The US Department of the Treasury announced Friday that it added four new Venezuelan nationals to its list of specially designated nationals. The individuals are David Eugenio De Lima Salas, Reinaldo Enrique Muñoz Pedroza, Indira Maira Alfonzo Izaguirre and Jose Luis Gutierrez Parra. According to a Treasury press release, the individuals were added based on [...]

Judge Dolly Gee of the US District Court for the Central District of California ruled Friday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must end their practice of holding migrant children in hotels before they can be expelled from the US. On March 20, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) ordered the US borders with [...]

Seven UN human rights experts signed a letter to the Chinese government expressing concerns about whether China is complying with its international obligations for human rights standards. The letter, made public Friday, specifically questioned The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, or the [...]

Sitting in the Central Criminal Court in London Monday, British judge Vanessa Baraitser refused an application for adjournment of proceedings in Julian Assange’s extradition case until January 2021. In late June, the US Department of Justice issued an updated, superseding indictment, charging Assange, the founder and public face of WikiLeaks, with 18 counts related to [...]

France’s highest court for administrative justice, the Conseil d’Etat, issued two orders Sunday declaring that face masks can be made mandatory in large areas with a high risk of COVID-19 contamination. In a press statement, the court said that “the wearing of the mask can be imposed so that this obligation is consistent and easy to [...]

A Saudi Arabia court on Monday convicted eight individuals in connection with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The court overturned the previous death sentences of five of the individuals, sentencing them to 20 years in prison instead. Two of the individuals were sentenced to 10 years, and one was sentenced to seven years. Khashoggi, [...]

A US Marine convicted of killing a transgender woman in the Philippines was released from prison Monday after President Rodrigo Duterte granted him an absolute pardon. Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. announced the decision on Twitter, stating that the president was “cutting matters short” by releasing Lance Corporal Joseph Pemberton. The pardon, which comes five [...]

US District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta ruled Friday that the Trump administration should resume issuing diversity visas to immigrants from underrepresented countries. The ruling partially lifted a freeze on a wide range of immigrant and temporary visa processes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The freeze was enacted in June, which [...]

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill Friday exempting two dozen professions from last year’s historic rewrite of California employment law that limited use of independent contractors. The amendments to last year’s bill, effective immediately, include exemptions for artists, promoters and distributers of sound recordings, and cosmetologists. These exemptions fall into the state’s ongoing effort [...]

The Mississippi Attorney General filed a motion to dismiss four murder charges against Curtis Flowers on Friday because it did not have sufficient evidence of Flowers’ guilt. Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Joseph Loper granted the motion, ending a process that had led to six jury trials of Flowers over more than a decade, and might [...]