Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday released a report outlining the prevalent trafficking and torture of Eritrean refugees for ransom by Sudanese and Egyptian individuals that has been occurring since 2010. Victims stated in the report that traffickers kidnapped and tortured them in order to extort money from their relatives. Various methods of torture used [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Monday denied a motion by Apple requesting a temporary hold on the duties of the court appointed external compliance officer Michael Bromwich. The compliance monitor was installed in October by Judge Cote of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York , [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Central District of California on Monday sentenced former Guatemalan soldier Jorge Sosa Orantes to a maximum of 10 years in federal prison for lying on his immigration forms about his role in a 1982 massacre in which around 200 people were killed. Orantes is a citizen [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) will recognize and extend benefits to all same-sex marriages , including those performed in states that do not recognize them, as per a policy memorandum issued by US Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday. The memo, which cites the decision in United States v. Windsor that struck down Section [...]
Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto announced Monday that her office would no longer be pursuing its legal defense of the state’s same-sex marriage ban, stating that recent decisions in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had rendered the state’s arguments untenable. On January 24 Masto’s office stated its belief that the [...]
The Idaho Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that a woman in a same-sex marriage may adopt her partner’s birth children. The couple was legally married in California in 2013 and Jane Doe I is the legal mother of two boys, aged 12 and 15. On appeal from a magistrate ruling which denied the adoption, Jane [...]
Serbia’s war crimes court sentenced nine former paramilitaries on Tuesday for their involvement in the genocide of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. Of the 11 men on trial, only two escaped prison, with the rest receiving sentences between two and 20 years for killing as many as 120 civilians in four Kosovo villages. All [...]
The non-profit financial reform advocacy group Better Markets filed a lawsuit on Monday against the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to block JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s (JPM) $13 billion settlement that resolved federal and state claims arising from the bank’s risky mortgage practices which helped lead to the 2008 financial crisis. Better Markets stated of [...]
A panel of three federal judges in California on Monday granted the state an extension until February 28, 2016, to reduce overcrowding in its massive prison system. The California prison system currently houses about 120,000 inmates but is only designed to hold about 80,000. Included in the order is the appointment of a compliance officer [...]
Four legally married same-sex couples on Monday filed a civil right lawsuit with the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio , seeking a court order to force the state of Ohio to recognize both spouses’ names on birth certificates. Three of the couples are legally married lesbian couples who have become pregnant [...]
