The US Department of Justice (DOJ) Tuesday charged 47 defendants for their alleged roles in a $250 million fraud scheme during the COVID-19 pandemic. Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future allegedly stole money from the Federal Child Nutrition Program intended to feed children during the pandemic. The defendants are charged with “conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, and [...]

Moderna filed suit in the US and Germany Friday against Pfizer and BioNtech for three claims of patent infringement. Moderna claims that Pfizer and BioNtech used the company’s patented mRNA technology in COVID-19 vaccines without Moderna’s permission. Moderna alleges that before the pandemic, they had over a decade of research on mRNA in coronaviruses, with [...]

Statistics Canada has released a report showing a drastic increase in hate crimes from 2019 to 2021. The report shows a 72 percent increase largely across religious, racial or ethnic, and sexual orientation lines. The report shows an alarming 293 percent increase in hate crimes against East or Southeast Asian people between 2019 and 2020, which [...]

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Monday ruled that no-excuse mail-in voting and early voting are permissable under the state’s constitution. After Massachusett Governor Charlie Baker signed the VOTES Act in June, the law faced legal challenges from Massachusetts Republicans. On Monday, the court declined to grant an injunction blocking the law’s implementation. The new law makes [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Monday issued an order stating that the court will rehear Feds for Medical Freedom v. Biden, a challenge to President Joe Biden’s 2019 executive order which required federal employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or face termination. In late May and early June, the America First Legal [...]

As the COVID-19 cases continue to rise at an exponential pace in India even after the sweeping federal lockdown, the Parliament of the country has commenced the Monsoon Session which runs from 14th September to 1st October this year. The decision by the Secretariats of both the Houses of the Indian Parliament to dispense with the [...]

Several pharmaceutical companies are beginning middle or late stage trials of experimental COVID-19 vaccines in Brazil and South Africa, leaving trials in other developed countries for sometime later. Meanwhile, in the United States, Black and other minority recruitment for trials lag: Michael said several factors have led to “a perfect storm of not goodness” for [...]

The global chaos created by COVID-19 has proven to be a stress test for modern governance. The pandemic and its fallout have proven especially revealing in the context of European data policy, which is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), promulgated in May of 2018. But, COVID-19 has exposed its fault lines. While [...]

Now is the time for many state authorities to act decisively to avert more pandemic driven bar exam chaos. Without prompt action more testing failures, disruption, and delays are almost certain. The evidence is in. The case is open and shut. Conventional in-person bar exams cannot and need not be held, at least so long [...]

The Florida Board of Bar Examiners (FBBE) is out of time. Applicants are out of energy. And everybody is out of patience. To be sure, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted all aspects of life for people around the globe, including the legal communities within the United States. However, what is unique to the legal [...]