Puerto Rico’s newly-elected Governor, Wanda Vázquez Garced, announced in a press conference Saturday that Puerto Rico will hold a non-binding referendum on November 3, the same day as US presidential election, to decide whether Puerto Rico should become a US state or remain a territory. “It is never too late to be treated as equals,” [...]
The European Union Court of Justice on Thursday ruled that Hungary’s confinement of third-country asylum seekers subject to a “return decision” in transit zones at the Serbian-Hungarian border “must be classified as detention.” Additionally, it found that those detained for no reason must be released immediately, following a judicial review by a national court. The [...]
The Ukrainian parliament, Verkhovna Rada, passed a vital anticorruption banking law on Wednesday preventing former bank owners from reclaiming insolvent and nationalized banks. Bill No. 2571–d –– known as the “anti–Kolomoisky” law –– protects public funds and taxpayers from illegal lending practices. Enacting the law is a major step in securing a $5.5 billion dollar [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP joined together to file a lawsuit on Thursday against US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos over new regulations regarding the handling of sexual harassment and assault on college campuses. The Department’s new regulations offer further definitions for what conduct constitutes sexual harassment [...]
The UK government announced that all British and Irish citizens born in Northern Ireland would be treated as EU citizens for immigration purposes, making the official rule change in Parliament on Thursday. This rule change follows the case of an Irish woman, Emma DeSouza, who applied for a residence card for her US-born husband in [...]
The US Senate on Thursday approved the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act, which will reinstate expired FBI surveillance tools used for counterintelligence and counterterrorism investigations. The Act would restore the ability of the government to obtain secret court orders requiring third parties to hand over any “tangible thing” that is deemed relevant to national security investigations. This [...]
The state of Michigan announced settlement Thursday in a lawsuit over the poor reading skills of Detroit school children. The case follows a federal appeals court decision affirming that Detroit students at under-performing schools have the fundamental right to a basic minimum education. In the settlement, Governor Gretchen Whitmer agreed to propose legislation to fund [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday in Lucky Brand Dungarees, Inc. v. Marcel Fashions Group, in favor of Lucky Brand. One of the first cases the court heard this year, the trademark dispute largely dealt with a question of civil procedure. Lucky Brand raised a defense in this lawsuit that it had not fully [...]
Seven prisoners in the Oregon state prison system sued Governor Kate Brown, the Department of Corrections and its directors, Wednesday out of fear that COVID-19 would spread among the prison. The suit asks the court to issue a temporary restraining order and preliminary restraining order that would require the Department of Corrections to reduce the [...]
The French National Assembly passed a law Wednesday that will strengthen the national position against online hate speech by fining social media companies if they do not delete certain content such as terrorism, child pornography and genocide denial within one to 24 hours of its posting. Additionally, this law strengthens the ability of the French [...]
