US President Donald Trump on Thursday posthumously pardoned Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, who was convicted under the Mann Act in 1913 for transporting a white woman across state lines and served 10 months in federal prison. Trump said Johnson “overcame difficult circumstances to reach the heights of the boxing world and inspired [...]
Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) reintroduced a bill on Wednesday that would strengthen privacy protections for minors online. The bill, known as the Do Not Track Kids Act of 2018, would amend the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by allowing internet companies to collect personal data from children under 13 [...]
A judge for US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri held Tuesday that a prison’s policy of refusing hormone therapy treatments to its transgender inmates was an unconstitutional violation of the Eighth Amendment. The lawsuit was filed by Jessica Hicklin, a transgender woman in the custody of the Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC), [...]
Swedish lawmakers passed legislation Wednesday making explicit consent or clear communication a requirement before sexual conduct, or it will be considered rape. “The purpose of the legislation is to clarify that every individual has an unconditional right to decide over their own sexual relations,” according to a press release from the Riksdag, Sweden’s legislative body. [...]
Four former high-ranking Guatemalan military officers were found guilty Wednesday of crimes against humanity by the Guatemalan High-Risk Court C. The officers were found guilty of sexually abusing an activist and the disappearance of her 14-year-old brother. They were sentenced to 58 years in jail. The family of the activist has been searching for their [...]
UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday revealed a new agenda for nuclear disarmament. Guterres’ agenda has three prongs. First, he urged the disarmament of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Part of the agenda reads, “he Secretary-General remains fully committed to working for the total elimination of nuclear weapons and he calls on Member States to [...]
Senators Amy Klobuchar and Roy Blunt released a bipartisan bill Wednesday overhauling sexual harassment policy for members of Congress and Capitol Hill staff, including requiring lawmakers to pay for financial settlements out of their own pockets. The Senate bill requires members of the House and Senate to reimburse the US Treasury for payment of any [...]
The Ontario Court of Appeal , the highest court in the province of Ontario, ruled Wednesday that US-based oil corporation Chevron Corp.’s Canadian subsidiary cannot be held liable for a USD $9.5-billion award granted by an Ecuadorian court against the parent company. This lawsuit arose out of the original actions against Texaco (which later became [...]
Scotland’s government introduced a climate change bill in the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday that sets greenhouse gas emissions targets at a 90 percent reduction by 2050. This is currently the “limit of feasibility” set forth by the UK Committee on Climate Change . The eventual goal is a 100 percent reduction, also known as “net-zero [...]
In a hearing before the European Court of Human Rights Wednesday, the Georgia government accused Russia of committing war crimes and human rights violations during the 2008 conflict . Georgia’s government accused Russia of more than 100 air assaults in Georgian territory. It cited evidence to show that Russia “carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks,” [...]
