East Pittsburgh police officer Michael Rosfeld was charged with criminal homicide Wednesday after fatally shooting Antwon Rose Jr. on June 19 during a traffic stop. The complaint , filed by the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office cited multiple witness reports, a video of the shooting uploaded to various social media outlets, and Rosfeld’s reputation as reasons for [...]
Lawyers for President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, filed an appeal on Monday requesting a federal appeals court to review an order by District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia that requires Manafort to be detained in jail while he awaits trial on several felony [...]
A coalition of 17 states and the District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its policy to separate immigrant children from their families and refusal to allow asylum applicants entry along Southwestern border ports. The complaint describes reports of families who have sought asylum only to be unlawfully refused at [...]
A three-judge federal panel ruled 2-1 on Tuesday that the Virginia General Assembly violated the Equal Protection Clause by engaging in racial gerrymandering. The plaintiffs alleged that the General Assembly “predominantly relied on race” when drawing up 12 majority African-American voting districts for the 2011 election. The US Supreme Court previously upheld the voting plan [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in Janus vs. AFSCME that public sector unions cannot collect what the court calls “agency fee i.e., a percentage of the full union dues” from non-members. In a 5-4 ruling, the court, citing the First Amendment, held that the payment of agency fees forces nonmembers to “endorse ideas they [...]
Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a suit on Monday against several oil companies, including Chevron Corporation and Exxon Mobil Corporation . The suit, brought by the state of California and the city of Oakland, alleged that the oil companies were a “public nuisance” under federal [...]
Amnesty International (AI) called on the Libyan government on Monday to protect women human rights defenders in the country. The call comes four years after Libyan human rights lawyer and activist Salwa Bugaighis was assassinated in the country. AI has found “an escalation of gender-based violence against women who continue to fight for political inclusion,” [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Monday supplemented its lawsuit with a memorandum in support of a preliminary injunction to block the Trump administration from separating asylum-seeking immigrant parents from their children and to order the administration to reunite separated families. The ACLU urges the court issue this preliminary injunction, arguing that Trump’s executive [...]
Addressing the UN General Assembly on Monday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that no atrocity crimes, including genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, are inevitable and that all can be prevented. General Assembly President Miroslav Lajčák stated that “Prevention can save people from experiencing the horrors of atrocity crimes. And more pragmatically, [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a regulation requiring crisis pregnancy centers to give women certain information concerning free or low-cost abortion services and disclose if the center was unlicensed to provide medical services was unconstitutional. In a 5-4 ruling in NIFLA v. Becerra , the court decided that the California Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency [...]