The US Senate unanimously passed a bill on Wednesday to make lynching a federal hate crime. The “Justice for the Victims of Lynching” bill is a bipartisan effort sponsored by three senators: Democrats Kamala Harris and Cory Booker and Republican Tim Scott. The bill defines lynching as “2 or more persons willfully caus bodily injury to [...]

Ohio Governor John Kasich vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have shifted the burden of proof from the defendant to the prosecutor in self-defense cases. Ohio is the only state that requires defendants to prove that their use of force was justified in self-defense. The proposed bill would shift this burden to the prosecution: [...]

Johnson & Johnson lost its motion Wednesday to reverse a $4.69 billion jury verdict against them. Johnson & Johnson had asked “that the jury verdict be thrown out on jurisdictional grounds and asked for separate trials for the plaintiffs, according to the order issued Wednesday.” However, the judge denied this motion. In response, “Johnson & [...]

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked Trump administration asylum restriction policies that prevented immigrants who were victims of gang or domestic violence in their home countries from seeking asylum. The ruling came as a result of a lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies filed on behalf [...]

Acting US Attorney General Matthew Whitaker announced Tuesday that a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) regulation has been amended to ban bump stocks, drawing a legal challenge the same day. Whitaker said the final rule states that bump stocks fall within the federal definition of “machine gun,” so the rule clarifies existing [...]

A federal judge on Tuesday postponed the sentencing of former national security advisor to Donald Trump, Michael Flynn, allowing him more time to cooperate with ongoing investigations. Judge Emmet Sullivan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia called Flynn’s crimes “very serious” and asked him numerous pointed questions. Flynn had pleaded guilty [...]

The Trump Foundation agreed by a stipulation on Tuesday to dissolve under judicial supervision, with review and approval by the New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, amid an investigation and lawsuit alleging the charity’s involvement in fundraising for Donald Trump’s own presidential campaign. Underwood filed a lawsuit in June that alleges the Trump Foundation engaged [...]

The US Senate approved the First Step Act Tuesday with an overwhelming bipartisan majority vote 87 to 12, marking a substantial overhaul of prison and sentencing laws aimed at reducing recidivism and prison populations. The bill expands in-prison and post-release employment programming, includes components related to alternatives to prison for low-risk prisoners such as home confinement, [...]

A judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled on Friday that when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) shared-responsibility payment for not obtaining health insurance to $0, the provision ceased being a tax, making it an invalid exercise of Congress’s power to tax. This does not [...]

President Trump signed the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2018 into law on Tuesday. The bill establishes “US policy to ensure that humanitarian, stabilization, and recovery assistance for nationals and residents of Iraq or Syria, and of communities from those countries, is directed toward ethnic and minority individuals and communities with the greatest [...]