The governor of New York signed a bill Monday making New York the first state to ban cat declawing. The bill adds a new section to the agriculture and markets law and expressly prohibits “the practice of declawing a cat.” The procedure “involves the removal of all or most of the last bone of each [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Tofurky Co. on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Arkansas Bureau of Standards challenging a new law (Act 501)that prohibits the labeling of plant-based meat alternatives as “meat” or related terms like “beef,” “pork,” “roast,” “sausage” and “burger.” Plaintiffs allege that Act 501 “is a restriction on commercial [...]

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a revenge porn bill into law on Tuesday. The bill makes it a class A misdemeanor to non-consensually share and disseminate an intimate image meant to cause emotional, physical or financial harm. The law, passed back in February, is meant to adapt to the growing reliance on technology and [...]

India’s parliament introduced the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill last week, but Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed some concerns over the legislation Tuesday. Following a 2014 Supreme Court decision in NALSA v. India, the country recognized the fundamental protected rights of third gender individuals. But according to HRW, the new proposed legislation does not [...]

On the last day of its 2018-2019 Term, the Supreme Court decided in Department of Commerce v. New York that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross could not add a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census solely on the basis of the “contrived” and “pretextual” reason he cited (the need to better enforce the Voting Rights [...]

The Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India’s parliament, approved a bill on Monday to amend the Protection of Human Rights Act of 1993. The bill was passed by the lower house of parliament (Lok Sabha) last week and will become law once it receives presidential assent. The bill was introduced to include, among other [...]

Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed a youth sentencing reform bill into law Monday. The new law includes a number of substantial reforms to Oregon’s juvenile justice system, reversing in part a tough-on-crime ballot measure voters approved in 1995. Overall, the reforms move to grant more discretion to judges, removing mandatory minimum sentences and lifting a [...]

Kenyan National Treasury Cabinet Secretary, Henry Rotich, was arrested Monday on charges that he financially mismanaged a dam construction contract awarded to the Italian company CMC di Ravenna. In a statement, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Noordin Haji, outlined the course of the investigation, which began in September 2018 and was made public in March. [...]

Equifax has agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle litigation with 147 million consumers over a massive data breach, according to a court filing Monday Attorneys who represented the consumers will receive about $77.5 million from the settlement. Equifax Inc. has agreed to pay $575 million, and potentially up to $700 million, as part of [...]

Google has reached an $11 million settlement in an age discrimination lawsuit, according to a Friday court filing. Google maintains that it has not participated in age discrimination, citing its diversity report. However, Google did not include diversity statistics for age in its report, or even reference age statistics. The $11-million dollar settlement will be [...]