Martin J. Jenkins, a former NFL defensive back, prosecutor, civil rights attorney, youth group mentor and award-winning public servant, was sworn in as the newest Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court last week. He is also openly gay and black, but there’s really no reason to focus on those... Read More »
On Friday, December 4th, the Supreme Court announced plans to review the legal basis of mandatory work requirements for Medicaid participants. While work requirements for welfare programs were introduced in the 1990s under the Clinton Administration’s push to “end welfare as we know it,” controversy exists over imposing such conditions... Read More »
The District Court of Nevada filed a decision in favor of a transgender man regarding his right to obtain a U.S. passport in his identifying gender. Oliver Bruce Morris had been denied a passport in 2018 for not submitting certification from a doctor that he had completed the medical treatment... Read More »
18 Kentucky bar applicants are recovering from whiplash after 15 of them were told they had passed the October Kentucky bar exam when they, in fact, had not. Conversely, three others were told they had failed the bar exam when they had actually passed. The erroneous results are being blamed... Read More »
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The lawsuit alleges that under the Trump administration, these agencies purchased cell phone data that tracked the location of millions of immigrants. The ACLU filed the... Read More »
Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law three new laws authored by James Ramos, the first member of a Native American tribe to serve in the California state legislature. The three laws promote the rights of Native Americans in the state and will go into effect on January 1, 2021. James... Read More »
John Pierce, a California attorney representing 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, has stepped away from the defense team after prosecutors raised ethical concerns about Pierce. Rittenhouse is facing murder charges after fatally shooting two people and wounding another during the Kenosha protest that gained national attention this past summer in Kenosha, Wisconsin.... Read More »
New York Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis fully restored the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on December 4, overturning Trump’s decision not to comply with the Obama-era initiative for children of illegal immigrants brought to the US. Under Obama’s plan, DACA children, previously known as DREAMers, were provided a... Read More »
Following last year’s recommendation from the World Health Organization (WHO), The United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) voted last week to delete cannabis from its most “highly addictive and highly liable to abuse” category and reclassify it as a drug with potential for therapeutic medical use. CND’s categories, called... Read More »
A sweeping bill to decriminalize marijuana was passed on December 4 as the Democrat-led US House of Representatives voted 228-164 to approve the ‘Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act’ (MORE Act). The new law would reschedule cannabis and remove it from the long list of federally controlled substances while also... Read More »
Five New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) employees have been charged with extensive overtime fraud for filling out timesheets, stating they worked longer hours than they actually did. The four employees who worked for the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) included Thomas Caputo, 56, Joseph Ruzzo, 56, John Nugent, 50,... Read More »
The Trump administration is putting more pressure on China by banning cotton imports from the country's Western region, Xinjiang. The move comes after suspicions that the region is using slave labor to make textile goods. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency shared last Wednesday that the ban would be... Read More »
Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published its finalized environmental impact statement (EIS) that recommends new rollbacks on protections for migratory birds. This final step of publishing its proposal in the federal registrar could mean that the new regulations will be in effect before the end of December,... Read More »
Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, has brought a $75 million lawsuit against the Department of Justice, the FBI, former FBI director James B. Comey, former Assistant Director Andrew McCabe, ex-bureau lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, form FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa... Read More »
On Thursday, the Department of Justice announced a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that the company used unfair hiring practices that favored temporary visa holders over qualified U.S. workers. The lawsuit comes as part of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division’s Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, an initiative that was born... Read More »
