Biotech giants BioNTech and Pfizer Monday filed a complaint for declaratory judgment of noninfringement in the US District Court of Massachusetts. The companies seek to quell claims by CureVac of intellectual property violations. BioNTech and Pfizer collaborated in the development and distribution of their COVID-19 vaccine. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, trademarked as COMIRNATY®, was the first successful [...]
Marc Short, former Chief of Staff to US Vice President Mike Pence, Monday confirmed that he testified before a grand jury in the investigation into the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. In an interview with ABC News, Short confirmed he was subpoenaed by the US Department of Justice. ABC News cameras captured footage of Short [...]
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Trevor McBurney Monday granted a motion from State Senator Burt Jones to disqualify a grand jury investigation against him. Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis petitioned the Superior Court to impanel a special purpose grand jury into Jones’ involvement in “possible criminal interference” in the 2020 election. The petition was approved, [...]
Pope Francis Monday issued an apology to the Indigenous community of Canada for the Catholic Church’s role in the abuse Indigenous children suffered in religious boarding schools for almost 150 years. Beginning in the 1800s, thousands of Indigenous children were systematically taken from their homes and families and placed into residential boarding schools. These schools, some [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Monday rejected an appeal from Pfizer Inc. after the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said that Pfizer’s plan to cover patients’ copays for its heart failure medications violated US law. The medications cost an estimated $13,000 per year, with many patients who need them [...]
A New York judge Monday exonerated a sixth defendant in the Central Park jogger case. Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam, known as the Central Park Five, were also wrongfully convicted and were exonerated in 2002 using DNA evidence. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr. filed a motion to vacate [...]
According to state media Monday, Myanmar’s military junta executed four pro-democracy activists over the weekend. The four individuals put to death were Phyo Zeya Thaw, a lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi’s ousted party National League for Democracy, and veteran activist Ko Jimmy, both sentenced under the Myanmar Counter-Terrorism Law, and Ko Hla Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura [...]
Tunisian citizens voted Monday to accept the country’s new constitution and expand the president’s powers. In a vote with 25 percent voter turnout, the constitution was adopted by over 90 percent of voters. Tunisia’s 2014 constitution allowed more representation and parliamentary power. In July 2021, President Kais Saied used emergency powers to fire the prime [...]
Myanmar law students are reporting for JURIST on challenges to the rule of law in their country under the military junta that deposed the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. Here, one of our correspondents comments on the executions for alleged terrorism of four men, including democracy activists Ko Jimmy (a [...]
The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) Monday filed charges against former US congressman Stephen Buyer for insider trading. The SEC’s complaint states that when “Buyer left Congress in 2011 and set up a consulting company called the Steve Buyer Group,” in both 2018 and 2019 Buyer used material non-public information from two clients “to trade securities [...]
