The US Supreme Court on Friday sided with President Donald Trump’s administration in a dispute over foreign aid funding, granting the president’s request to freeze $4 billion in appropriations that Congress had already enacted but the administration sought to rescind. The court’s majority stayed a lower court ruling that had directed the administration to obligate [...]
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 627, known as the “No Secret Police Act,” into law on Saturday, making California the first state in the US to prohibit law enforcement officers from wearing masks or other facial coverings that obscure their identities during operations, except in narrowly defined circumstances. The law, authored by Senator [...]
A US federal judge in Florida on Friday dismissed President Donald J. Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times and others, ruling that the 85-page complaint was “improper and impermissible” under federal court rules and resembled a political manifesto more than a legal filing. The lawsuit, filed earlier this week, sought $15 billion in [...]
The UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Gehad Madi, concluding a ten-day visit to Mauritania, commended the government’s legislative progress on Friday. However, he also warned that persistent human rights violations against migrants continue to place the country at odds with its international legal obligations. “I commend the Mauritanian Government for addressing [...]
North Korea’s human rights situation has deteriorated over the past decade, with capital punishment broadened and increasingly enforced for offenses such as distributing foreign media, according to a new assessment published Friday by the UN Human Rights Office for the Human Rights Council. At the heart of the findings is the expanded use of the [...]
UN human rights and environmental experts on Thursday welcomed Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s decision to veto 63 provisions of a sweeping environmental licensing bill, calling the move a decisive step in protecting human rights, Indigenous communities, and the planet. The vetoes, announced earlier this week, were applied to some of the most [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday held that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) likely acted unlawfully when it tried to roll back Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. While the decision marks a legal victory for advocates and TPS recipients, it remains largely symbolic for [...]
A coalition of Texas voters backed by the National Redistricting Foundation filed a sweeping federal challenge late Saturday to House Bill 4, the mid-decade congressional map the Legislature approved just after midnight on August 23. The Second Supplemental Complaint, lodged before a three-judge panel, accuses state officials of intentionally dismantling performing majority-minority districts in Houston, [...]
A US federal judge ordered Florida and federal officials on Thursday to halt further construction at the state’s controversial Everglades immigration detention complex—nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz”—for 14 days while the court considers a broader request to block the project under federal environmental law. Detentions and day-to-day operations at the site may continue during the pause. US [...]
A divided panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Friday shut down a district court’s move to allow criminal-contempt prosecutions of federal officials involved in the rapid removal of suspected Tren de Aragua members this spring, granting the government’s petition for a writ of mandamus and vacating the lower court’s [...]
