On Friday, a group of police unions filed a motion to block Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposed settlement and removal of former mayor Michael Bloomberg’s appeal of the stop and frisk policy. The motion was filed in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in response to de Blasio’s recent decision to drop [...]

Merck & Co. agreed to pay $100 million to settle thousands of lawsuits concerning Merck’s NuvaRing contraceptive device. The lawsuits allege that NuvaRing potentially causes fatal blood clots. The settlement will provide an average payment of over $58,000 per case. This settlement is less than other contraceptive makers have had to pay in similar lawsuits. [...]

US President Barack Obama signed into law on Friday a $956 billion farm bill providing expanded crop insurance and other benefits for the agricultural sector. The bill passed the Senate last week with a bipartisan vote. Beyond expanding federal crop insurance, the farm bill also ends direct government payments for farmers regardless of whether they [...]

France’s State Council , the country’s top administrative court, ruled on Friday that Google must display press release] on its French page that it has been fined by the local data-protection watchdog for how they store user information. Google has stated that it will comply with the order, but will continue to fight the fine [...]

UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights , Farida Shaheed announced Friday that she will launch a new study on how marketing and advertising affect cultural rights. Shaheed plans to focus her study on the challenges that marketing strategies present to cultural rights such as the right to education, the right to artistic [...]

UN officials on Wednesday called for an end to female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) , a practice that still threatens millions of girls worldwide. A statement from Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin , Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) , called FGM/C an affront to human dignity and an unacceptable continuing human rights violation. [...]

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that cities may not pass ordinances that conflict with the state’s five-year-old medical marijuana law . John Ter Beek, a resident of Wyoming, Michigan, challenged a 2010 Wyoming zoning ordinance that prohibited the use of marijuana, arguing that his status as a qualified medical marijuana patient and the [...]

The National Network of Congolese Human Rights NGOs on Wednesday a new Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) law providing amnesty for acts of war committed as far back as 2006. After more than three weeks of debate, lawmakers in the DRC approved the law on Tuesday amid outcry from human rights advocates, including Human [...]

Germany’s Constitutional Court on Friday referred the case against the European Central Bank’s (ECB) bond-buying plan, called Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT), to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) . The ruling means the German court will not cut the program, which could alarm investors that rely on the plan to stabilize the Euro. The court [...]

Turkey’s Parliament on Wednesday approved legislation to heighten Internet restrictions, granting the country’s telecommunications authority the ability to block websites or remove content without the court’s approval. Amid claims that this is an act of censorship, government officials have maintained that the bill is intended to promote the protection of privacy. Many have expressed concern [...]