UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged governments on Monday to impose a “solidarity or wealth tax” on the rich who made money during the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to reduce inequality. “We must make sure funds go where they are needed most. Latest reports indicate that there has been a $5 trillion surge in the [...]

Mexican authorities on Monday arrested 30 marines suspected of forcibly disappearing people along the U.S.-Mexico border in 2014. While the exact number of missing persons is unclear, Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, has one of the highest missing persons rates in the country with an estimated 80,517 people having gone missing between 2006 and December 2020. During [...]

Hong Kong’s Executive Council on Tuesday passed a series of amendments to voting laws in the former colony. The Improving Electoral System (Consolidated Amendments) Bill 2021 would redraw electoral districts and increase the number of districts from five to ten, create a committee to vet candidates for public office, and criminalize incitement not to vote, [...]

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock on Monday announced that the agency will allow abortion pills by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic—a departure from a Trump-era rule requiring patients to go in-person to a medical clinic or hospital. Woodcock’s communication came via a letter sent to two leading non-profit organizations representing [...]

Dozens of the largest law firms in the US signed on to a statement on Monday denouncing efforts to restrict Americans’ ability to vote. Leaders of 62 of the nation’s 100 largest law firms added their names to the statement, which called “laws that impose unnecessary obstacles and barriers on the right to vote and [...]

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill allocating $536 million to fight wildfires in California on Tuesday. The funding is $200 million more than he originally sought. While California’s wildfire season occurs in the summer and fall, dry conditions this past winter have already produced a few wildfires. As such, in addition to handling recent [...]

The Nevada Assembly passed a bill on Tuesday that would abolish the death penalty and retroactively convert all current capital sentences to life without parole. Although several similar bills have been floated before, most recently in 2017, they have never made it out of committee. Nevada has 70 people on death row but has not [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday joined the University of Michigan Law School’s Civil Rights Litigation Initiative and the ACLU of Michigan in filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of Robert Williams, who was falsely arrested last year based on faulty facial recognition technology that has been banned in several cities throughout the US. [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Tuesday urged states to take impactful measures to make Myanmar’s military leadership stop its repressive campaign, stating she feared Myanmar was headed to a “full-blown conflict.” On February 1, there was a military coup d’état in Myanmar. During this time, many civilian political leaders, including\ Nobel [...]

US President Joe Biden on Monday announced the nominations of three people for leading positions in the Department of Justice (DOJ). Anne Milgram was nominated for the position of Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration at the DOJ. Milgram was New York’s Attorney General from 2007-2010. She has led investigations into many issues including human [...]