The Supreme Court of California on Wednesday ended legal challenges over Proposition 8 California’s now-defunct same-sex marriage ban. Supporters such as Protect Marriage had argued that a sole judge lacked the authority to overturn a state constitutional amendment, that applicable injunctions permitting same-sex marriage applied in at most two counties, and that state officials had [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Wednesday urged Hamas to halt all executions in the Gaza strip . According to the UN, the attorney general in Gaza announced that those executions stayed for Ramadan would recommence at the end of the Eid al-Fitr celebrations. Pillay objected to these executions based on the [...]
The US Department of Defense (DOD) announced Wednesday that it will extend benefits to same-sex couples in compliance with the June 26 Supreme Court ruling that striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Likewise, those couples stationed in a jurisdiction that will not provide a valid marriage certificate to same-sex couples will bgranted leave [...]
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday condemned the latest violent clashes in Egypt. While the situation in Egypt is ongoing and the UN is still gathering information on the day’s events, the secretary-general admonished Egyptian authorities for ignoring his recent call for all sides to strive for a peaceful resolution and instead responded violently [...]
A group of labor prosecutors in Brazil named Samsung in a lawsuit over the company’s substandard labor conditions in its Brazilian factories. Samsung is being asked to pay USD $108 in damages and to bear the cost of treatment for employees with occupational diseases for subjecting assembly line employees to 15-hour shifts, in violation of [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday ruled that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been violating federal law by failing to accept or deny the pending Department of Energy (DOE) application for a waste storage facility at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, which was originally filed in 2008. The Obama [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Monday dismissed a lawsuit against the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the agency’s failure to report Allen Stanford and his Ponzi scheme. Judge Robert Scola stated that the SEC market regulator was shielded under an exception to the Federal Tort Claims [...]
Antitrust officials for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to block the proposed $11 billion merger between US Airways and American Airlines’ parent company, AMR Corporation . The lawsuit challenges a merger that would have created the world’s largest [...]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday insisted that US drone strikes must operate within international law. The secretary-general hailed the country’s lead role in UN peacekeeping operations and addressed the controversial weapons in a speech at the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad, stating, “s I have often and consistently said, the use [...]
The Supreme Court of New Mexico ruled Monday that non-English speaking citizens can serve on juries. The ruling arose from a criminal case involving a defendant convicted of murder who appealed his conviction in part because the district court dismissed a prospective juror who was Spanish-speaking and had difficulty understanding English. While the Supreme Court [...]
