New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a bill into law Tuesday that will allow individuals to elect a third gender category on birth certificates issued within city limits, removing a number of medical and administrative barriers to doing so. The bill was recently passed by the New York City Council, which worked closely [...]
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Wednesday temporarily blocked three decisions of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that required two Trump officials to appear for depositions regarding a controversial 2020 Census citizenship question. US Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Justice official John Gore were ordered [...]
The UK Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Christian bakery owners did not discriminate against a gay customer when they refused to make a cake supporting same-sex marriage. Mr. Lee, a gay rights activist, brought a claim against Ashers Baking Company, located in Northern Ireland, after the bakery refused to make a cake iced with the [...]
A judge for the Cole County Circuit Court of Missouri held Tuesday that the affidavit and advertisement requirements of the Missouri’s voter identification law were unconstitutional. The law, HB 1631 , was passed in 2016 to require that voters present an acceptable form of ID at the voting ballot. The law provides several ID options, [...]
Guatemala’s Court for High Risks on Tuesday sentenced former vice president Roxana Baldetti to prison for 15 years and six months for committing corruption in the awarding of a multi-million dollar government contract to decontaminate a lake near the capital. A UN anti-corruption commission supported Guatemalan prosecutors in the case against Baldetti and 12 other people for [...]
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear an appeal of a 2017 environmental ruling authored by the court’s newest member, Brett Kavanaugh. The opinion, issued by a three-judge panel of Kavanaugh’s former court, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, struck down a regulation issued by the Obama administration’s [...]
A Madrid court on Monday found Dr. Eduardo Vela, a gynecologist during the rule of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, guilty of abducting a child in 1969 but found that the 85-year-old’s crime fell beyond the statute of limitations, sparing him from sentencing. The Madrid Provincial Court agreed in June to hear the case of Ines [...]
Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the US Supreme Court Tuesday to hear oral argument in two cases challenging the mandatory sentencing enhancement provision of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). Both cases concern the “mandatory minimum 15-year prison sentence on any federal firearms offender who previously has been convicted of three ‘violent’ felonies.” The previous provision imposed a [...]
The September 2018 decision of Federal District Judge Troy Nunley in Tracy Rifle and Pistol LLC v. Harris is noteworthy for at least two reasons. First, the decision invalidated a California law prohibiting firearms retailers from displaying on the exterior of their premises any readily visible “handgun or imitation handgun, or placard advertising the sale or other [...]
The Tennessee Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the state’s lethal injection protocol over a challenge by several death row inmates who argued the three-drug injection inflicted unnecessary pain. In July the Tennessee Department of Corrections revised the protocol to eliminate pentobarbital, providing for a three-drug injection now including midazolam to provide pain relief. The 33 [...]
