A federal judge ruled Thursday that an Ohio law that cut down the 35 days of early in-person voting violates the US Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. US District Court Judge Peter Economus ordered Ohio to restore the full 35 days, including the “golden week” where residents can register to vote and cast early [...]
US Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will open an investigation to determine whether Ferguson Police officials have systematically violated the US Constitution or federal law. Holder determined the necessity of this investigation based on interviews he conducted with residents in Ferguson in August. The DOJ also plans to [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Thursday upheld lower courts’ decisions striking down the same-sex marriage bans in Wisconsin and Indiana . The court heard oral arguments on the bans in August. Writing for a unanimous court, Judge Richard Posner states that neither state has supplied a rational, or even reasonable [...]
The US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Thursday threw out a July judgment that ruled subsidies that help individuals purchase insurance through the federal exchanges are illegal. The court granted an Obama administration request to have its full panel of judges rehear a challenge to regulations that allow tax [...]
The EU’s top court ruled Thursday that France had failed to fulfill its obligation to improve the quality of its groundwater, marking the third time since 2001 the European Court of Justice has ordered France to strengthen its regulations. The ruling says that French laws have not done enough to keep farm fertilizer from breaching [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana ruled Wednesday that BP was grossly negligent and bears a majority of the blame for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster . In his 153-page decision, Judge Carl Barbier determined that 67 percent of the blame for the disaster rests with BP and [...]
A group of East African and South Sudanese rights group submitted a petition Wednesday to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) calling for an immediate comprehensive arms embargo on South Sudan. IGAD, which is made up of eight East African nations including Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda, has been mediating peace talks to end nine months [...]
Militia fighting in Tripoli and Benghazi have forced 250,000 people to flee over the last four months, the UN reported Thursday. According to the report, released by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the UN Human Rights Office, approximately 150,000 people have fled the country altogether, while 100,000 remain internally displaced. Warring militias [...]
A Saudi Arabian court on Wednesday sentenced 24 individuals to prison for conspiring to attack Saudi Arabia. Of the group, one is an US national and one is Yemeni, and the rest are Saudi. While details of their arrest were not disclosed, the men were charged with creating a terrorist cell and planning attacks on [...]
An Egyptian judge on Wednesday ordered prosecutors to investigate three lawyers after they demanded to see their hunger-striking client in court. Three activist lawyers appeared in court to represent their client, Ahmed Douma, an activist who is serving a three-year sentence for protesting. Douma has recently gone on a hunger strike and is reportedly in [...]
