The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed revisions Wednesday to “Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans” to rescind rule requirements in an effort to increase consumer access to credit. According to the Bureau, the Obama-era rules reduced competition, and there was insufficient evidence and legal support for the stricter regulations. The current rules require lenders [...]
The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Safehouse, a nonprofit organization, to prevent the opening of the first supervised drug injection site in the country. Safehouse aims to address the opioid epidemic by allowing a safe environment for drug users to be administered injections by medical [...]
Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil was sentenced to 13 more years in prison following his conviction in a graft case. According to the case, Lula accepted bribes from construction companies in the form of a USD $235,000 home renovation in exchange for awarding the companies government contracts. Lula denied any wrongdoing [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit stayed the execution Wednesday of Domineque Hakim Marcelle Ray, an Alabama death row inmate who was denied the presence of his imam in the execution chamber. Ray was convicted of the 1995 rape, robbery and murder of a 15-year-old and sentenced to death. He was informed [...]
The House Intelligence Committee announced on Wednesday that it will be releasing “transcripts of testimony taken before the Committee” to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, as well as the rest of the Department of Justice. More than 50 transcripts will be sent to Mueller, including conversations with Donald Trump Jr. and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The Committee also [...]
A Russian district court in Oryol on Wednesday found a Danish Jehovah’s Witness guilty of organizing the activity of an extremist organization and sentenced him to six years in prison. The 46-year-old Jehovah’s Witness, Dennis Christensen, was detained by armed police during a police raid on a local prayer meeting he was leading in May [...]
The Republic of Macedonia on Wednesday signed an accession agreement with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This begins the process of Macedonia joining NATO, which must now be finalized via ratification by current member states. Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty calls for unanimous approval from member states after the receipt of accession documents. [...]
Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and political leader Charles Ble Goude were released on bail to Belgium Tuesday after being acquitted last month on charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In 2010 Gbagbo lost the presidency and was accused of starting a civil war by refusing to cede the [...]
Myanmar’s parliament voted Wednesday to set up a committee to discuss proposed amendments to the constitution. This vote comes one week after the National League for Democracy (NLD) submitted an emergency proposal to parliament detailing suggested amendments to the constitution. The suggestions were offered on the basis that the 2008 constitution is undemocratic. The vote [...]
UN rights experts on Wednesday urged the UK not to use security and terrorism-related legislation to prosecute a group a peaceful protesters who attempted to block a deportation flight. In March 2017 a group of 15 protesters cut through a south-east England’s airport perimeter fence and “secured themselves around the nose wheel and the wing [...]
