The US District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday sentenced Mark Ponder to 63 months in prison for assaulting three police officers during the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Ponder is the second Capitol riot defendant to be sentenced to 63 months, the longest prison term handed down thus far. According to court [...]

A South Carolina judge Tuesday declined to overturn the state’s Fetal Heartbeat Law, which bans abortions after six weeks. The judge also granted the state’s request to send the case directly to the South Carolina Supreme Court. The motion to stop the abortion law from taking effect, filed by Planned Parenthood, asserts that the law [...]

A California District Court Tuesday ruled that Uber’s refusal to provide electric wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAV) does not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Under the ADA, private transportation entities cannot discriminate based on disability. Private transporters must make “reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures . . . unless the entity can demonstrate [...]

Biotech giants BioNTech and Pfizer Monday filed a complaint for declaratory judgment of noninfringement in the US District Court of Massachusetts. The companies seek to quell claims by CureVac of intellectual property violations. BioNTech and Pfizer collaborated in the development and distribution of their COVID-19 vaccine. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, trademarked as COMIRNATY®, was the first successful [...]

Marc Short, former Chief of Staff to US Vice President Mike Pence, Monday confirmed that he testified before a grand jury in the investigation into the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. In an interview with ABC News, Short confirmed he was subpoenaed by the US Department of Justice. ABC News cameras captured footage of Short [...]

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Trevor McBurney Monday granted a motion from State Senator Burt Jones to disqualify a grand jury investigation against him. Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis petitioned the Superior Court to impanel a special purpose grand jury into Jones’ involvement in “possible criminal interference” in the 2020 election.  The petition was approved, [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Monday rejected an appeal from Pfizer Inc. after the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said that Pfizer’s plan to cover patients’ copays for its heart failure medications violated US law. The medications cost an estimated $13,000 per year, with many patients who need them [...]

A New York judge Monday exonerated a sixth defendant in the Central Park jogger case. Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam, known as the Central Park Five, were also wrongfully convicted and were exonerated in 2002 using DNA evidence. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr. filed a motion to vacate [...]

The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) Monday filed charges against former US congressman Stephen Buyer for insider trading. The SEC’s complaint states that when “Buyer left Congress in 2011 and set up a consulting company called the Steve Buyer Group,” in both 2018 and 2019 Buyer used material non-public information from two clients “to trade securities [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) Monday filed a civil lawsuit against three large poultry corporations alleging the companies collaborated to maintain competition against other corporations by underpaying workers. The antitrust lawsuit accuses three companies accounting for 90 percent of poultry processing jobs nationwide of running a “conspiracy to exchange information about wages and benefits [...]