The Australia High Court on Thursday unanimously dismissed a legal challenge to a same-sex marriage postal survey, thereby allowing the general public to vote directly on whether same-sex marriage should be legalized. The focus of the legal challenge to the survey was more on a financial level than on a social level. The challenge to [...]
The US House of Representatives on Tuesday approved legislation to allow self-driving cars into the marketplace. The Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research In Vehicle Evolution (SELF DRIVE) Act will allow 100,000 autonomous vehicles into the market as long as they meet the federal regulation standards. The purpose of the bill is to speed [...]
Widespread human rights violations continue in war-torn Syria despite a decrease in fighting between warring parties, according to a report released Wednesday by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, an investigatory branch of the UN Human Rights Council . The alleged violations, characterized by the report as “unthinkable crimes against [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Tuesday that security forces under the administration of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi have systematically used torture methods against political detainees that likely amount to crimes against humanity. According to the report, officers have routinely used stressful positions, physical abuse, and even rape to punish detainees and force confessions. Such [...]
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Wednesday that a 2009 antitrust case should be sent back to the lower court in order to reexamine the €1.06 billion fine placed on Intel in the matter. The EU General Court (EGC) previously found in 2014 that Intel had violated EU competition law by using rebates [...]
Property owners in Harris County, Houston filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government on Tuesday for releasing water from the Barker and Addicks reservoirs after Hurricane Harvey, causing flooding in their homes and businesses. The property owners did not experience flooding until August 28, after the worst of the rain had passed. The [...]
Four UN human rights experts on Tuesday called on China to release a prominent human rights lawyer who has been detained since November 2016. The lawyer, Jiang Tianyong, is being tried for inciting subversion of the state’s power. The UN’s call for his release comes after Jiang’s August 22 confession , which many believe was [...]
Brazil’s Attorney General Rodrigo Janot announced Tuesday that former Brazilian presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, along with other senior members of the Worker’s Party, were being charged with leading a criminal organization. The organization was allegedly involved in paying bribes to politicians through inflating state contracts. In total, roughly $480 million [...]
A group of 15 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the Trump administration’s decision to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) program. DACA provides protection from deportation to undocumented immigrants, often called “Dreamers,” who were brought to the US as children. New York Attorney General Eric [...]
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on the government of Myanmar Tuesday to grant nationality, or at least legal status, to the Rohingya Muslim minority group that resides in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. Myanmar’s security forces have responded to recent violence from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army with indiscriminate attacks in the Rakhine State. Guterres [...]
