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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for September.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a push to avoid a lawsuit alleging that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users, a decision that comes as social media companies increasingly face legal scrutiny.

Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. appealed after Vermont's highest court allowed a suit filed by its attorney general in 2023 to move forward. The company is facing similar lawsuits from states across the country, accusing it of knowingly designing addictive features.

Meta had argued that it can't be sued in Vermont court because neither the company nor the app design has specific ties to the state. Vermont countered that the sites' large number of teen users gives its courts jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. The procedural decision comes after court losses for Meta and YouTube in social media addiction lawsuits in California and New Mexico.

Vermont's lawsuit was filed after an investigation by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in several states. Newspaper reports based on Meta's own research also found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.

Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media "almost constantly," according to the Pew Research Center.

Meta, for its part, has said that it has already introduced dozens of tools to support teens and their families and suggested it would have worked with the states on standards for youth social media use.

Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark applauded the decision, saying it affirms "that companies that choose to do business in Vermont, like Meta, can be held accountable when they harm kids."

An appeals court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump's executive order suspending asylum access at the southern border of the U.S., a key pillar of the Republican president's plan to crack down on migration.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that immigration laws give people the right to apply for asylum at the border, and the president can't circumvent that.

The court opinion stems from action taken by Trump on Inauguration Day 2025, when he declared that the situation at the southern border constituted an invasion of America and that he was "suspending the physical entry" of migrants and their ability to seek asylum until he decides it is over.

The panel concluded that the Immigration and Nationality Act doesn't authorize the president to remove the plaintiffs under "procedures of his own making," allow him to suspend plaintiffs' right to apply for asylum or curtail procedures for adjudicating their anti-torture claims.

"The power by proclamation to temporarily suspend the entry of specified foreign individuals into the United States does not contain implicit authority to override the INA's mandatory process to summarily remove foreign individuals," wrote Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.

"We conclude that the INA's text, structure, and history make clear that in supplying power to suspend entry by Presidential proclamation, Congress did not intend to grant the Executive the expansive removal authority it asserts," the opinion said.

The administration can ask the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling or go to the Supreme Court.

The order doesn't formally take effect until after the court considers any request to reconsider.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking on Fox News, said she had not seen the ruling but called it "unsurprising," blaming politically-motivated judges.

"They are not acting as true litigators of the law. They are looking at these cases from a political lens," she said.

Leavitt said Trump was taking actions that are "completely within his powers as commander in chief."

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the Department of Justice would seek further review of the decision. "We are sure we will be vindicated," she wrote in an emailed statement.

The Department of Homeland Security said it strongly disagreed with the ruling.

"President Trump's top priority remains the screening and vetting of all aliens seeking to come, live, or work in the United States," DHS said in a statement.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that previous legal action had already paused the asylum ban, and the ruling won't change much on the ground.

The ruling, however, represents another legal defeat for a centerpiece policy of the president.

"This confirms that President Trump cannot on his own bar people from seeking asylum, that it is Congress that has mandated that asylum seekers have a right to apply for asylum and the President cannot simply invoke his authority to sustain," said Reichlin-Melnick.

Advocates say the right to request asylum is enshrined in the country's immigration law and say denying migrants that right puts people fleeing war or persecution in grave danger.

Lee Gelernt, attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the case, said in a statement that the appellate ruling is "essential for those fleeing danger who have been denied even a hearing to present asylum claims under the Trump administration's unlawful and inhumane executive order."

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, welcomed the court decision as a victory for their clients.