bans

Some of our finest contemporary writers got their laurels Friday night at the 46th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes ceremony at USC’s Bovard Auditorium.

At the awards ceremony, which opens the annual L.A. Times Festival of Books weekend, Oakland-born writer Amy Tan and literary nonprofit We Need Diverse Books received achievement honors, and finalists in 13 other categories became prize winners.

The presenters and awardees who took the stage balanced a spirit of playfulness — Times senior editor Sophia Kercher called the weekend’s festival “my personal Coachella” and Times columnist LZ Granderson saluted his fellow “booktroverts” — and one of reverence as they celebrated writing as an instrument for advocacy, imagination and history-keeping.

As Bench Ansfield virtually accepted his award in the history category for “Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City,” which exposes a pattern of landlords setting residential fires to collect insurance payouts, he said, “It’s a scary time to be a historian in the United States.”

“Our field, like so many other fields, is under attack,” Ansfield said. “To understand the crises in front of us, we have to understand our history.”

Among the crises highlighted was AI encroachment, the subject of science and technology category winner Karen Hao’s “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.” The AI expert and investigative journalist’s book is a critical investigation into the rise of OpenAI and its impact on society.

In Hao’s acceptance speech, read by presenter Jia-Rui Cook in her absence, the author said she “can’t help but be disturbed by how the themes of this book have grown more relevant by the day.”

“That said, I have never been more hopeful of our chance to advance a different future,” the author said, adding that L.A.’s history of resistance movements — including the recent Hollywood strikes — made it an apt place to accept her award.

“Gatherings like this are one of many radical acts of resistance against the imperial project that seeks to strip us of our meaning and our humanity,” Hao said. “Let us continue to resist defiantly together and let us remember lessons in history: When people rise, empires always fall.”

Tan echoed Hao’s sentiments as she accepted the Robert Kirsch Award, which celebrates literature with regional and thematic connections to the Western United States, for her acclaimed portfolio of writing exploring identity and cultural inheritance — often through the lens of the immigrant experience.

In her speech, “The Joy Luck Club” writer said that while she never particularly considered herself a “political writer,” her stance on that has changed as government actions have made her think critically about her own identities.

“My birthright and that of millions of others is now being argued before the Supreme Court, and no matter what the outcome is, it’s been a kick in the gut to know that those in the highest echelons of government and those who support them believe that we don’t belong.”

As an author, Tan said, “I imagine the lives of the people I write about,” and that act of compassion, for writers, inherently “reflects our politics and our beliefs. And so yes, I am a political writer.”

Later, Caroline Richmond, executive director of We Need Diverse Books, celebrated the work of her nonprofit — the recipient of this year’s Innovator’s Award — which has made it so her daughter “has never really had to look that far to find herself on the page.”

Still, she said ongoing book bans are threatening those strides toward a more diverse literary marketplace.

“The work is very much far from over,” Richmond said, “but I have to remind myself that the people banning books are never the good guys in history, and it’s up to us in this room and beyond — as readers, as book lovers — to fight back because diverse books, we really need them now more than ever.”

As the ceremony wore on, the room was as charged with celebration as it was with resistance.

When writer-editor and former child actor Adam Ross accepted the Christopher Isherwood Prize for “Playworld,” a semi-autobiographical novel about a teen growing up in 1980s New York, he gleamed with joy about his second novel being out in the world and finding readers.

“When it became clear to me that I was writing something that was going to be a lot bigger and take a lot longer than I planned, I promised myself I would use all of my ability to capture my experience of a particular era in an enduringly magical city, and to hopefully express it in such a way that any reader willing to embark on a journey with me, but upon finishing close the book and say, ‘Yes, I know exactly what that was like,’” Ross said in his acceptance speech.

“Winning this award makes me feel like I succeeded in that endeavor,” the author said.

Other winners included Ekow Eshun, who topped the biography category for “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them,” which parses Black masculinity as embodied by various civil rights activists, philosophers and other visionaries, and Bryan Washington, who accepted the fiction award for “Palaver,” which details the tense reunion of a Jamaican-born mother and her queer son, who are navigating years of estrangement in Tokyo.

The 31st annual L.A. Times Festival of Books will host 500-plus authors and celebrities and 300-plus exhibitors across more than 200 events including panels, book signings and cooking demonstrations. Top-billed guests include musician-memoirist Lionel Richie, veteran actor and recent Golden Globe Carol Burnett Award honoree Sarah Jessica Parker, and the mastermind behind “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Larry David.

The schedule for the Saturday-Sunday event can be found here.

Here’s the full list of finalists and winners for the Book Prizes.

Robert Kirsch Award

Amy Tan

Innovator’s Award

We Need Diverse Books

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

Adam Ross, “Playworld: A Novel”

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

Andy Anderegg, “Plum”

Krystelle Bamford, “Idle Grounds: A Novel”

Addie E. Citchens, “Dominion: A Novel”

Justin Haynes, “Ibis: A Novel” | WINNER

Saou Ichikawa translated by Polly Barton, “Hunchback: A Novel”

Achievement in Audiobook Production, presented by Audible

Molly Jong-Fast (narrator), Matie Argiropoulos (producer); “How to Lose Your Mother”

Jason Mott, Ronald Peet, and JD Jackson (narrators), Diane McKiernan (producer); “People Like Us: A Novel”

James Aaron Oh (narrator), Linda Korn (producer); “The Emperor of Gladness: A Novel”

Imani Perry (narrator), Suzanne Mitchell (producer); “Black in Blues”

Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, Jeff Ebner, David Pittu, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Mark Bramhall, Petrea Burchard, Robert Petkoff, Kimberly Farr, Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Peter Ganim, Jade Wheeler, Steve West, and Jim Seybert (narrators), Kelly Gildea (producer); “The Correspondent: A Novel” | WINNER

Biography

Joe Dunthorne, “Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance”

Ekow Eshun, “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them” | WINNER

Ruth Franklin, “The Many Lives of Anne Frank”

Beth Macy, “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America”

Amanda Vaill, “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution”

Current Interest

Jeanne Carstensen, “A Greek Tragedy: One Day, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis”

Stefan Fatsis, “Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary”

Brian Goldstone, “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America” | WINNER

Gardiner Harris, “No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Fiction

Tod Goldberg, “Only Way Out: A Novel”

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Mia McKenzie, “These Heathens: A Novel”

Andrés Felipe Solano translated by Will Vanderhyden, “Gloria: A Novel”

Bryan Washington, “Palaver: A Novel” | WINNER

Graphic Novel/Comics

Eagle Valiant Brosi, “Black Cohosh”

Jaime Hernandez, “Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection” | WINNER

Michael D. Kennedy, “Milk White Steed”

Lee Lai, “Cannon”

Carol Tyler, “The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief”

History

Char Adams, “Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore”

Bench Ansfield, “Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City” | WINNER

Jennifer Clapp, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters”

Eli Erlick, “Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950”

Aaron G. Fountain Jr., “High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America”

Mystery/Thriller

Megan Abbott, “El Dorado Drive” | WINNER

Ace Atkins, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World: A Novel”

Lou Berney, “Crooks: A Novel About Crime and Family”

Michael Connelly, “The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel”

S.A. Cosby, “King of Ashes: A Novel”

Poetry

Gabrielle Calvocoressi, “The New Economy”

Chet’la Sebree, “Blue Opening: Poems”

Richard Siken, “I Do Know Some Things”

Devon Walker-Figueroa, “Lazarus Species: Poems”

Allison Benis White, “A Magnificent Loneliness” | WINNER

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Jordan Kurella, “The Death of Mountains”

Nnedi Okorafor, “Death of the Author: A Novel”

Adam Oyebanji, “Esperance”

Silvia Park, “Luminous: A Novel” | WINNER

Science & Technology

Mariah Blake, “They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals”

Peter Brannen, “The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World”

Karen Hao, “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI” | WINNER

Laura Poppick, “Strata: Stories from Deep Time”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Young Adult Literature

K. Ancrum, “The Corruption of Hollis Brown”

Idris Goodwin, “King of the Neuro Verse”

Jamie Jo Hoang, “My Mother, the Mermaid Chaser”

Trung Le Nguyen, “Angelica and the Bear Prince” | WINNER

Hannah V. Sawyerr, “Truth Is: A Novel in Verse”

Reporting from Sacramento — California cities and counties won’t be allowed to tax soda for the next 12 years after Gov. Jerry Brown signed fast-moving legislation Thursday.

The bill, which was first unveiled Saturday evening, prohibits local governments from imposing new taxes on soda until 2031. It comes after a deal was struck between legislators and business and labor interests who agreed to remove an initiative from the Nov. 6 statewide ballot that would have restricted cities and counties from raising any taxes without a supermajority vote of local citizens.

In a signing statement, Brown said soda taxes “combat the dangerous and ill effects of too much sugar in the diets of children.” But he added that mayors across the state called him to support the deal because they were alarmed by the tax initiative.

Brown also reacted strongly to another part of the initiative, which would have restricted the state’s ability to raise certain fees without a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.

“This would be an abomination,” Brown wrote.

Many lawmakers shared Brown’s mixed emotions toward the soda tax ban.

During debate on the legislation, Assembly Bill 1838, legislators said they reluctantly voted to impose the moratorium because the ballot measure, for which signatures were gathered by a political campaign financed by more than $7 million from the beverage industry, would have been worse for state and local government coffers.

Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) said he was against both the soda tax ban and how the beverage industry used the threat of an initiative to force the Legislature’s hand, but ultimately supported it.

“I think this is a terrible decision that we’re making,” McCarty said during a state Capitol hearing on the bill Thursday morning.

Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) voted against the deal, but said he understood the choice his colleagues were making.

The beverage “industry is aiming basically a nuclear weapon at governing in California and saying if you don’t do what we want, we’re going to pull the trigger and you are not going to be able to fund basic government services,” Wiener said. “This is a pick-your-poison kind of situation, a Sophie’s choice. What the Legislature is doing is perfectly reasonable.”

Coverage of California politics »

Minutes after Brown signed the soda tax ban, proponents formally withdrew their initiative from the statewide ballot. The deadline to do so was Thursday.

The initiative wouldn’t have banned local soda or other tax increases. But it would have made them much harder to pass. It would have required all local tax hikes to pass by a two-thirds supermajority vote, making it significantly more difficult for cities and counties to raise revenue for a variety of projects.

Currently, any local sales, hotel-room or other tax increase needs a simple majority of local ballots that are cast — provided that the money goes to a city’s day-to-day operating budget. Roughly half of the local tax measures approved by voters since 2012 — raising hundreds of millions of dollars annually — did not receive supermajority approval, according to the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Public health advocates have been pushing for soda taxes across the United States for years, saying that higher prices would reduce consumption amid growing rates of obesity and diabetes while also generating more revenue for local governments. By contrast, the beverage industry has argued such taxes make it harder for low-income residents to buy groceries and unfairly single out soda as the cause of health problems.

Thirty cities and states attempted to pass soda taxes before Berkeley became the first to succeed in November 2014, charging a penny-per-ounce tax. Since then, three other Bay Area cities — San Francisco, Oakland and Albany — have passed soda taxes. The soda tax ban leaves those measures intact, but prohibits others that would have taken effect this year. Earlier this week, Santa Cruz city officials voted to put a 1.5-cent-per-ounce soda tax on the November ballot, an effort that will be blocked under the new state legislation.

California Legislature nears deal to temporarily ban soda taxes »

Activists were stunned by the quick action on the soda tax ban. Carter Headrick, director of state and local obesity policy initiatives at the American Heart Assn., said using a ballot initiative to leverage lawmakers to prohibit soda taxes in communities across California was “blackmail.”

“I don’t think the [beverage industry] ought to be forcing legislators to be taking away the rights of people to vote,” Headrick said.

Some lawmakers attacked the deal because they supported the initiative. Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Temecula) said that Thursday’s decision subverted the will of Californians who wanted to keep their taxes low.

“This bill tells 1 million people that signed this petition to make it harder to raise their taxes that their voices don’t matter,” Stone said.

The American Beverage Assn., which represents soda companies and other nonalcoholic drink manufacturers, contributed 85% of the initial $8.3 million raised by backers of the ballot measure.

A spokesman for the association said that the legislation would keep grocery prices lower and that the industry was working to find alternatives to reduce sugar consumption.

“We believe the legislation approved today will allow us to work toward these goals,” association spokesman William M. Dermody Jr. said in a statement.

Labor interests added momentum to the eleventh-hour soda tax ban legislation, saying the initiative would be far more damaging to the state.

“A temporary pause on further local soda taxes gives California the opportunity to work on a statewide approach to the public health crisis of diabetes,” Alma Hernandez, executive director of SEIU California, said in a statement.

liam.dillon@latimes.com

Twitter: @dillonliam

UPDATES:

6:30 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from a beverage industry spokesman.

3:55 p.m.: This article was updated with Gov. Jerry Brown approving the soda tax ban and details about the withdrawal of a local tax ballot initiative.

This article was originally published at 12:45 p.m.

KATIE Price has been banned from driving for the seventh time – meaning she’s spent six years since 2010 barred from getting behind the wheel.

The ex-glamour model and mum-of-five’s latest run-in with the law comes after a Ford Capri registered to her was caught at 80mph on the A64 near Strutton in North Yorkshire.

CCTV released by police shows the 47-year-old behind the wheel during the incident on October 15, 2025, the same day Price appeared on stage with celeb pal Kerry Katona for An Evening with Katie Price & Kerry Katona at Scarborough Spa.

She has now been prosecuted and convicted of failing to respond to police, landing her with a six-month driving ban and a legal bill topping £1,000.

A judge previously described her as having “one of the worst driving records” they had ever seen.

The TV personality has also admitted it had been very hard to get the insurance she needs because of her history with driving.

PAY THE PRICE

Katie Price banned from driving for SEVENTH time over 80mph speeding ticket

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Kerry Katona swerves punch row question about Katie Price’s husband

Speaking previously to The Sun, Price also said she was sure someone she knows had left anonymous complaints to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), accusing her of being “not fit to drive” to stop her getting her licence back.

Katie Price’s seven driving bans

• Ban 1 – December 2010: Price was given 12 points between June 2008 and December 2010, resulting in a six month ban
• Ban 2 – August 2012: She was slapped with a 12-month ban after failing to respond to two speeding tickets
• Ban 3 – February 2018: The star was banned for another six months for failing to give details about the person driving her speeding car
• Ban 4 – January 2019: Price was banned for a further three months for driving while banned
• Ban 5 – November 2019 she was issued with another ban, this time for two years – which was eventually cut to 18 months on appeal
• Ban 6 – December 2021: Price was arrested for turning over her BMW and as a result was banned for a sixth time for two years
• Ban 7 – April 2026: Court papers show Price was charged with speeding and failing to give information relating to the identification of the driver of a vehicle after being caught driving at 80mph

Ban 1 – December 2010

In June 2008 she was given three points for talking on her phone while behind the wheel.

In July 2010 she was given another four points for speeding at 99mph, and a further three that September for veering from her lane in her 7½-ton pink horsebox.

Price’s first ban, for six months, came that December after she was given three more points for doing 83mph.

Ban 2 – August 2012

In August 2012, she was slapped with a 12-month ban after failing to respond to two speeding tickets.

Ban 3 – February 2018

In February 2018, the star was banned for another six months for failing to give details about the person driving her speeding car.

Ban 4 – January 2019

The following January saw Price banned for a further three months for driving while banned, and then a month later was slapped with another three months.

Ban 5 – November 2019

Later that November she was issued with another ban, this time for two years – which was eventually cut to 18 months on appeal.

Ban 6 – December 2021

In September 2021 Price was arrested for turning over her BMW in a drink driving smash in Horsham, West Sussex, and as a result was banned for a sixth time for two years and given a suspended sentence that December.

Repeat offenders would usually face a minimum of 12 weeks behind bars but her sentence was reduced below the custody threshold after she entered rehab while on holiday in Las Vegas.

At Crawley magistrates’ court on December 14 2021, District Judge Amanda Kelly admitted the public would be “appalled” — and that Price deserved to be spending Christmas behind bars.

She added: “Your actions on that night were incredibly selfish.

“When you chose to get behind the wheel of the car that night, you showed no consideration for others.

“You could have killed someone’s child, partner, parent or friend.

“You appear to think, it seems, that you are above the law.”

Speaking about the incident to The Sun, Price said: “I could have killed myself.

“I could have killed someone else. I deserved to be punished, enough was enough.

“Getting in the car was a terrible mistake I’m so sorry for.

“That was a prime example of me having been triggered and not knowing how to handle it, an example of me spiralling out of control because I needed help.”

Ban 7 – April 2026

Price’s latest conviction and driving disqualification was dealt with last week in the Single Justice Procedure, a secretive court process where magistrates deal with criminal cases behind closed doors.

Court papers show Price was charged with speeding and failing to give information relating to the identification of the driver of a vehicle.

The Ford Capri was caught on a speed camera on a 70mph stretch of the A64 at 3.03pm on October 15 last year.

She was sent a police letter about the incident on October 20, and a reminder on November 10, warning her of looming criminal proceedings.

However, the police force said no response was received to either letter.

Magistrate Claire Sagar, sitting at Harrogate Magistrates’ Court last Tuesday, found Price guilty of the failure to respond to police charge, ordering her to pay a £660 fine, £120 in costs, and a £264 victim surcharge.

Due to the secretive nature of the court process, it is not known if Price was given the chance to argue against another driving ban, it is unclear whether the court knew of her previous driving record, and the records do not reveal if she already had penalty points on her licence.

The speeding charge was withdrawn by the police.

The Sun has approached Price’s reps for comment.

FROM beautiful islands and incredible beaches, Italy has everything you need for a summer holiday – which is why it welcomes around 70million tourists in peak season.

Now, it’s cracking down on overtourism and is putting in place new rules that could affect your next break, from day trip fees to a lack of outdoor dining.

Tourist taxes

Plenty of Brits will flock to Venice this summer to see its incredible waterways.

For anyone taking a day trip to the city from other Italian hotspots, you will have to pay a tourist charge.

In 2026, day trippers will have to pay a fee if they visit from Friday to Sunday in April, May, June, and July.

The day trip access fee is €5 (£4.36) per person for anyone over age 14, if booked in advance.

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If a trip is booked less than four days in advance this increases to €10 (£8.72) – visitors can ‘reserve’ a day in Venice here.

You don’t have to pay the day trip tax if you’ve booked an overnight stay.

Another spot that has introduced tourist tax is the lower area of the Trevi Fountain in Rome.

The fountain in the heart of the city is known to be a beloved influencer spot, and to combat overcrowding, it’s introduced a Rome a €2 (£1.75) charge.

This charge applies daily from 9AM to 10PM (or 9PM depending on official updates) for access to the steps nearest the water.

But if you head to the upper piazza, viewing the fountain remains free.

Outdoor dining bans

While you can still enjoy eating outside in the sunshine, Florence has seriously cut down on the amount of outdoor dining.

In streets around Ponte Vecchio like Piazzale degli Uffizi and Via Roma, you won’t find any outdoor dining spaces whatsoever.

And around 73 other surrounding streets, there’s a restriction on the number of seats on the pathways in an effort to combat congestion.

While some restaurateurs aren’t happy with the new rules, locals have said the new rules are needed as the narrow streets can’t cope with the outdoor terraces.

Some said it had made roads unliveable, and like an “obstacle course”.

From April 1, 2026, Florence will also ban rental e-scooters in the city center.

For more summer breaks – here are our favourite TUI holidays…

*If you click on a link in this box, we will earn affiliate revenue

Globales Montemar, Ibiza

This hotel sits on a quieter side of Ibiza, so you can soak up the island’s natural beauty away from the party crowds. This family-friendly option has a large pool that curves around the resort, surrounded by plenty of sunbeds, plus a kids zone. Here you’re just a 10-minute stroll from a horseshoe-shaped bay with clear waters.

BOOK HERE

Hotel Club Jandia Princess, Fuerteventura

This resort is set up like a small village, with low-rise buildings set among palm trees and six different swimming pools. Entertainment spans from DJ nights to bingo and live sports screenings, plus sports on offer include water polo, rifle shooting and shuffleboard.

BOOK HERE

Gavimar Cala Gran Costa Del Sur, Majorca

This hotel sits on Majorca‘s Cala Gran Beach, a beautiful cove just a short drive away from the coastal town centre, with its trinket shops and relaxed bars. The hotel itself has all the activities and entertainment you’d expect, including bingo and live music – as well as some unique extras like mini golf and archery. Week-long breaks start from £478pp.

BOOK HERE 

Riu Baobab, Senegal

The Riu Baobab is the only TUI hotel in the country, situated on the Pointe Sarane coastline. There are the four huge pools overlooking the beach, swim up pool bars and a copious amount of sunloungers to choose from. The sushi at the Asian Dorayaki and the pasta dishes at Veneto are the highlight meals of this standout hotel. Week-long breaks start from £883pp.

BOOK HERE

Tourist caps

The island of Capri is incredibly busy during the summer, seeing as many as 50,000 visitors each day during July and August.

To minimise disruption to locals, it’s introducing some new rules.

In order not to block the narrow streets on the island, etiquette similar to travelling on the tube has been requested for large groups – stay on the right on the way up and left on the way down.

When it comes to tour groups, each must be a maximum of 40 people in an attempt to control overcrowding.

And tour guides that lead more than 20 tourists at a time use wireless earpieces rather than loudspeakers.

It’s not just Capri cracking down on the amount of tourists visiting at one time.

In the Dolomites, a ski resort called Madonna di Campiglio, has been limiting daily passes to 15,000 – rather than the usual 23,000.

In other places, a time slot is must be booked before entry, like the Via dell’Amore hiking path at Cinque Terre in the Liguria region.

Here’s more on Italy from one Sun Writer that visited one of Italy’s busiest towns off season.

And here are the insider tips from one writer who lives in Europe’s biggest tourist-trap cities.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that state laws forbidding “conversion therapy” for minors may violate the free speech rights of licensed counselors.

The 1st Amendment ruling is likely to undercut similar laws in California and 23 other states.

In an 8-1 decision, the justices said Colorado’s ban on “talk therapy” may prevent Christian counselors from helping teens work through their feelings about sexual attractions or their gender identity.

State lawmakers passed the new measures in response to healthcare professionals who said that efforts to change a teenager’s sexual orientation were both ineffective and harmful.

Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor in Colorado Springs, sued and argued the state’s law violated her rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

She said she does not seek to “cure” young clients of same-sex attractions or to “change” their sexual orientation. Instead, she said she is guided by their goals.

“As a talk therapist, all Ms. Chiles does is speak with clients; she does not prescribe medication, use medical devices or employ any physical methods,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said for the court.

But she could run afoul of the state’s law because she said she may help some of her clients “reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions or change sexual behaviors.”

If so, the law “censors speech based on viewpoint” and is therefore unconstitutional, he said.

“Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. But the 1st Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country,” Gorsuch wrote.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented alone in a 35-page opinion. She said the issue was one of regulating medical practice.

“The 1st Amendment cares about government efforts to suppress ‘speech as speech’ (based on its expressive content), not laws, like [Colorado’s] that restrict speech incidentally, due to the government’s traditional, garden-variety regulation of such speakers’ professional conduct,” Jackson wrote. “States have traditionally regulated the provision of medical care through licensing schemes and malpractice regimes without constitutional incident.” she continued.

The Trevor Project, a crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ young people, condemned the ruling.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to treat the dangerous practice of conversion therapy as constitutionally protected speech is a tragic step backward for our country that will put young lives at risk. These efforts, no matter what proponents call them, no matter what any court says, are still proven to cause lasting psychological harm,” Chief Executive Jaymes Black said in a statement.

The conservative First Liberty Institute called the ruling a “great victory for religious liberty.”

“Americans should never have their professional speech censored simply because the government disfavors that speech,” said Kelly Shackelford, the group’s president.

The ruling is the third significant defeat for LGBTQ+ rights advocates in the last year.

The conservative majority upheld state laws that prohibit puberty blockers and other “gender affirming” care for minors. And last month, the justices said parents in California have a right to know about their child’s gender identity at school.

They said California’s student privacy policy violated parents’ rights, including the free exercise of religion.

The Alliance Defending Freedom appealed her case to the Supreme Court and described her as “a practicing Christian [who] believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design.”

Her clients “seek her counsel precisely because they believe that their faith and their relationship with God establishes the foundation upon which to understand their identity and desires,” they said. “But Colorado bans these consensual conversations based on the viewpoints they express.”

The state law defines “conversion therapy” as “any practice or treatment by a licensee that attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to … eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

Violators may be fined up to $5,000, but no one had been fined, the state says.

The challengers had lost in the lower courts.

A federal judge and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver rejected the free speech claim. By a 2-1 vote, the appeals court said the state law was not a ban on free expression. Rather, it regulated the conduct of licensed medical professionals. States have the authority to regulate the practice of medicine.

In their appeal to the high court, lawyers for Chiles said the state was “censoring” voluntary conversations and forbidding speech on only one side of a controversy.

The Trump administration supported the 1st Amendment challenge because the state seeks “to suppress a disfavored viewpoint.”

In response, the state said its law “safeguards public health” by prohibiting “a discredited practice” that was shown to be harmful. It stressed the law regulates licensed professionals only and does not extend to religious ministers or others who provide private counseling to young people.

In 2012, California was the first state to ban licensed counselors from using conversion therapy for minors.

Then-Gov. Jerry Brown said these “change” therapies “have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.”

Equality California condemned the court’s ruling and said it “has weakened the ability of state licensing boards to intervene if clinicians use unproven, misleading, or coercive techniques.”

The group urged support for a pending bill in Sacramento that would “extend the statute of limitations for survivors to pursue civil claims against licensed mental health providers who subjected them to these harmful practices.”

Tuesday’s ruling was also criticized for undercutting state regulations of medical practice a year after taking the opposite view in a Tennessee case.

In June 2025, the court in a 6-3 decision upheld laws in Tennessee and 24 other red states that prohibit “gender affirming” puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors.

The majority said then it was deferring to the state and their lawmakers who decided to prohibit such medical treatments for minors.

But in the Colorado case, the court majority did not defer to the state’s judgment that conversion therapy was harmful and potentially dangerous.

The decision is also the third victory for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom in its free speech challenges to Colorado laws. A maker of custom wedding cakes and the designer of websites won suits seeking an exemption from the state law that required them to provide equal service for same-sex weddings.

Court dismissed xAI claim that measures were taken after plaintiff produced video of nude person shortly before hearing.

A Dutch court has ordered Elon Musk’s xAI to stop generating and distributing nude images of people without their consent in the Netherlands, warning it would impose fines of 100,000 euros ($115,350) per day for noncompliance.

The Amsterdam District Court ruled Thursday that xAI’s Grok artificial intelligence tool and the X platform that hosts it were barred from “generating and/or distributing sexual imagery” featuring people “partially or wholly stripped naked without having given their explicit permission”.

The decision in a civil suit was one of the first times a judge has weighed in on xAI’s responsibility for creating tools that can be used to create sexualised images, amid a flood of complaints and investigations over Grok in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Grok was launched by Musk in 2023 and distributed through his social media platform X, which is now part of his rocket and space exploration company SpaceX.

Offlimits, a Dutch centre monitoring online violence, took legal action in cooperation with the non-profit Victims Support Fund over a Grok feature allowing users to ask it to create hyper-realistic deepfake montages of naked women and children using real photos.

At a hearing this month, xAI lawyers had argued it was impossible to guarantee that abuse on its platform could be prevented, and the company should not be punished for the actions of malicious users.

They said the company had taken measures in January to prevent Grok from editing images of real people in revealing clothing, including restricting its image creation features to paid subscribers.

The court website said the judge had decided that Offlimits had shown there was reasonable doubt over the effectiveness of the measures taken to date. “For example, Offlimits managed to produce a video of a nude person using Grok shortly before the hearing,” it stated.

Offlimits director Robbert Hoving said the “burden is on the company” to make sure its tools are not used to create and distribute nonconsensual sexual images, including of children.

Earlier on Thursday, the European Parliament approved a ban on artificial intelligence systems generating sexualised deepfakes, after global outrage over non-consensual Grok-produced nudes.

Home Affairs Department said decision to ban Iranian visitors amid the war on Iran was in Australia’s ‘national interest’.

Australia has temporarily banned visitors from Iran, claiming that the United States-Israeli war on the country has increased the risk that Iranian passport holders could refuse or be unable to fly home once their short-term visitor visas expire.

Australia’s Department of Home Affairs said on Wednesday that the restrictions on Iranian visitors would be for a period of six months, describing the move as in the “national interest amid rapidly changing global conditions”.

“The conflict in Iran has increased the risk that some temporary visa holders may be unable or unlikely to depart Australia when their visas expire,” the Home Affairs Department said in a statement.

“This measure gives the Government time to assess the situation properly, while still allowing flexibility in limited cases,” it said.

The ban applies to Iranian citizens who are currently outside Australia – even if they have an Australian visitor visa for tourism or work.

Exceptions to the ban include Iranian citizens already in Australia, those currently in transit to Australia, spouses, de facto partners, or dependent children of Australian citizens, and those with permanent visas.

Exemptions will also be considered on a case-by-case basis, such as for the parents of Australian citizens, the department said.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said decisions on who can remain permanently in Australia should be made by the government and should not be the “random consequence of who booked a holiday”.

“There are many visitor visas which were issued before the conflict in Iran that may not have been issued if they were applied for now,” he said.

Burke added that the government is monitoring developments and “will adjust settings as required to ensure Australia’s migration system remains orderly, fair and sustainable”.

The Sydney-based Asylum Seekers Centre said in a post on social media that the ban on Iranian visitors was the result of a “shameful new law” rushed through Australia’s parliament that “threatens the very foundations of Australia’s onshore protection programme” for those seeking safety.

“For years, politicians have been stressing the importance of seeking safety through so-called legal routes,” the group said.

“Now, in the face of an international humanitarian crisis, the government is slamming the door shut and blocking a key pathway for people seeking safety today and in the future,” it said.

Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump called on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to give the Iranian women’s football team asylum in Australia amid fears that players may face repercussions at home for failing to sing their national anthem before a Women’s Asian Cup 2026 match in Queensland.

Albanese later told reporters that five team members had sought assistance and “were safely located” by Australian authorities.

In total, seven players and officials were granted asylum in Australia, though five team members later reversed their decision to stay in Australia and chose to return home.

The Iranian team had arrived in Australia to participate in the football tournament before the US and Israel launched their attack on Iran on February 28.

According to Australian government figures up to 2024, more than 90,000 Australian residents were born in Iran, and large diaspora communities are present in major cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.