The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday ruled that Alaska’s law governing the aggregate amount of campaign contributions to candidates from nonresidents violated the First Amendment. The plaintiffs are three individuals and a subdivision of the Alaskan Republican party. Though four provisions of the law were at issue before the court, the provision struck [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in Tyson Timbs v. Indiana, a case that centers on the incorporation of the excessive fines clause to the states. Under the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed.” The Timbs case focuses on whether the excessive [...]
A Delaware Court of Chancery judge’s ruling on Tuesday will allow an lawsuit pertaining to state public education funding to proceed. The lawsuit, brought by two civil rights organizations, Delawareans for Educational Opportunity and the Delaware NAACP, argues that the way Delaware funds public schools has led to a disparity so great it is deemed [...]
UN experts on Wednesday called on select states to respect the human rights of migrants traveling in caravans from Central America towards Mexico and the US. In letters to the governments of Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and the US, the experts voiced their concerns and urged the States to abide by international law. Since mid-October roughly 12,000 [...]
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Monday added the Vice President and First Lady of Nicaragua, Rosario Maria Murillo De Ortega, and top aide Nestor Moncada Lau to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. The moves comes in response to an executive order issued by President Donald Trump authorizing sanctions against [...]
Supporters of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday calling for major reforms of the electoral process in Georgia. Plaintiffs argue that Georgia has had longstanding issues with voting rights, especially impacting low-income voters and voters of color: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan, independent agency, found that among the [...]
The UK Information Commissioners Office (ICO) and the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Dutch DPA) on Tuesday fined Uber £385,000 and €600,000, respectively, over a 2016 data breach that exposed the sensitive data of more than 57 million of its users worldwide. According to UK officials, between October 13 and November 15, 2016, Uber’s four UK affiliates (Uber [...]
Alejandro Andrade, former national treasurer for the government of Venezuela, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday by Judge Robin Rosenberg of the US District Court Southern District of Florida for his role in a $1 billion bribery and money-laundering scheme. Andrade started his political career as a bodyguard to the former president of Venezuela, [...]
Results released Monday show that voters in Mexico approved President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s 10 pet projects, despite low voter turnout. The vote results were criticized for lack of specificity in the description of the projects and poor voter turnout with only 1 in 90 citizens voting. Only 946,168 people participated in the referendum. All projects [...]
The attorneys generals from Washington, DC, and 14 states filed an amicus brief on Monday in support of Maryland’s motion to replace Matthew Whitaker as US Attorney General with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The amicus brief was filed by Attorney General Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Attorney General Karl Racine of Washington, DC. The attorneys general from Connecticut, [...]
