US President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on Tuesday aiming to simplify the review process of agricultural biotechnology. The Executive Order on Modernizing the Regulatory Framework for Agricultural Biotechnology Products stresses the importance of maintaining public confidence in agricultural biotechnology while also promoting innovation and growth. To that end, the Executive Order aims to [...]
Victims of war crimes in Afghanistan filed an appeal Monday with the International Criminal Court (ICC) challenging the lower chamber’s recent decision not to pursue a war crimes investigation in Afghanistan. The Appeal was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York and the Global Justice Clinic at the New York University School [...]
The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova has removed President Igor Dodon from his post and appointed former Prime Minister Pavel Filip. Dodon is a member of the Russian-backed Socialist Party, which won 35 of the 101 legislative seats in the February elections. While the Socialist Party was the largest bloc in parliament, they had [...]
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker on Wednesday signed legislation ensuring women’s right to an abortion. The bill, titled the Reproductive Health Act, establishes that women in Illinois have the “fundamental right” to an abortion. The bill repeals numerous laws that restricted women’s access to abortion such as a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, and the Illinois [...]
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed HB 379, the chemical castration bill, into law Monday. Under previous Alabama law, a sex offense committed against a child under the age of 12 was either a class A or class B felony. Class A and B felonies make an offender ineligible for parole. The new law raises the [...]
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday signed into law a bill allowing foreign drug importation into the state through two programs. The bill comes alongside DeSantis’ efforts to control prices of prescription drugs in the state. Currently, it is illegal to import prescription drugs from other countries, including Canada. Drugs are typically cheaper because many [...]
German Health Minister Jens Spahn announced plans Tueday to write a new law banning conversion therapy. The new law would ban the practice of conversion therapy, which has been widely discredited by medical professionals. Currently, Germany experiences about 1,000 attempts at conversion therapy every year involving coaches, therapists and in some cases exorcisms. Under the [...]
Vermont Governor Phil Scott signed a new bill into law Monday protecting fundamental rights to abortion and family planning. The bill orders that no public entity may interfere with an individual’s fundamental rights to abortion, carrying a pregnancy to term, contraception or sterilization. The bill orders state and local law enforcement not to prosecute anyone [...]
Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Tuesday landmark legislation to reform Texas’ long-beleaguered school finance system. The key provisions of House Bill 3 are increased teacher pay and property tax relief. In addition, the bill put an end to “Robin Hood” payments, which required districts with high property values to send money to the state to [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Monday ruled that parents may have plausible constitutional claims against the state of Michigan for the ongoing storage and use of blood samples collected from nearly all newborn babies in the state. A group of Michigan parents sued the Michigan Department of Health and Human [...]