2009 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, US Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Judicial Conference of the United States, December 31, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here.

United States of America v. Slough, et al., US District Court for the District of Columbia, December 31, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on Blackwater.

A plethora of state laws set to take effect after Friday, New Year's Day, seek to regulate everything from social policy to highway safety. Texting while driving will become illegal in Illinois, Oregon, and New Hampshire, which will join nearly twenty other prohibiting states and the federal government . Georgia will begin administering stiffer fines [...]

Thirteen state attorneys general, all Republicans, demanded in a letter sent Wednesday to the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and the Senate Majority Leader that a controversial provision in the health care reform bill approved in the Senate last week should be struck because it unfairly benefits the state of Nebraska. In the [...]

US President Barack Obama effectively issued his first veto of congressional legislation Wednesday, rejecting as "unnecessary legislation" a stopgap spending bill that was drafted in case inclement weather would have interfered with the vote that approved the appropriations for the Department of Defense (DOD) two weeks ago. The stopgap spending bill would have allowed the [...]

Wilner, et al. v. National Security Agency, et al., US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, December 30, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on the Freedom of Information Act.

The French Constitutional Council rejected a tax on carbon emissions Tuesday, stating there were too many exemptions for polluters in the plan. The tax, set to go into effect on January 1, 2010, was part of the 2010 Finance Act and was intended to reduce carbon emissions in order to slow climate change and to [...]

Bryan v. McPherson, et al., Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, December 29, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here.

South Korean officials announced Monday that President Lee Myung-bak plans to pardon former Samsung Chairman and CEO Kun-Hee Lee on tax fraud charges he was convicted of in 2008. Lee had faced a suspended three-year prison term after an additional breach of trust conviction against him was vacated . The already lenient sentence given to [...]

The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed Tuesday that police have detained a US citizen for illegally entering North Korea. The KCNA did not disclose the identity of the individual, but it is suspected to be US-Korean rights activist Robert Park. A spokesperson for Pax Koreana, a rights group associated with Park, said that [...]