The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Monday filed a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley over allegedly discriminatory practices leading up to the housing crisis of 2008. According to the ACLU, between 2004 and 2007 Morgan Stanley and its affiliates, including New Century Mortgage Company, violated the Fair Housing Act , Equal Credit Opportunity Act and [...]

Apple on Monday appealed a Tokyo District Court ruling which dismissed Apple’s claim that Samsung had infringed on Apple’s patents. The appeal comes after Judge Tamotsu Shoji ruled in August that Samsung did not violate Apple’s patents for inventions allowing smart phones and tablets to synchronize music and video data with servers. The court subsequently [...]

UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond on Monday formally agreed to hold a referendum regarding the independence of Scotland, potentially ending the union between the two nations in place since the Union with England Act of 1707 . The agreement to allow the referendum marks a turning point in a [...]

The Syrian military is using cluster munitions against opposition forces, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Sunday. A Youtube video , posted by Syrian opposition forces, showed remnants of cluster munitions allegedly near several towns. Markings on the remnants suggest they were dropped from aircraft. The report details several instances of cluster munitions being used [...]

Five UK Royal Marines were charged with murder on Sunday in connection with an incident in 2011 in Afghanistan. The charge allegedly arises out of a video that showed marines in an incriminating situation with a wounded member of the Taliban. An independent agency that supervises military prosecutions, the Service Prosecuting Authority , decided to [...]

Three publishing companies on Friday settled an antitrust lawsuit filed by attorneys general of 49 states, the District of Columbia and five US territories and commonwealths, who had accused the nation’s top publishers of a price-fixing conspiracy. The attorneys general brought suit against five publishing companies. Of those companies, Hachette, Harpers Collins and Simon & [...]

US President Barack Obama’s campaign staff and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Friday urged the US Supreme Court to reject Ohio’s request for an emergency stay of an injunction against the state’s new early voting regulation. The new regulation would end early voting for everyone except overseas military members three days before election day. [...]

A UN official on Thursday released a report indicating that the government of Iran is torturing human rights activists and threatening the activists’ families with rape or death. In a report to the UN General Assembly UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran Ahmed Shaheed declared that human rights activists in Iran are being [...]

The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals ruled Friday that an Alabama law defining marriage as between one man and one woman bars a woman from adopting her female partner’s child. The case concerned a woman, Cari Searcy, who married her partner, Kimberly McKeand in California in 2008. The appeals court held unanimously that even though [...]

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called on Iran Friday to immediately stop all executions , including 11 planned for Saturday. The OHCHR stated that Iran has failed to provide the accused with due process and fair trials and that the death penalty is not appropriate for certain crimes for [...]