Applying kidnapping laws to custodial and noncustodial parents has been an issue even internationally. Last year, Japan announced plans to sign [JURIST report] the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction [text], but it has yet to do so. The treaty was created in an attempt to eliminate difficult situations arising from one country's disagreement with custody decisions of another country's courts. In 2010, the US Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] that ne exeat clauses, which prohibit removal of a child to another country without the other parent's consent, confer a "right of custody" under the convention, so that other countries are required under the convention to return children removed against these clauses.

The fact that Chatterjee did not adopt Child does not impact our decision. Section 40-11-5 of the New Mexico UPA delineates the ways in which parentage can be presumed. Thus, our Legislature has recognized that there will be many situations in which someone is caring for a child but has not taken any steps to legalize that relationship. While taking legal action is the best way to ensure that both the alleged parent and the child have rights arising from that relationship, both our Legislature and this Court have indicated a willingness to confer rights to relationships that have not been legally established. This is so because parental rights are not automatically conferred when there is a biological relationship, but rather when an alleged parent has taken the responsibility of caring for a child. Considering the specific facts of this case, we hold that Chatterjee has alleged sufficient facts to attempt to establish that she is an interested party, and therefore she has standing to establish parentage under Section 40-11-21 of the New Mexico UPA.

Child custody and support issues have been the subject of many state court decisions in recent years. In February, the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled that same-sex couples who marry and have a child through artificial insemination [JURIST report] are subject to the same child custody laws as heterosexual couples. In May 2009, a New York state appeals court ruled that child support claims cannot be brought against same-sex partners [JURIST report] who have no biological or legal ties to a child. In 2005, the California Supreme Court ruled that estranged same-sex couples who created a child using reproductive science [JURIST report] were to be treated the same as heterosexual parents under child custody and support laws.

The VRA's prohibitions on some southern states' voting regulations is a contentious national issue. Florida challenged [JURIST report] the VRA in October in federal court, however, other states have continue to be affected by the law. In April, the DOJ filed a brief [JURIST report] in the US District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that a recently passed Texas photo identification law [SB 14 materials] will have a disproportionate impact on the state's Latino voters, in violation of the VRA. In The Voting Rights Act: Limiting Partisan Barriers to Voter Participation [JURIST op-ed], JURIST columnist Chris Elmendorf argues that the "purpose" rather than the "effects" prong of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act may offer a better basis to challenge recent state regulations of the voting process.

Mubarak's trial ended in February [JURIST report] after the lead prosecutor in the case asked the presiding judge for a death sentence in his closing remarks. The prosecution began presenting its case [JURIST report] against Mubarak in January. Mubarak's trial started [JURIST report] in August 2011 and made slow progress. The trial resumed in December in the Egyptian court after a two-month adjournment [JURIST reports] allowing the court time to rule on a motion made by lawyers representing the victims' families to have the three-judge panel in the case removed. Mubarak resigned [JURIST report] from the presidency in February 2011 following calls for Mubarak's resignation by demonstrators.

Because we hold that Davis has failed to state a Bivens claim for which relief may be granted, there is no reason to reach the merits of his claims or to consider whether Director Mulhollan is entitled to qualified immunity. We vacate the order of the district court denying Mulhollan's motion to dismiss and remand with instructions to dismiss Davis's Bivens claims.

Davis has been a longtime critic of the national security policies of Presidents Obama and George W. Bush. In October, Davis wrote an opinion piece [JURIST op-ed] claiming that the CIA's killing of Anwar al-Awlaki violated the law of war. Davis drew attention to the alleged iniquities of the military commissions system in 2007, when he penned a noted op-ed [text] for the New York Times about his experience as chief prosecutor. Later that year, Davis publicly said that he was pressured to use classified evidence [JURIST report] against defendants while heading serving as chief prosecutor at Guantanamo. He further claimed that the push to use classified evidence stemmed from certain military officials' desire to keep the trials closed and complained that Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann [official profile], legal adviser to the Convening Authority [official backgrounder] for the trials, should not have been supervising his work. The issue played a role in his resignation [JURIST report].