In the most comprehensive assessment of its kind, the UN announced the release of its Global Assessment report Monday, pointing to over 1 million species currently threatened with extinction, declining at an alarming, accelerating rate. A 40-page policy summary was released Monday, and the full 1,000+ page report will be released this week. According to [...]
A federal court ruled Friday that Ohio’s congressional map was an unconstitutional gerrymander. The court ordered new maps to be drawn by June 14 so that they can be approved and used in the 2020 election. A three-judge panel for the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio said the map was intentionally [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Monday that the city of Philadelphia can exclude a Catholic foster care agency form its placement program for its refusal to work with same-sex couples. In a 3-0 decision, the Third Circuit said Philadelphia-based Catholic Social Services (CSS) failed to show the freeze on the [...]
The US Supreme Court agreed Monday to take on two cases asking whether lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employees are protected by federal employment discrimination laws, as well as two additional cases pertaining to maritime vessel safety and immigration permanent resident policy. First, in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, consolidated with Altitude Express Inc. [...]
Two brothers of Sudan’s ousted President Omar al-Bashir were arrested Wednesday. A spokesperson for the transitional military council said the two were taken into custody as they were “symbols and leaders of the previous regime.” Sudan’s defense minister, Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf announced on state television last Thursday that Omar al-Bashir had been detained and [...]
A Brooklyn judge on Thursday ruled against a group of parents who filed a lawsuit against a recent New York City emergency vaccination order, rejecting the parents’ arguments that the forced vaccination order was not the “least restrictive means” for controlling the outbreak, among their moral and religious objections. Judge Lawurence Knipel of the Kings [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases Monday to start off its April session: Iancu v. Brunetti, a free speech and trademark case, and Emulex Corp. v. Varjabedian, a question of faulty disclosures in public investment offers. In Iancu v. Brunetti, the court will decide whether the Lanham Act’s “prohibition on the [...]
US Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) announced a bill Monday that would establish a commission to study reparations for the institution of slavery and its economic, systemic and economic effects against descendants of American slaves. “I am proud to introduce legislation that will finally address many of our country’s policies—rooted in a history of slavery and [...]
A South African judge ruled Monday that Mozambique’s former finance minister Manuel Chang, charged in the US with loan fraud of more than USD $2 billion, can be extradited to the US to face trial. Chang, who was Mozambique’s finance minister between 2005 and 2015, was indicted in December for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, [...]
The District Attorneys Association of New York (DAASNY) filed a motion for preliminary injunction on Monday against a prosecutorial oversight committee—another step in the group’s fight against the legislation that creates it, signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo last Wednesday. The DAASNY has been staunchly opposed to the parameters of the commission, arguing it interferes with the discretion of [...]
