The Pennsylvania Senate on Wednesday approved SB 3 , putting Pennsylvania in line to become the seventeenth state to pass a bill banning abortions past 20 weeks. The bill passed the Senate by a 32-18 vote, leaving it two votes shy of a supermajority able to defeat Governor Tom Wolf‘s promised veto. Although this bill [...]
Israel-based advocacy groups Legal Center for Arab Rights and the Jerusalem Center for Human Rights and Legal Aid asked the Israeli Supreme Court Wednesday to review a new law that retroactively legalizes some 4,000 settlements in the West Bank. The bill, initially approved in December , received the final votes in needed in the Knesset [...]
US Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was confirmed as Attorney General by a 52 to 47 vote on Wednesday, bringing to a close a contentious confirmation process. The committee hearing on his nomination included testimony on Sessions’ controversial history regarding race, but resulted ultimately in his being advanced by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sessions vowed after [...]
A coalition of advocacy groups filed suit in federal court Monday to challenge a Trump administration executive order aimed at reducing federal regulations. Public Citizen, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the union Communications Workers of America brought the suit, alleging that the order exceeds presidential authority and violates the Constitution. The order, signed on [...]
The Sri Lankan Foreign Minster said Wednesday that the country will petition the UN for more time to investigate the allegations of war crimes occurring during the country’s 26-year-long civil war . Sri Lanka promised the UN in 2015 to investigate the estimated 65,000 missing peoples from the civil war with the Tamil Tigers. Foreign [...]
Peru’s Attorney General Pablo Sanchez sought the arrest of former president Alejandro Toledo Tuesday on charges of laundering of assets and influence trafficking. Peruvian prosecutors opened a formal investigation earlier this week into allegations that Toledo took USD $20 million in bribes from Odebrecht , a Brazilian construction company. It is believed that Toledo received [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled 2-1 Tuesday that immigrants who are caught entering the US illegally have no right to legal representation in an expedited hearing. A law passed in 1996 allows Customs and Border Protection officers to use a process of “expedited removal” to remove immigrants who are caught [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oklahoma and the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma Attorney General and nominee for head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) , alleging that he has not complied with Oklahoma’s Open Records Act regarding requests for public documents [...]
The Maryland Court of Appeals adopted a rule on Tuesday ending the practice of holding criminal defendants in jail before trial when they cannot afford bail. The rule does not abolish the practice of required money for bail but instructs judges to seek other ways of ensuring a defendant appears for trial. The rule keeps [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order restricting immigration. The ACLU claims that the ban is unconstitutional under the First Amendment prohibition on government establishment of religion and the Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal treatment under the law. The Department of Justice (DOJ) [...]
