California Governor Jerry Brown has been credited with pushing through legislation Monday to extend the state’s cap and trade program another 10 years. Bills AB 398 and AB 617 were passed by the California legislature with the support of more than 150 community leaders and groups, including those of environmental and public health. The program [...]

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte asked Congress on Tuesday to extend his order of martial law for the lower third of the country. Duterte declared martial law on the island of Mindanao in May when heavily armed militants linked to the Islamic State took over large parts of Marawi City, a provincial capital in the predominantly [...]

A Turkish court on Tuesday ordered that six human rights activists, including Amnesty International‘s (AI) Turkey Director, remain in custody pending trial for allegedly aiding an armed terrorist group. The activists were arrested on July 5 during a training workshop and are “suspected of ‘committing crime in the name of a terrorist organization without being [...]

A US appeals court ruled on Monday that a nondisclosure requirement in the National Security Letters (NSL) law does not conflict with the First Amendment. Therefore the court also concluded that private companies that are issued an NSL by the FBI must also follow the nondisclosure requirement if the letter contains it in that case. [...]

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusett on Monday held that a woman who was fired from her job for testing positive for medically prescribed marijuana could sue her former employer for handicap discrimination. The employee in this case was prescribed medical marijuana to combat the low appetite that she experienced due to Crohn’s Disease. The [...]

Opposition parties petitioned the Pakistan Supreme Court on Monday to remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office after the joint investigation team’s (JIT) report stipulated that there was sufficient proof that the prime minister and his family held wealth beyond their known means of income. The JIT was created in April when the Supreme Court [...]

The Russian Supreme Court on Monday upheld its ruling ordering the disbanding of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In denying an appeal by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Supreme Court affirmed that their previous ruling will remain in place and unchanged. The prior ruling was considered the Jehovah’s Witnesses to be an extremist organization because it distributed pamphlets [...]

Thousands of people rallied in Warsaw, Poland on Sunday to protest controversial proposals aimed at reforming the country’s court system. The demonstration comes as a response to a series of bills passed by Poland’s Senate over the last week that many fear are a threat to judicial independence. The bills give parliament, where the Law [...]

Millions of Venezuelans voted on Sunday to reject President Nicolás Maduro’s plan to rewrite the nation’s constitution. The non-binding referendum was organized by the country’s opposition activists. More than 7 million individuals, roughly one-third of Venezuela’s registered voters, took part with over 98 percent rejecting Maduro’s plan . Many have accused the efforts for a [...]

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released a report Monday condemning an increase in civilian deaths in Afghanistan during the first half of 2017. Although there was an overall decrease in civilian casualties in the first six months of 2017, there was an increase in injuries and deaths from improvised explosive devices (IED). IEDs [...]