The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Tuesday that all member states of the Schengen Area had endorsed guidelines that provide for temporary, coordinated action to close the zone’s external border for a period of 30 days. The European Commission also identified four priorities for each EU member country: limit [...]

The US and Canada agreed Wednesday to restrict all non-essential travel at their international border in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. US President Donald Trump announced the news via Twitter, emphasizing that trade between the two nations will not be impacted. The announcement comes after a series of travel restrictions by the US government, most [...]

The Chinese government imposed restrictive measures against five major US media outlets Wednesday. The impacted organizations include the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, TIME and Voice of America. The announcement comes weeks after the US designated five Chinese media organizations as “foreign missions,” requiring registration with the US government. The [...]

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said Tuesday that they will announce measures to suspend resettlement travel in the coming days that will remain in place for as long as necessary. These measures come as many nations are closing their borders and have already placed holds on resettlement [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Monday affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a woman who claims that Disney stole her idea for the characters in Inside Out that represent emotions. The plaintiff, Denise Daniels, had started a business called The Moodsters Company, marketing eponymous characters that [...]

The Afghan government delayed the release of Taliban prisoners on Saturday after disagreements occurred over the number of detainees to be released and uncertainty about whether the prisoners would return to fighting. The Taliban agreed to talks with the Afghan government after signing an accord with the US. The accord ended 18 years of US [...]

The Autorité de la concurrence, France’s antitrust regulator, issued a USD $1.2 billion fine for Apple on Monday, citing the company’s anticompetitive practices in dealing with two of its wholesalers. The wholesalers, Tech Data and Ingram Micro, were also issued fines in the tens of millions. In a press release published Monday, the agency stated [...]

The Russian Constitutional Court released a 52-page decision Monday approving amendments to the constitution, including an amendment that would allow Vladimir Putin to serve up to two additional terms as president. The current constitution imposes a two-term limit to the presidency, and Putin has put forward a series of amendments, one of which would reset [...]

Iran has temporarily released about 85,000 prisoners from jail as part of their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said about half of those released were political prisoners. Today’s mass release follows the release of some 70,000 prisoners on March 9, none of whom were political prisoners. In response to the earlier [...]

The US House of Representatives passed a revised version of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act Monday with unanimous consent. The resolution will now be sent to the Senate to be considered for a vote as the government attempts to manage the COVID-19 outbreak. The revised emergency coronavirus relief package outlined technical corrections to the [...]