Earlier this month, Congress sent a sweeping legislative package aimed at curbing the opioid epidemic to President Trump’s desk for signature, and the President has said he intends to sign it. Despite the increasing rancor that has poisoned so much our political discourse, the Substance Use Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) [...]
Several civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit Thursday against Georgia Secretary of State and Republican nominee for governor Brian Kemp to stop enforcement of HB268, an election law that has placed a hold on over 50,000 registered voters. HB268 has a provision that places pending status on any voter that has voter registration information that does not [...]
The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday voted 5-2 to uphold Act 633 of 2017, a voter identification law that requires Arkansas voters to provide ID “that shows the person’s name and photograph” and “is issued by the federal or state government or an accredited postsecondary educational institution in Arkansas.” In 2014 the Arkansas Supreme Court struck [...]
Poland’s Supreme Court announced Thursday that the court had added 27 new judges in a secret ceremony which took place on Wednesday afternoon. This move comes after Poland lowered the retirement age of its Supreme Court justices from 70 to 65 in September, forcing 27 judges of the 72-judge court into retirement. President Andrezj Duda [...]
A federal jury in Madison, Wisconsin, on Thursday awarded two transgender state employees $780,500 in damages after a district court found that a ban on insurance coverage for gender-changing surgery amounts to sexual discrimination. In March 2017 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a complaint on behalf of Alina Boyden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison [...]
Liew Vui Keong, chief minister in the Malaysian Prime Minister’s office, announced Wednesday that Malaysia would abolish the death penalty by the next sitting of Parliament. The move comes after several humanitarian groups, including Amnesty International, called for the death penalty’s abolition as a result of the execution of several minor offenders, including Westerners. Upon [...]
The Washington state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state’s death penalty laws are unconstitutional. The opinion comes out of the case of Allen Eugene Gregory, who had previously been convicted of aggravated first degree murder and sentenced to death. Gregory appealed this conviction, and his case was remanded for resentencing. Another jury then sentenced [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Tuesday sentenced Guy Vallerius, also known as “Oxymonster” on the dark web, to 20 years in prison for charges related to drug trafficking and money laundering. The South Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force led the investigation that uncovered Vallerius’ [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Tuesday allowed the US Department of Energy (DOE) to halt construction on a mixed oxide fuel (MOX) fabrication facility project in South Carolina. The appeals court granted a motion to stay an injunction granted by the US District Court of South Carolina that had prevented the DOE [...]
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments in two cases, one of which challenges the detention provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the other concerning maritime asbestos injuries. In the first case, Nielson v. Preap, the court is asked to determine: “Whether a criminal alien becomes exempt from mandatory detention under if, after the [...]
