The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday from a California man challenging a $23,000 traffic impact fee levied in exchange for a building permit. Placerville, California resident George Sheetz challenged a decision from El Dorado County under the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment—specifically a provision known as the Takings Clause. The dispute between Sheetz and [...]

Investors for Paris Compliance (I4PC) launched a complaint against the Ontario Securities Commission and the Autorité des marchés financiers of Québec on Tuesday, asserting that Canada’s big five banks’ sustainable investing disclosures are misleading to shareholders.  The complaint called out BMO, Scotiabank, CIBC, TD and RBC for providing possibly misleading environmental, social and governance (ESG) [...]

Finnish member of the European Parliament (EP) Petri Sarvamaa announced Tuesday that he launched a petition to deprive Hungary of its right to vote in the EU’s decision-making council. The petition is open for signatures by members till Friday. Sarvamaa shared the petition, which is addressed to the President of the EP Roberta Metsola, on [...]

Singapore’s Ministry of Law and Ministry of Home Affairs introduced the Criminal Procedure (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2024 into Parliament, aiming to institute new rules for forensic medical examinations (FME) and allowing for the indefinite detention of serious sexual offenders. The bill defines an FMEs as “physical medical examinations, collection of body samples from any body [...]

LGBTQ rights group Lambda Legal announced a lawsuit Monday seeking to block enforcement of a Louisiana ban on gender-affirming procedures for transgender youth. The civil rights organization prepared the lawsuit, along with the Center for Health Law & Policy Innovation of Harvard Law and a Louisiana law firm, on behalf of five Louisiana minors and [...]

The Colombian Ombudsman’s Office (DPC) reported Tuesday that 181 social leaders and human rights defenders were murdered in 2023. The figure dropped 16 percent from the data reported for 2022. The ombudsman’s office, in its “Annual report on the killings of social leaders and human rights defenders,” highlighted the alarming situation faced by individuals dedicated [...]

The Taiwan Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced Tuesday that it had activated the air threat warning system following after Chinese rockets launching satellites reportedly passed through its airspace. Tuesday’s press release stated that the Communist Party of China (CCP) launched satellites using a Long March series carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center [...]

The Maharashtra State Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted bail to an Indian National Congress leader, Sunil Kedar, who was convicted of a bank scam in late December 2023. Kedar was also disqualified from the Maharashtra State Assembly after the conviction. The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court allowed Kedar’s application for suspension of [...]

Spain’s National High Court on Tuesday decided to close a probe into three people, including the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president.  Carmelo Ovono Obiang, son of President Teodoro Obiang, was accused of kidnapping four members of the Movement for the Liberation of Equatorial Guinea (MLGE3R) who opposed Obiang’s government, in 2019. The Spanish court stated [...]

Democratic Republic of Congo’s constitutional court on Wednesday rejected the petitions challenging the provisional results of December’s presidential election and officially confirmed Félix Tshisekedi as president of the country. The court declared that Félix Tshisekedi secured 73.47 percent of the votes in the election while his main opponent, Moïse Katumbi, secured 18.08 percent. The figures [...]