The US Attorney’s Office of Massachusetts on Tuesday unsealed documents related to a federal investigation into a large-scale college admissions and testing bribery scheme. The conspiracy involved a network of “athletic coaches from Yale, Stanford, USC, Wake Forest and Georgetown … as well as parents and exam administrators.” These defendants were linked through an enterprise called [...]
A UN panel of experts on Monday released a report that details numerous sanction violations by North Korea. Economic sanctions against North Korea were originally imposed to deter nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but these programs have not ceased and the sanctions have been undermined via “illegal ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products and coal.” In [...]
The Arkansas Senate on Monday voted 25-9 in favor of measures to prevent the release of information that could identify manufacturers and suppliers of drugs used during state executions. The Senate justified its move to increase drug secrecy by citing a “well-documented guerilla war being waged against the death penalty,” where anti-death penalty advocates pressure pharmaceutical [...]
A new UN report was released Monday detailing violent ethnic attacks in December 2018 leading to hundreds of deaths and displacements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A UN special investigative mission was sent to the Yumbi territory after receiving reports of violence occurring in December of last year. The investigation confirmed at least [...]
The Arkansas Senate approved a bill Monday that would ban abortions at 18 weeks, making it one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. After an amendment last week to add exemptions for rape and incest, the Senate voted 28-6 in favor of the measure, called The Cherish Act. It now goes back to [...]
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin signed a new NRA-backed gun law Monday that allows for concealed carry of a handgun without a permit to anyone 21 and older. Kentucky law currently allows open carry without a permit, but a license and training to conceal in a bag or coat. Now Kentuckians will not need a permit [...]
US Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Paul Hasson pleaded not guilty Monday to federal charges of drug and firearms possession related to his alleged terrorist plot. Hasson was indicted on February 27 by a grand jury after federal agents raided his house and found guns, ammunition, drugs and literature suggesting a potential terrorist plot. Federal Agents [...]
Lawyers representing former Democratic Republic of Congo vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba filed a claim with the International Criminal Court (ICC) Monday seeking more than €68 million (USD $76.5 million) in compensatory damages for a 10-year prison sentence he served from 2008 to 2018. Bemba was arrested in May 2008 on multiple charges of war crimes [...]
Lambda Legal and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) filed a lawsuit Monday on behalf of current and former North Carolina state employees, alleging discrimination against transgender persons enrolled in health care coverage. The plaintiffs argue that because treatment of gender dysphoria is categorically excluded from the health care coverage, the defendants “deny [...]
Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh’s husband Reza Khandan posted on Facebook Monday that his wife has been sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes as results of two open cases. Sotoudeh has been charged with spreading information against the state, insulting Iran’s Supreme Leader and spying. Last year Sotoudeh represented a number of [...]
