The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued guidelines on Friday for banks to provide services to legal marijuana-related businesses. The guidance document lists eight priorities in line with those of the Department of Justice (DOJ) policy of marijuana law enforcement, including preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors and the diversion of the drug out [...]
A spokesperson for the Ugandan government, Ofwono Opondo, said in a tweet Friday that President Yoweri Museveni will sign an anti-gay law that provides for life imprisonment for homosexuals. Homosexuality has long been illegal in Uganda, and the bill was introduced to inflict harsher penalties for the crime. The bill would impose life sentences for [...]
A spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday called on all parties involved in the violent protests in Venezuela to open dialogue to resolve the situation after three were killed in demonstrations on Wednesday. Protests against current President Nicolas Maduro escalated earlier this week in response to [...]
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced a decree on Thursday banning gay couples or single people from countries that legally allow same-sex marriage from adopting Russian children. The Russian government resolution is purportedly aimed at helping to “improve the procedure for the transfer of children without parental care, children in families of citizens of the [...]
The Mississippi House of Representatives approved a measure on Thursday banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. According to the legislation, the bill was introduced out of concern that a fetus can feel pain by 20 weeks gestation. House member Andy Gipson , author of HB 1400, said the only exceptions to the proposed ban [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Thursday struck down Virginia’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. In 2006, Virginia voters ratified an amendment (Article I section 15-A) to the Virginia Constitution , which deemed marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. Judge Arenda Wright [...]
The lower house of Belgian Parliament gave final approval on Thursday to a bill that would extend the country’s euthanasia law to certain cases of terminally ill minors. The legislation , approved by a vote of 86 to 44 with 12 abstentions, would extend a 2002 law that allows euthanasia for terminally ill adults to [...]
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Thursday announced a lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on behalf of widower Paul Hard challenging Alabama’s Marriage Protection Act and Sanctity Marriage Amendment (Sanctity Laws) which refuse to recognize same sex marriages performed outside the state. Hard married David Fancher in [...]
The Thirteenth Texas Court of Appeals on Thursday vacated a lower court’s holding that Nikki Araguz, the transgender widow of a firefighter who died in 2010, was a man at the time of her marriage, thus invalidating the union. The lawsuit was originally brought by Simona Longoria, mother of Thomas Araguz, and subsequently joined by [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the Somali government on Thursday to adopt reforms to help prevent sexual violence against women and provide support for victims. HRW released a report, “Here, Rape is Normal” , with instructions for the government to establish a strategy to reduce sexual violence in the country. The report lays out five [...]
