American lobbyist Samuel Patten pleaded  guilty on Friday of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act , which requires foreign agents to register with the US government. Patten formed  a political consulting company with an unidentified Russian agent. The company advised a Ukrainian political party, the Opposition Bloc, making Patten an agent for a foreign principal. Patten met with members of the [...]

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination  urged the Chinese government on Thursday to release the Muslim minorities known as Uighurs from involuntary detention. The Committee put forth a report  estimating up to one million Uighurs could be held in detention centers. The report found that members of the Uighur ethnic group were allegedly [...]

A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled  Thursday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can stop paying for emergency relief housing for Puerto Rican civilians. After Hurricane Maria stuck the US island territory nearly a year ago, FEMA has provided temporary housing assistance for victims. The program is known as “Transitional Shelter Assistance” (TSA). On [...]

US District Judge Dana Christensen in the District of Montana on Thursday ordered an immediate halt to a scheduled grizzly bear hunt near Yellowstone National Park in Montana and Idaho—what would have been the first grizzly hunt since 1974. The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced in June 2017 that grizzlies in and around Yellowstone [...]

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday found former Bosnian Serb senior official Jovan Tintor guilty of crimes against civilians and sentenced him to 11 years in prison . Tintor was indicted by the court in 2016 on counts of crimes against humanity under Bosnian law. The indictment alleged that Tintor played a role in [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on Wednesday ordered the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to halt its policy of banning agnostics and atheists from giving the invocations to start the daily legislative floor session. The plaintiffs were Pennsylvania residents who claimed that the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’ policy of banning [...]

Several Philippines families filed a communication  with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday, accusing President Rodrigo Duterte of murder during his war on drugs. The communication is the second filed with the ICC, the first of which was filed in April 2017. The ICC began preliminary examination in February. The communication charges  Duterte with crimes against humanity in [...]

The US Department on Justice (DOJ) on Thursday filed a statement of interest  supporting the plaintiffs who are suing Harvard University over alleged racial discrimination against Asian-American students in the admissions process. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in the press release: No American should be denied admission to school because of their race. As [...]

Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal on Thursday overturned  the government’s approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. A number of groups challenged the approval, including several First Nations and two cities, saying that the First Nations were not adequately consulted and that there was no meaningful dialogue about the project. The Federal Court of Appeal [...]

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said Thursday that Indian authorities detained five activists and raided the homes of several others on Tuesday for allegedly inciting caste-based violence in January. Maharashtra police arrested the activists based on India’s principle counter terrorism law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act . Authorities allege that their actions at a large [...]