Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he will be lifting restrictions on Israelis building settlements in East Jerusalem. The statement said “My vision is to enact sovereignty over all the settlements.” Immediately after the announcement, hundreds of building permits were approved by the municipal government. According to Haaretz, Netanyahu delayed lifting restrictions for two [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by Texas seeking to revive the state’s voter identification requirements. The Republican-backed law had been considered one of the strictest in the nation and had previously been contested in court by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) , civil rights groups and individual voters. [...]
Pending Russian legislation may weaken the country’s protections against domestic violence, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday. HRW is urging the Russian parliament to reject the legislation for the threat it posses to human rights obligations. The legislation will decriminalize the first offense in a matter of family violence so long as there is no [...]
India’s Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition filed by public interest lawyer M.L. Sharma calling for a delay in the federal budget, dismissing concerns about the budget’s effect on voters. Chief Justice J.S. Khehar found no merit in the petition requesting the budget release delay until a round of five regional elections were conducted. [...]
Of the more than 14,000 asylum seekers currently confined to five Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, many are facing dire circumstances due to irregularly harsh winter conditions, according to a statement released today by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . The migrants are fleeing conflict zones in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and many have been [...]
South Korea’s Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, Cho Yoon-sun , was arrested on Saturday by Korean prosecutors after allegedly creating a blacklist of artists critical of South Korea’s impeached president. Cho was arrested , along with a former chief of staff, for alleged abuse of power and perjury. Prosecutors say the blacklist was used [...]
Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) in Riyadh on Monday handed down a seven-year sentence to a Saudi citizen as well as numerous other punitive measures for a Twitter post the court deemed insulting to the ruling Al Saud family . The SCC, which was established in 2008 to try cases linked to terrorist activity, [...]
The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York Monday claiming President Donald Trump’s continued business dealings violate the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution. In a press release announcing the lawsuit, Laurence Tribe , a Harvard Law professor and [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) released a 14-page legal opinion Saturday holding that US President Donald Trump’s appointment of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior adviser did not violate federal anti-nepotism laws. Particularly, some have argued Kushner’s appointment violates a federal law that reads in pertinent part that appointing a relative “to a [...]
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday reversed its previous 8-1 decision , choosing to review a lower court ruling in which that court held cities are required to offer the same benefits to same-sex spouses of employees as to opposite-sex spouses. Texas Republicans, who pushed the Supreme Court to this decision, hope that this decision [...]
