 98 Degrees lead singer Nick Lachey – attempted to legalize marijuana in Ohio such that all legal cannabis would need to be grown on property owned by the people who paid for the ballot initiative.

While that initiative failed, it may have signaled the beginning of the end of legalizing weed with the goal of keeping people out of prison. In the past year, several prominent cannabis activists either retired or left the movement. Now, many are saying that legislative change will need to rely more on money from the pot industry itself, which could tip the nature of legalization toward helping the rich get richer, rather than accounting for the injustices of prohibition.

Possible legalization in New Jersey will mean mounting pressure on New York New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is not about that weed life. He somehow still thinks that pot is a gateway drug, and wouldn’t even allow the state’s medical marijuana program to include actual bud. But by the end of 2018, he may be rethinking his position.

Phil Murphy will be the next governor of New Jersey – which will almost certainly mean cannabis legalization in the state. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images

With recreational marijuana sales set to begin in Massachusetts over the summer and incoming New Jersey governor Phil Murphy poised to legalize pot as quickly as possible, there’s a good chance that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers will soon be doing a sort of reverse commute – driving or hopping a train out to the suburbs to pick up legal weed. Even Connecticut seems close to legalizing, with some predicting the state will turn in the next two years.

“If Jersey and Connecticut both do it through the legislature, New York is surrounded. New York City is surrounded. You could take a PATH train from Manhattan and be in New Jersey in 15 minutes,” says Krane, the president of 4Front Ventures. “When sales figures start rolling out from dispensaries in Hoboken and Jersey City, elected officials in New York City are going to throw a fit.”

Of course, most insiders say that there is no way New Jersey will begin recreational sales in 2018. The state could expand their existing medical program significantly, but it will likely take another year or two to write and implement a full legalization bill.

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