A judge for the US District Court of the Western District of Washington ruled Thursday that part of President Donald Trump’s executive order to end federal grant funding for sanctuary cities is unconstitutional. The order, which was signed by Trump days after his inauguration in early 2017, allowed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to withhold [...]

A federal jury in Madison, Wisconsin, on Thursday awarded two transgender state employees $780,500 in damages after a district court found that a ban on insurance coverage for gender-changing surgery amounts to sexual discrimination. In March 2017 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a complaint on behalf of Alina Boyden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday found a Washington county violated the First Amendment when it refused to run an anti-terrorism advertisement on the side of a bus. The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) sued King County Metro for refusing to run an ad featuring photographs of people exclusively of [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Tuesday that Justice Department (DOJ) official John Gore must sit for questioning by attorneys over lawsuits stemming from the introduction of a citizenship question his department requested for the 2020 census. The Trump administration is currently facing a number of lawsuits filed by several states [...]

Ion Ficior, a former Romanian prison chief who was sentenced to 20 years for crimes against humanity, died in jail on Wednesday at the age of 90. Ficior was charged with the deaths of 103 political prisoners during his time as commander of the Periprava work camp during the communist ruling. Charges were filed in [...]

The annual report of UN Secretary-General António Guterres to the UN Human Rights Council listed 38 countries, including China and Russia, that have carried out harsh reprisals and intimidation tactics against individuals who cooperated with the UN on human rights issues. Contained in the report are details of cases that include allegations of “killing, torture [...]

An attempt by Malaysia’s lower house of parliament to repeal a law against “fake news”  was blocked by an opposition-run Senate vote on Wednesday. The vote from the upper house is the first major challenge against Malaysia’s newly re-elected Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad. Mohamad, who was elected earlier this year, conducted large changes to the [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Missouri Commission on Human Rights (MCHR) for failing to protect a transgender man from sex-based employment discrimination. Chris Lawson filed a complaint against his former employer, Dollar General , in 2015 with the MCHR for sex-based discrimination and hostile treatment from his [...]

A panel of judges for the US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina ruled Tuesday that despite finding North Carolina’s electoral map to be unconstitutional last week, they will allow it to be used in the upcoming November election. The court stated in its initial opinion that it had enjoined the state [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein warned in an interview with The Guardian on Monday that Trump’s attacks on the press are “very close to incitement to violence.” Zeid fears that the current President’s designation of the press as an “enemy of the people” could have dire consequences: We began to [...]