Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed a bill into law Thursday that decriminalizes personal marijuana possession. The bill, SB 2, assigns a civil rather than criminal penalty for simple marijuana possession. SB 2 presumes marijuana possession in measurements of an ounce or less as simple possession. A summary of the bill as enacted by the governor’s [...]

The US Copyright Office issued a report on Thursday claiming that the safe-harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) now favors tech companies over rights-holders. After studying the issue for years and taking into consideration more than 92,000 comments, the Copyright Office suggests that “Congress may wish to fine-tune” the statute. The report [...]

Michael Cohen, US President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, was released from federal prison into home confinement on Thursday as the Justice Department seeks to halt the spread of COVID-19 among inmates. Cohen’s release comes a week after President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was released from prison amid similar concerns. Cohen sought release [...]

Switzerland’s Supreme Court denied an appeal on Wednesday by the Senior Women for Climate Protection, finding that it is too early to claim fundamental rights violations based on climate change. The Senior Women for Climate Protection alleged that Switzerland’s government was failing to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in a way that would correspond [...]

China introduced a controversial national security law Thursday that could place restraints on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. The law prohibits acts of “sedition, foreign interference, terrorism and secession.” China cited national security concerns for implementing the measure, but many warn the law will be interpreted broadly and cover protests. China’s legislature begins its [...]

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared an end to Palestinian commitments in the Oslo Accords in a meeting Tuesday in Ramallah. The Oslo Accords are a set of agreements designed to facilitate peace between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Under the terms signed in the 1990s, Palestinians were granted self-governance in parts of the [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Central District of California ordered last week that the City and County of Los Angeles humanely relocate approximately 7,000 homeless individuals currently “camping near freeway overpasses, underpasses, and ramps.” Judge David Carter found that living near highways exposes people to “toxic fumes, ‘hazardous waste concentrations of [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) actions in enforcing air quality standards across state lines were somewhat lacking. While the court determined that some of the EPA’s steps in evaluating air quality assessment requests under the Clean Air Act’s “Good Neighbor” provision [...]

Delegates to the first ever virtual World Health Assembly decided Tuesday to adopt a resolution co-sponsored by more than 130 countries to increase efforts to combat the COVID-19 outbreak and conduct a complete assessment of the global response to the pandemic. The resolution was adopted to increase efforts to combat the virus, including greater measures [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed on Tuesday the Southern District of New York’s decision to reinstate the New York presidential primary on June 23, 2020. The court ruled that the cancellation of the presidential primary violated the plaintiffs’ right of association under the First and Fourteenth Amendment. Andrew Yang, a presidential [...]