A Nevada Native American tribe may have a solution for Las Vegas who visitors who want to consume legally purchased marijuana without breaking the law.

The NuWu Cannabis Marketplace recently opened the Vegas Tasting Room, a consumption lounge where patrons can legally try various pot products, despite recent state legislation that has postponed the licensing of such lounges for two years.

“We’re able to do this because [we’re] on our sovereign land here,” Benny Tso, a member of the governing council of the 65-member Las Vegas Paiute Tribe,

Although it’s legal to buy recreational cannabis products in Nevada if you’re over 21, they can’t be smoked in public. They may be used in a private residence, but hotel rooms generally don’t fall into that category.

“We just wanted to offer a safe, friendly environment, an open space to taste products before you buy them,” Tso said.

Deborah Good Bear and Eric Schell, both from Bismarck, N.D., were visiting and headed for NuWu, which is about a mile from downtown Vegas, to indulge.

Within minutes, the couple was trying dabs, a concentrated cannabis resin that is heated before being inhaled. The hits cost $8 to $9 for one-five-hundredth of a gram.

“This is the top-notch, crème de la crème of your high-resin extractions,” Eli Rivera, NuWu’s head “budtender,” said of the dabs. “They’re a lot more potent.”

A couple of minutes later, Schell said, “I feel pretty mellow.” Good Bear added, “I feel kinda tired.”

Guests are discouraged from overindulging, just as they are at a bar that serves alcohol. Rivera said people are told occasionally that they have been cut off. Employees will call a cab or ride-service car for someone who cannot drive safely.

“We like to have security nearby, to make sure no one is overconsuming,” said hostess Ali Flores. “We just give them little bits at a time to consume and then check on them periodically.”

Flores provides people with a menu before they pay for their orders.

THC-infused gummy candies and chocolates cost $10. Infused beer, fruit drinks and teas are also $10. Pre-rolled rolled joints cost $20. Package deals start at $75 and let guests try various products before heading out to the expansive store.

“That’s kind of what we wanted to aim for: Come in here, taste it and then go out there and buy bigger quantities,” Flores said.

The lounge, which has leather sofas and big-screen TVs, could be just another bar, except for the distinctive odor.

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“We try to create an open-air, non-seedy, welcome atmosphere,” Tso said.

The Vegas Tasting Room is open noon to 8 p.m. Sundays through Wednesdays and noon to midnight Thursdays through Saturdays.

Six miles south, Planet 13 Las Vegas, just a few blocks west of the Strip, competes with NuWu for the title of largest dispensary. Both businesses welcome about 3,000 customers each day.

Planet 13 hopes to increase its business by offering new features, including a coffee house, a restaurant and glass walls through which visitors can watch infused candies and drinks being made.

Cannabition, Vegas’ pot-themed museum, plans to move from its downtown location to Planet 13 next year.

But Planet 13 can’t offer a smoking lounge, at least not in the immediate future. The Nevada Legislature won’t take up the issue of bud bars until at least 2021.

“We’ve got a lot of the infrastructure built and ready to go,” said co-Chief Executive Bob Groesbeck. “It’s just that we need the blessings of the state and local governments. And that’s not going to happen right away.”

It was a quick sale for “Young and the Restless” actress Melissa Ordway and her husband, singer-songwriter and actor Justin Gaston, who found a buyer for their Lake Balboa home after an about week on the market. The charming single-story sold for $715,000, or about $24,000 less than the asking price, records show.

In the front, a white picket fence and landscaped yard complement the bold blue exterior. Outside, a window-lined sun room opens to a dining patio with a detached garage.

The sunny living spaces feature varying shades of blue on the walls and two tones of hardwood on the floors. There’s a living room with a white-painted brick fireplace, a chandelier-topped dining area and a kitchen with quartz countertops and a subway tile backsplash.

Three bedrooms and two bathrooms complete the 1,355-square-foot interior. One of the bedrooms currently functions as a recording studio.

Nathaniel Smith of Compass held the listing. Shannon McNamara of Redfin represented the buyer.

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A native of Georgia, Orway starred in “Hollywood Heights” before joining the cast of “The Young and the Restless” as Abby Newman in 2013. Gaston, 31, was a contestant on the reality singing competition series “Nashville Star” and has also appeared on “Days of Our Lives.”

For the most part, “Very Ralph,” the HBO documentary film about fashion designer Ralph Lauren, that premieres at 9 p.m. Pacific on HBO on Tuesday, looks as glossy and aspirational as one of the brand’s advertising campaigns.

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Directed by Susan Lacy (whose first documentary for the pay-cable network in 2017 focused on director Steven Spielberg), the film strives mightily to paint a portrait of Lauren, the man (who turned 80 in October) behind the brand (fresh off notching a half-century in business), through the use of archival footage, photos and plenty of interviews with family, friends and a particularly deep bench of fashion-industry folks including designers, models, retailers and journalists.

For all that, though, the result feels more like a broad sketch than a portrait, adding little to the origin story that begins with a guy from the Bronx walking into Bloomingdale’s with a handful of wide neckties and ends with a globally recognized fashion brand steeped in American nostalgia and optimism, celebrating with a 50th-anniversary Central Park fashion show. (That being said, if you’re not familiar — at all — with that story, and you wear clothes, then definitely add it to your must-watch list.)

Part of that’s understandable because the documentary sprints to cover the arc of Lauren’s extraordinary half-century career in an hour and 48 minutes. However, there are also plenty of moments when Lauren, or someone in his employ, touches on a topic that either doesn’t neatly fit the narrative (the company’s financial challenges in the early 1970s, for example) or says something that begs an explanation (like Lauren’s proclamation that he loves “military, safari, western and English riding” — essentially the foundation of the Ralph Lauren look — but never says why) that end up being almost glossed over in pursuit of the bigger picture.

That being said, the documentary does manage to serve up a few surprising (and a few totally random) factoids about the designer and features some seriously startling celebrity cameos. (Spoiler alert: If you don’t want to know who turns up to offer their insight, read no further.) Otherwise, here are some of the surprises.

1. Changing the family’s last name wasn’t Ralph’s idea

Ralph’s brother Jerry, an executive at the company, reveals that changing the family last name from Lifshitz to Lauren was his idea — not Ralph’s.

2. The most surprising fashion designer to weigh in isn’t Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein is among the fashion designers who help put Lauren’s work in context, and others appearing on camera include Jason Wu and Diane von Furstenberg. However, it’s the brief on-screen appearance by Karl Lagerfeld, (who died in February) that symbolically speaks to Lauren’s place in the pantheon of fashion-designers-turned-global-icons.

3. A flurry of fashion firsts

Among the fashion firsts Lauren has under his chunky western-style belt: He was the first fashion designer to design a full home collection (according to Margaret Russell, a former editor in chief of Architectural Digest); the first designer to open up his own retail stores (so sayeth Klein); and the first American designer to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

4. Some celebrity cameos we didn’t see coming

In a documentary like this, you’d expect on-camera insight from the likes of Martha Stewart, Anna Wintour and André Leon Talley Newsman Tom Brokaw and filmmaker Ken Burns offering their thoughts are a little of out of the curve but still sort of make sense. However, it’s Hillary Clinton, Woody Allen and Kanye West who make the “Very Ralph” guest list truly eclectic.

5. There’s a princess phone in his past

When Lauren and Ricky were young marrieds in the Bronx, they were the proud owners of a turquoise-colored princess phone. Which, proves, perhaps, that globally celebrated fashion designers suffer from the occasional lapse of good taste.

BEIRUT — 

One recent Saturday in Souq al Ahad, a ramshackle flea market that springs up every weekend under a highway bridge in East Beirut, an antique dealer recoiled as a customer counted off Lebanese pounds to pay for a small bag of trinkets.

“If you’re paying in pounds, the price is more,” he said. “We’re just not getting U.S. dollars at the normal exchange rate.”

The customer handed over some more bills.

Three weeks of unrest, with a quarter of Lebanon’s 4 million people protesting to demand an overhaul of the government, has renewed fears for the national currency.

For the last 22 years, its value has been pegged by the government at 1,507.5 pounds per U.S. dollar, a rate widely regarded as sacrosanct to Lebanon’s stability after a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

Even before the massive demonstrations shattered the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a shortage of dollars and dismal economic conditions had nudged the exchange rate to as high as 1,850 on the black market.

Now there are questions about the peg itself and how it underpinned the country’s much-lauded financial system while making the economy look much better than it was actually performing.

Billions of dollars in remittances sent by rich Lebanese expatriates have long kept the country’s balance of payments in the black, even though Lebanon exports very little.

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When the 2011 Arab Spring protests sparked economic turmoil, the central bank dealt with deficits by using ever higher interest rates to keep the dollars coming.

But instead of using those dollars to invest in a productive economy, the government used them to preserve the peg, even as it inflated the purchasing power of the Lebanese, who spent their salaries on imports with the assumption there were foreign currency reserves to honor the country’s obligations.

Worse, the unemployment rate of up to 40% has spurred many educated young people to find good jobs abroad and send remittances back home to replenish the system anew.

But with reserves quickly disappearing, critics accuse the central bank of engaging in a sort of Ponzi scheme, with depositors facing the prospect that their dollars are simply gone.

In recent days, there has been a dash for dollars. Currency traders juggle a deluge of phone call and walk-in inquiries about the day’s exchange price. Customers haggle daily with supermarket clerks over prices that are elevated because of withering confidence in the pound. And suppliers, unable to convert their pounds into dollars to pay for goods from abroad, have had their shipments impounded in Beirut’s port.

Meanwhile, banks, which open sporadically and are forced to exchange pounds at the official exchange rate, hoard dollars by warding off account holders who demand to withdraw money in hard currency or transfer it abroad.

The measures have enraged clients, with some showing up in branches with guns and threatening staff, according to the head of Lebanon’s bank employees union, which on Monday called for a general strike in response to the mounting abuse.

A growing chorus of bankers, politicians and economic experts has called for the central bank to impose capital controls, prioritize necessities when it comes to imports, or reduce interest payments for the biggest deposit holders. The central bank has to move quickly, they say, to avert a blitz devaluation.

There were already glimpses of the disarray such a scenario could bring. For weeks, gas stations had threatened to shut down because they could not get enough dollars to buy fuel; on Monday, the state-run National News Agency said gas stations across the country were either rationing gas or shutting down outright.

But there has been no sign the central bank will shift its strategy. In a news conference Monday, its governor, Riad Salameh, said the bank had $30 billion in reserves.

Its liabilities, however, are estimated to be over $170 billion, and some of the deposits are set to be redeemed later this month.

Nevertheless, Salameh assured the public there would be no capital controls or reductions in interest payments.

The central bank’s “main and first aim,” Salameh said, would be to preserve the Lebanese pound.

KABUL, Afghanistan — 

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday announced that his government has released three prominent Taliban figures in an effort to get the insurgents to free two university professors — an American and an Australian — they abducted three years ago.

At a press event broadcast live on state television, Ghani told the nation the release was a very hard decision he felt he had to make in the interest of the Afghan people.

The announcement comes at a sensitive time for Ghani, as President Trump halted talks between the U.S. and the Taliban in September after a particularly deadly spate of Taliban attacks, including a Kabul suicide bombing that killed a U.S. soldier.

Also, the future of Ghani’s government is in doubt as the results from the Sept. 28 presidential elections have not been released yet. Preliminary results are expected on Nov. 14.

The three members of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network that Ghani said were released are Anas Haqqani, Haji Mali Khan and Hafiz Rashid. Ghani added that they are being released “conditionally in exchange” for the two professors.

The three were under the custody of the Afghan government, Ghani said, and were held at the Bagram prison, an air base that also houses U.S. troops just outside Kabul. The Afghan president didn’t elaborate or say when or where the three were released. They were most likely sent to Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office.

“In a demonstration of respect for humanity by the government and nation of Afghanistan, we decided to conditionally release these three Taliban prisoners who were arrested in close cooperation with our international partners from other countries,” Ghani said.

The Taliban have long demanded the release of Anas Haqqani, younger brother of Sirajuddin, the deputy head of the Taliban and leader of the Haqqani network, often considered the strongest of the Taliban factions fighting in Afghanistan.

Anas Haqqani was arrested in Bahrain in 2014 and handed over to the Afghan government, which later sentenced him to death. It was not clear when his execution was supposed to take place.

The two captives held by the Taliban — an American identified as Kevin King and an Australian man identified as Timothy Weekes — were abducted in 2016 outside the American University in Kabul where they both worked as teachers.

The following year, the Taliban released two videos showing the captives. A January 2017 video showed them appearing pale and gaunt. In the later video, King and Weekes looked healthier and said a deadline for their release was set for June 16 that year.

Both said they were being treated well by the Taliban but that they remained prisoners, and appealed to their governments to help set them free. It was impossible to know whether they were forced to speak.

Subsequently, U.S. officials said that American forces had launched a rescue mission, but the captives were not found at the raided location.

There was no immediate statement from the Taliban or any indication when they would release the captive American and Australian.

In Tuesday’s address, Ghani added that the Taliban kidnapping of the two American University teachers was not representative of Islamic and Afghan traditions.

“We have decided to release these three Taliban prisoners who were arrested outside of Afghanistan,” Ghani said, adding that it was meant “to facilitate direct peace negotiations.”

In a statement, the American University of Afghanistan said it welcomed the development and was “encouraged to hear reports of the possible release of our two colleagues, Kevin King and Timothy Weeks.”

The statement added that while the university was not part of any negotiations with the Taliban or government discussions, it continues “to urge the immediate and safe return of our faculty members who have been held in captivity, away from their friends and families, for more than three years.”

Ghani said the release of the teachers was “part of our main demands during the indirect negotiations with the Taliban.”

“We can assure the families of both teachers that we welcome and honor those who come to our country to pursue education,” Ghani said.

Meanwhile, talks are underway about another round of so-called “intra-Afghan dialogue,” this time in Beijing, which would include a wide selection of Afghan figures and Taliban representatives. The meeting was initially to take place last month but has been postponed with no new date set. The last time it was held was in July in Qatar.

The dialogue is a separate process from the U.S.-Taliban talks under U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad that collapsed in September.

The Taliban have refused to talk directly with the Kabul government, while Ghani insists his government must lead any talks with the Taliban.

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Here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:

TOP STORIES

Meet the ‘Dreamers’

Jirayut “New” Latthivongskorn graduated from UC Berkeley with honors, earned a master’s degree from Harvard in public health and a doctor of medicine from UC San Francisco. Gurkaran Singh is still in college but already runs a real estate business. Karla Estrada is a paralegal for immigration cases.

They are among the so-called Dreamers who were brought to the United States as children, unaware that they had entered illegally or on visas that later expired.

Now their future hangs in the balance as the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments today to decide whether to unravel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which temporarily protects some 700,000 of these immigrant young people. Here are some of their stories — and a timeline of key developments that led to the Supreme Court case.

More Politics

— The view among national security officials was unanimous: Military aid to Ukraine should not be stopped by the White House. That was the testimony of Laura Cooper, a Defense Department official, whose deposition was released Monday in the House impeachment inquiry of President Trump.

— On Veterans Day, several Democratic candidates rolled out proposals to meet the needs of America’s 20 million former service members, whille Trump, speaking in New York City’s Veterans Day Parade, praised the strength of the U.S. military and the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi.

— Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is considering a late run for the Democratic presidential nomination, underscoring how unclear it still is just who the party’s top contenders might be.

— Trump said he’s planning to meet with vaping-industry representatives and medical professionals as the White House considers new limits on the sale of e-cigarettes.

Tory vs. Labour? Or Leave vs. Remain?

The upcoming British general election is being cast as a far-reaching referendum on Britain’s status as a pillar of a postwar order that has kept peace in Europe for seven decades and perhaps, ultimately, whether the United Kingdom will remain united.

One month out, polls give Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Tories a commanding lead. But with plans to leave the European Union still at an impasse, old party loyalties may break down. “Brexit identity is more powerful than party identity, and people will try to vote to get the best outcome in line with that,” said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University.

A Question of Safety on the Water

The Conception dive boat accident that killed 34 people on Labor Day was one of the worst maritime disasters in California history, but the safety lapses that led to it were hardly unprecedented. For years, small passenger vessels have gone up in flames for a variety of reasons, prompting repeated calls by the National Transportation Safety Board to improve fire-safety measures.

But a Times review of federal documents spanning nearly 20 years shows that the U.S. Coast Guard, which has the sole authority to mandate safety measures, has often rejected the board’s recommendations. A growing belief throughout the boat industry is that the Conception fire could finally lead to safety rules that the NTSB has been proposing for years.

How Will Disney+ Change the TV Equation?

After two years of planning, the Walt Disney Co. is launching Disney+, its much anticipated streaming service, today. It’s one of the Burbank company’s biggest gambles: Disney has spent more than $3 billion on technology and content in an attempt to take on Netflix, and Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Iger’s legacy will be judged, in large part, on the success of Disney+. So what’s worth checking out on the service? TV critic Robert Lloyd offers this guide.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

Today we are remembering Alan Hagman, The Times’ deputy director of photography, who has died.

In January 1998, Hagman was assigned to take pictures at storm-battered Faria Beach, but a wave hit his car on Pacific Coast Highway and knocked it into a pile of rocks. He hiked to a house at Solimar Beach, where he waited for a tow truck.

“My first thought was, ‘I just trashed my company car and I’m in trouble,’ ” Hagman said. “Then just out of nowhere a wave — a big wave — came over the breakwall and into the house.”

Hagman’s photo ran on the front page of The Times the next day and in publications around the world. It would win the Associated Press Managing Editor Photo of the Year award, one of many honors Hagman collected over his more than 22 years at The Times.

CALIFORNIA

— When the Woolsey fire broke out a year ago at Boeing’s shuttered nuclear and rocket engine testing site near Simi Valley, a private crew working for the aerospace giant was the closest to the flames. A firetruck headed to the scene. But it didn’t get far.

— Amazon plans to open a new grocery store in an L.A. neighborhood next year, and it won’t be another Whole Foods.

— California might not require solar panels on new homes after all.

— The stakes are high in the legal battle over whether San Diego County can use carbon offsets to approve thousands of new housing units in wildfire-prone areas, a plan the state says would imperil its climate strategy.

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— The chief of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system has apologized to a man who was handcuffed for eating a sandwich on a platform in a video that went viral.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

— Neil Young says his pot-smoking has stalled his U.S. citizenship application.

— Marvel’s chief creative officer, Kevin Feige, has broken his silence and addressed Martin Scorsese’s critique of Marvel movies.

— Fans at the Camp Flog Gnaw festival were bound to be disappointed by any special guest who wasn’t Frank Ocean, critic Mikael Wood writes. But founder Tyler the Creator’s choice of Drake also felt like a failure to understand what his flagship event has become.

NATION-WORLD

— Former President Carter was admitted to a hospital on Monday evening for a procedure this morning to relieve pressure on his brain caused by bleeding due to his recent falls, his spokeswoman said.

— Bolivia is in crisis as former President Evo Morales leaves for Mexico and his would-be successors resign.

— Among China‘s big plans for the Tibetan plateau: building its own Yellowstone.

— Amid unrest in Lebanon, the country’s currency, long a symbol of its stability after civil war, is faltering.

— Americans’ cholesterol levels are down, and their use of statin drugs is up, according to a new report — suggesting a controversial change to treatment recommendations is paying off.

BUSINESS

— PG&E is reportedly offering $13.5 billion in compensation to the victims of wildfires sparked by its power lines in its rush to come up with a viable restructuring plan to get out of bankruptcy — the same amount its creditors said they’d pay with a rival proposal.

— Apple is under fire for what critics call the sexism of its new Apple Card, with even co-founder Steve Wozniak complaining the branded card’s credit limits seem to discriminate against women. Even worse for the company, writes columnist Michael Hiltzik, the blowup shows the credit card isn’t really an Apple card at all.

— The staff of Hearst Magazines — including those at Elle, Cosmopolitan and Men’s Health — have voted to unionize.

SPORTS

— Mike Scioscia wants to manage again. But does anybody want him? None of the eight teams hiring this offseason interviewed him.

— UCLA football’s biggest game, for now, is a showdown with Utah on Saturday. A victory would catapult UCLA into a tie with Utah in the Pac-12 Conference standings while securing the tiebreaker between the teams.

OPINION

— Trump’s latest anti-immigrant move: Making it far more costly to apply for citizenship.

— California’s new labor law will make life even harder for writers, T.J. Stiles says.

— This year, U.S. states have executed 19 people despite lingering questions over the guilt of several of them, The Times’ editorial board writes. Why do we cling to the death penalty?

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

— Google is secretly gathering millions of Americans’ personal health records — including names, diagnoses and lab results — through an initiative with America’s second-largest health system, Ascension, and using the data to write software that suggests changes to individual patients’ care. (Wall Street Journal)

— Don Cherry, a bombastic longtime hockey commentator, has been fired after alleging on the air that Canada’s immigrants (“you people”) don’t properly honor fallen soldiers. (ESPN)

ONLY IN L.A.

When Metro’s Crenshaw/LAX Line opens next year, its eight stations will come to life with dozens of public art pieces, created by 14 artists selected from more than 1,200, that aim to capture the spirit of the historically rich neighborhoods that surround them. Rebeca Méndez’s 92-foot-long mosaic in the sky’s hues offers a metaphor for the city’s diversity. Kenturah Davis hopes her black-and-white drawings of people inspire curiosity in commuters and make them think about language. And Mickalene Thomas hopes her collage artwork, which centers on black female empowerment and nods to iconic elements of Leimert Park’s landscape, brings people inspiration, joy and “a sense of themselves and their community.” Read more from them and other artists.

If you like this newsletter, please share it with friends. Comments or ideas? Email us at [email protected].

The International Whaling Commission meets every four years to decide the future of the whales. That is, it decides which nation will kill how many, and for what reasons (commercial, subsistence, “research”). Stakeholders from around the world are engaged, from whaling and non-whaling nations alike.

Notably absent in these discussions on the future of whales, are the whales themselves. But this is not just because they would have a hard time fitting into the conference room. It’s an intentional omission, since whales are a part of the commons: that great, amorphous void which we draw individuals out of, pour refuse in to, and in which lives the nameless, faceless “biomass” that we refuse any real legal or political consideration on a categorical basis. According to our current paradigm, the whales, and everyone else in the oceans, are resources to be protected, conserved or exploited: divided up (albeit unequally) amongst ourselves, and consumed.

This might sound like an article about whales, but it isn’t. It’s really about us, and what we chose to believe about ourselves, our societies, and what our future can look like. For perhaps the first time in history, we human cultures of the world are largely united in a struggle for what comes next – an active discussion, a exercise in collective imagination that’s becoming all the more urgent as we watch our current world, and worldviews, fall apart – or more aptly, being ripped apart by late-stage capitalism.

Our current system is incapable of addressing the problems within our own species because inequality is embedded within its very foundation. Strategies to dismantle plutocracy and eradicate poverty often involve new ways of managing the commons. However, as long as we try to preserve or manage “habitats” and “ecosystems” for human benefit alone, the resulting devastation of the lives of other species will reverberate into our own in increasingly disastrous and unpredictable ways.

Within capitalist models, individuals of other species are not only neglected – their very existence is denied. They are instead relegated to the realm of property, only to be considered or “conserved” when their bodies are seen as necessary for the health of an ecosystem of value; and then, they are lumped into “populations” or “stocks” rather than recognizing them as individuals with interests, deserving of their fair share of resources like any human being.