A South Carolina Senate Medical Affairs subcommittee on Tuesday held an hours-long public hearing on legislation that would significantly expand abortion restrictions in the state. The bill remains stalled in committee following the hearing, with no vote to advance it to the full Senate. Senate Bill 323, titled the “Unborn Child Protection Act”, would make [...]

A Tennessee court on Thursday granted a temporary injunction restraining state officials from continuing the deployment of Tennessee National Guard personnel to Memphis. A group of Shelby County and Memphis officials brought the case, arguing that the deployment violates Tennessee’s Military Code by bypassing the statutory conditions required for activating state militia forces. The deployment [...]

A US federal judge on Friday issued a broad preliminary injunction expanding on her earlier order restoring more than $500 million in federal research grants to UCLA. The new ruling blocks the federal government from using a broader “Task Force Policy” to pressure the entire University of California (UC) system with funding suspensions and coercive [...]

Amnesty International and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) released on Thursday more than 2,700 New York Police Department (NYPD) documents obtained after a five-year lawsuit. The groups say that the documents reveal extensive and discriminatory surveillance practices. The records, ordered to be disclosed by a New York state court in 2022, show repeated use [...]

The US must place human rights at the forefront of its diplomatic agenda as Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visits Washington this week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday. “Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is trying to rebrand himself as a global statesman, but the reality at home is mass repression, record numbers of [...]

UN experts, including the special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, cautioned on Tuesday that a pending amendment to Peru’s General Law on Persons with Disabilities risks reversing progress toward de-institutionalization and independent living for people with disabilities. The experts expressed concern that the new text opens the door to the creation of [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday reported that large-scale immigration raids in Los Angeles, carried out by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies this year, violated Latino residents’ civil rights and utilized racial profiling. According to the organization, since May ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and other federal law enforcement [...]

A federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday halted the Trump administration’s plans to layoff thousands of federal employees in the wake of the government shutdown, ruling that the administration may not proceed with any new reductions-in-force (RIF) notices issued as a result of the shutdown. US District Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District [...]

China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area Upgrade Protocol, or CAFTA 3.0, in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, marking the latest step in regional economic integration. The protocol, signed by Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao and ASEAN economic ministers, updates a framework that first entered into force [...]

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian-born US permanent resident and activist, appeared Monday in the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit seeking to affirm a lower court’s ruling that blocked his deportation and authorized his release from detention. His legal team from the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) argues that the United States Department of [...]