The US Department of Labor (DOL) announced Wednesday that it would be ending a Trump-era rule that would allow businesses to classify certain workers as independent contractors rather than employees. The end of the independent contractor rule is expected to permit so-called “gig workers” to be entitled to minimum wage and overtime compensation benefits under [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the final case of its term on Tuesday in Terry v. United States, about reductions of prison sentences for certain crack cocaine offenses. In 2008 Tarahrick Terry was arrested and charged under 21 USC § 841(a)(1) for carrying just shy of 4 grams of crack cocaine, and [...]

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law Thursday a bill introducing sweeping restrictions to mail-in voting access. Senate Bill 90—which critics have labelled as a violation of voting rights and a form of voter suppression—limits access to mail-in ballots and drop boxes as well as tightens identification requirements for voting by mail. Immediately after [...]

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai Wednesday announced the Biden-Harris Administration’s “support for waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines.” These extraordinary times and circumstances of call for extraordinary measures. The US supports the waiver of IP protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic and we’ll actively participate in @WTO negotiations to make that [...]

The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Thursday expressed strong concerns about a “rising number of threats, attacks and attempts to undermine and delegitimise independent national human rights institutions“ in Latin America and the Caribbean. Incidents reportedly include threats or harassment against various human rights institutions or their staff in [...]

A two-judge division bench of the Supreme Court of India on Thursday denied relief in a petition by the Election Commission of India seeking to restrict media coverage of open courts.  The petition was made by the Election Commission on account of the oral remarks of the High Court of Madras that had compared the [...]

The state Qatar News Agency announced Thursday that the Qatari attorney general has ordered the arrest of Finance Minister Ali Sharif al-Emadi on charges related to the abuse of his office. The Minister of Commerce and Industry, Ali bin Ahmed Al-Kuwari, was announced as al-Emadi’s immediate replacement. Al-Emadi had served in a variety of roles [...]

The Biden Administration recently came to agreements with Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala to increase their border enforcement. These agreements aim to reduce the number of migrants who are able to make their way to the US-Mexico border by extending American border defense thousands of miles south of that border. And they do so in a [...]

“It is clear, absolutely clear,” said President Biden at his first presidential press conference, “that this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.” Biden’s rhetorical flourish echoed a more famous one from his political idol, John F. Kennedy, who declared in his first inaugural speech in 1961 that [...]

France’s National Assembly approved a new bill on Tuesday to cut greenhouse gas emissions, even as opposition lawmakers and environmental groups objected and said it would leave the country short of its Paris Agreement targets. The bill was approved by a 332-77 margin by the lower house where President Emmanuel Macron has a working majority. The [...]