Russian President Vladimir Putin Saturday signed a decree granting monthly benefits to migrants who fled Ukraine and entered Russian territory. The decree extends monthly payments of 10,000 rubles ($166) to disabled people, people over the age of 80, and pregnant women who entered Russia from Ukrainian territory as well as the disputed Donbas region. The [...]

Federal prosecutors in New Mexico Friday announced the arrest of Herman Leyvoune Wilson (also known as Bilal Mu’Min Abdullah) on charges of providing material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Wilson is also accused of attempting obstruct, influence and impede at least one official proceeding in the fall of 2020. Federal [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Friday upheld the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule prohibiting smoking in HUD-subsidized public housing units. The Housing Act of 1937 authorizes HUD to provide standards to keep public housing “safe and habitable.” In 2016, HUD promulgated the Smoke Free Rule. This [...]

Moderna filed suit in the US and Germany Friday against Pfizer and BioNtech for three claims of patent infringement. Moderna claims that Pfizer and BioNtech used the company’s patented mRNA technology in COVID-19 vaccines without Moderna’s permission. Moderna alleges that before the pandemic, they had over a decade of research on mRNA in coronaviruses, with [...]

The US Department of Defense (DOD) Thursday announced a new Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP). The plan lays out a number of massive changes across the DoD that are intended to mitigate and respond to civilian harm by shifting the fundamental culture of the DoD to be more aware of the risks posed [...]

Dear President Biden, Thank you for taking these first steps to implement student debt relief. Like many, we were surprised by the recent wrangling about how your debt forgiveness program could be implemented. We are writing to remind you that the federal government already has all of the tools, processes, and employees that it needs [...]

This year alone, Russian forces are believed to have launched hundreds of cluster munition attacks in contravention of various principles of international humanitarian law, according to a scathing report released Thursday by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), an international advocacy group. Cluster munitions are weapons that contain dozens to hundreds of explosive submunitions. They are [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) Friday released a redacted version of the affidavit seeking a search warrant for former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The DOJ also released a memo outlining the reasons for the proposed redactions. The release of the documents follows a Thursday order by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart. Reinhart found: that [...]

Human rights organization the Syrian British Consortium (SBC) Thursday published its investigation into the alleged massacre of civilians by the Syrian government and allied forces in the town of Daraya a decade ago. The investigation found that from August 19, 2012, to August 26, 2012, government forces killed at least 700 people, including women and [...]

Thomas Kraemer is Senior Counsel at Kakar Advocates in Kabul, Afghanistan, and a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is a Special Correspondent for JURIST currently based in Istanbul, Türkiye.  Last Saturday it was announced that the investigation and prosecution of crimes is no longer within the purview of the Afghanistan [...]