A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia extended the voter registration deadline by 48 hours on Wednesday, after a severed cable caused an online voter registration system outage on Tuesday. Voters are now able to register on the Virginia Department of Elections website until 11:59 PM Thursday, or at [...]
Judge Amy Coney Barrett faced the US Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday for the third day of Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Senator Lindsey Graham, the Judiciary Committee Chair, began Wednesday’s hearing by praising Barrett for her commitment to a pro-life ideology and for “embracing her faith without apology.” He stated that Barrett’s nomination is a [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a district court injunction on Tuesday against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requiring safer conditions to protect detained immigrants from COVID-19. The Ninth Circuit held that the district court is permitted to offer injunctive relief “to remedy unconstitutional conditions of confinement.” The court stated that [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in the cases of Torres v. Madrid and Pereida v. Barr. The court heard the arguments by telephone with live-streamed audio. The petitioner in Torres was operating a vehicle under the influence, and in the process of trying to get away, endangered the two officers pursuing her. In the process, [...]
A suit brought by Democratic lawmakers in 2017 against US President Donald Trump has ended with the Supreme Court declining to hear the case on Tuesday. The suit alleged that Trump violated the emoluments clause of the US Constitution by profiting from the presidency. The emoluments clause “prohibits any person holding government office from accepting [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday struck down Texas Senate Bill 8, a statute that sought to impose additional burdens on women seeking a common second-trimester abortion procedure, effectively banning it. Further, the bill required that fetal tissue be disposed of only through burial or cremation, prohibiting donation. The bill [...]
Freedom House, a human rights watchdog group, released a report on internet freedom in the COVID-19 pandemic Wednesday criticizing government internet freedom violations since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report outlined three recent, prevailing issues over internet freedom: Three notable trends punctuated an especially dismal year for internet freedom. First, political leaders used [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in the cases of United States v. Briggs and Chicago v. Fulton. The court heard the argument by telephone with live-streamed audio. The Briggs case was consolidated with United States v. Collins in November 2019 and another case. In all three cases, the respondent is a man in [...]
A federal appeals court on Tuesday reversed a lower court’s extension of the Indiana mail-in ballot deadline. The original deadline extension allowed for ballot submission up to 10 days after the election. However, the appeals court’s reversal mandates that all mail-in ballots arrive at Indiana elections offices by election day. The court found that the deadline [...]
The US Senate Judiciary Committee continued confirmation hearings on Tuesday for President Donald Trump’s nominee to fill the seat of the late Justice Ginsburg, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Senator Lindsey Graham, the Judiciary Committee Chair, started the day with a line of questioning on Barrett’s judicial philosophy, textualism, which led to a civics lesson on [...]
