New York’s Democrat-controlled state legislature reached an agreement to roll-out a package of tenant protections and rent regulations. The legislation aims to stabilize rent and make housing more affordable and equally accessible for New Yorkers. The agreement would decrease the number of apartments that are removed from rent stabilization programs each year and eliminates the “vacancy [...]

The Kentucky Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously invalidated a constitutional amendment known as “Marsy’s law” that granted specific constitutional rights to victims of crimes. The court considered whether voters had been given sufficient information about the amendment when they voted to approve it by 63 percent in 2018. Rather than the full text of the [...]

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is set to veto a bill that expands taxpayer support for private and religious schools by $100 million. The bill would double the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC), allowing corporations to divert state taxes to support private and religious schools. The bill also allows the tax credit to grow automatically by [...]

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal voted on Thursday to criminalize homophobia and transphobia. In an 8-3 decision, the court approved a three-point thesis holding that LGBTQ discrimination should be understood to fall within the nation’s prohibition against racism until the National Congress can issue a law specifically addressing this matter. Brazil’s legislature outlawed racism in 1989 [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit in Missouri state court against Secretary of State John Ashcroft on Thursday after Ashcroft rejected the ACLU’s petition to allow the people of Missouri to approve or veto the state’s recently passed abortion legislation in a public referendum. Missouri’s Constitution provides citizens with a right to [...]

US President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he had signed the Additional Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Act of 2019, which provides aid to areas struck by natural disasters over the last three years. The House passed the bill, HR 2157, on Monday by a vote of 354-58 over the opposition of some Republican holdouts. [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld Kentucky’s campaign finance restrictions in a unanimous opinion on Thursday. The complaint was originally brought by John Schickel, the incumbent state senator for the 11th Senatorial District in Kentucky, and David Watson, an unsuccessful candidate for the 6th House District in 2016. The plaintiffs challenged [...]

Four African-American residents of Mississippi filed a lawsuit in federal court on Thursday seeking to block Mississippi’s process for electing statewide officials due to its discriminatory origins and impact. The plaintiffs challenge a Jim-Crow-era restriction unique to Mississippi: any candidate for statewide office must win not only a majority of the popular vote but a [...]

The US Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for Alabama inmate Christopher Lee Price on Thursday. Price was convicted and sentenced to death after he murdered a pastor in 1991. The Supreme Court had first denied the stay in April over the objections of the court’s more liberal wing. Price argued that the state’s use [...]

US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) announced Wednesday that it had apprehended 1,036 individuals immediately after they illegally crossed the Rio Grande river into El Paso, Texas. CBP described the group as the largest ever to be encountered by border patrol agents. The members of the group—all from Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador—included 934 family [...]