The US House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill intended to curb the actions of “patent trolls” , or patent assertion entities, in which companies frivolously accuse other companies, often small business owners, of patent infringement in effort to collect licensing fees. The bill, also referred to as “the Innovation Act,” promotes transparency and [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Wednesday that developers of the 7 World Trade Center (7WTC) Building were not liable for the damages caused by the collapse of the 7WTC several hours after the twin towers were destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attack. The owner of the electrical substation that was [...]

Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr , who was kidnapped in Milan as part of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) extraordinary rendition program , was sentenced to six years in prison on Friday by an Italian court after being convicted in absentia of terror charges. Under the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, terrorism suspects were [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in United States v. Apel . The case addresses the issue of whether a statute that prohibits a person from reentering a military installation after a commanding officer ordered him not to reenter may be enforced on a portion of a military installation that is subject to [...]

Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday released new satellite images and an assessment of North Korea’s political prison camps, which reveal new housing blocks, an expansion of production facilities and continued tight security. In a report titled “North Korea: Continued Investment in the Infrastructure of Repression,” AI analyzed satellite images of political prison camp (kwanliso) 15 [...]

The Illinois General Assembly passed a bill on Tuesday that would reform the state’s pension plan to lower future benefits for current state employees. The legislature amended the pension plan in an effort to cut spending and lower the state’s debt, which currently includes about $100 billion in unfunded liabilities. The bill aims to reduce [...]

US prosecutors unsealed on Thursday charges it has filed against 49 current and former Russian diplomats and their family members for allegedly conspiring to commit health care fraud . The complaint, which was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York , accuses the diplomats of lying about their income [...]

A team of Dutch and Swedish researchers released a report on Wednesday which concluded that senior military officers in Eritrea are kidnapping Eritrean children and smuggling them into Sudan. The report, entitled “The Human Trafficking Cycle: Sinai and Beyond,” was released and presented during a hearing at the European Parliament . The report includes firsthand [...]

On Thursday the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) rejected a request by prosecutors to re-arrest nine individuals convicted of war crimes. The court ruled that since Bosnian law does not contain provisions for the re-arrest of someone already convicted of a crime, the European Convention on Human Rights requires the issue to be resolved [...]

The Italian Constitutional Court on Wednesday ruled that portions of the country’s electoral law breach its constitution . This decision overturns both a measure in the law that prevents voters from choosing their parliamentary representative and one that gives extra seats to the party that receives the most votes. The law, which has been blamed [...]