A judge for the US District Court for the District of Wyoming ruled Tuesday that the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) “lacked Congressional authority to promulgate” regulations concerning fracking on federal and Indian lands. The court came to this conclusion by applying the test, as formulated in Chevron USA [...]

US President Barack Obama signed legislation Wednesday granting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) power to regulate thousands of everyday substances. The law makes major changes to the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) , which has not been modified since it was passed in 1976. The law provides the EPA a new risk-based safety standard to [...]

A lawsuit is accusing a Louisiana judge of running a modern-day debtors’ prison. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center , alleges that Judge Robert Black is sending poor defendants to jail when they cannot pay fines and charging them an “extension fee” to avoid jail time. The lawsuit contents that the [...]

A court in Cairo on Tuesday invalidated the Egyptian president’s decision to give sovereignty over two islands to Saudi Arabia. In April President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi transferred sovereignty of Tiran and Sanafir islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabian Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman as a gesture of good will following a meeting in which [...]

Germany’s top court ruled Tuesday that a bond-buy program created by the European Central Bank (ECB) complies with German law. The unlimited bond-buying program was created at the height of Europe’s debt crisis. The program, called Outright Monetary Transaction , was created in September 2012 in order to save the Euro. The program itself has [...]

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday sentenced ex-Congolese military leader Jean-Pierre Bemba to 18 years in jail for crimes against humanity and war crimes stemming from his involvement in the conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2002 and 2003. Bemba was sentenced to 16 years for murder as a crime against humanity; [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday in Utah v. Strieff that evidence seized incident to a lawful arrest on an outstanding warrant is not excluded because that warrant was discovered during an unlawful stop. The court, in a 5-3 decision, reversed the decision of the Utah Supreme Court , which found that the exclusionary rule [...]

The US Supreme Court upheld several provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) on Monday. In Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee the court heard arguments on whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions in challenges are under judicial review and whether the Board may construe claims in a challenged patent to their broadest [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday in Encino Motorcars v. Navarro that it could not rely on the Department of Labor’s (DOL) interpretation of a statute on overtime pay, sending the case back to the lower court. The issue in the case was whether “service advisors” at car dealerships are exempt from the Fair Labor [...]

Human rights abuses against the Rohingya in Myanmar may amount to crimes against humanity, according to a report released Monday by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) . The report documents abuses against minorities that include “arbitrary deprivation of nationality, severe restriction on freedom of movement, threats to life and [...]