A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday granted class action status to numerous authors suing Google over its book-scanning initiative . Judge Denny Chin reasoned that the numerosity, commonality and typicality elements for Rule 23(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is satisfied. Google had [...]
Laws legalizing marriage and adoption for same-sex couples will soon be introduced in France, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told a French television station on Friday. Same-sex marriage is currently banned by law in France. The prime minister’s announcement comes nearly a year after the French National Assembly voted to reject a bill seeking to legalize [...]
Incidents of hate-based murders against LGBT individuals in the US increased in 2011, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) reported Thursday. The annual report, entitled “Hate Violence Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-affected Communities in the U.S. in 2011,” found that 30 LGBT individuals were killed in 2011 in hate-based murders, the [...]
Ecuadorian plaintiffs seeking to collect on a judgment against Chevron Corp over Amazon pollution on Wednesday filed a collection action in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice . The pollution was originally caused by Texaco in the 1980s. Chevron acquired the company with its liabilities in 2001. With this new lawsuit, the plaintiffs seek to enforce [...]
The Syrian government has released more than 500 prisoners detained during pro-democracy demonstrations in the last month, Syria’s official news agency reported Thursday. The report indicated that the government released 265 prisoners on May 5 and another 250 on May 17, adding that only those prisoners who “did not commit murders” were freed. The announcement [...]
Libya will begin the prosecution of senior officials who served under former leader Muammar Gaddafi in June, Prosecutor-General Abdul Azizi al-Hassadi told reporters on Thursday. The trials will begin with the prosecution of former spy chief Buzeid Dorda. The Prosecutor-General’s announcement comes after the Libyan government formally challenged the right of the International Criminal Court [...]
SunTrust Mortgage, Inc. agreed on Thursday to a $21 million settlement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for discrimination in the pricing of mortgage loans. DOJ had filed a suit against the company for discriminating against borrowers based on race and national origin rather than on risk. The company allegedly engaged in the unlawful [...]
An appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man seeking to recover damages because of a false rumor that he was gay. The court noted that because the man did not assert specific harm, the false statements must amount to “‘slander per se’—those categories of [...]
Blind Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng urged the US on Thursday to “try harder” to promote the rule of law in China . Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) , Chen informed the audience that the rule of law in China is still weak and that much has to be done to [...]
Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday rejected the prosecution’s application for an arrest warrant against Sylvestre Mudacumura , a field commander in the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) . The prosecution announced that it would apply for an arrest warrant against Mudacumura earlier this month on charges [...]
