US District Court of the Northern District of Ohio Judge Dan Polster Friday denied a request by five retail pharmacy chains to dismiss opioid lawsuits filed by two Ohio counties. Lake and Trumbull Counties brought a common law absolute public nuisance claim against several pharmacies for dispensing prescription opioids to customers. The court previously concluded [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Thursday that there have been a high number of human rights violations against journalists covering the ongoing civil war in Yemen.  The conflict began in March 2015. Since that time, the UN Human Rights Office has documented 357 human rights violations and abuses against journalists, including [...]

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions against Chinese mobile applications TikTok and WeChat late on Thursday, invoking his emergency economic powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the National Emergencies Act, and 3 U.S. Code § 301. Trump stated that the spread of Chinese mobile apps throughout the US “threaten the national security, [...]

The Portuguese Constitutional Court (TC) has ruled that the Azores Islands’ mandatory 14-day quarantine for visitors is unconstitutional. In a decision released Wednesday, the court found that the authorities were treating visitors as if they were serving short-term prison sentences. On March 26, the Azores government declared that all passengers who arrived in the Azores Islands [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called Thursday for an impartial investigation into the explosion at Beirut’s shipping port on Tuesday. HRW said that the investigation, conducted by independent experts, should determine the causes and responsibility for the explosion, which was the most powerful explosion Beirut has ever experienced. The explosion at Beirut’s shipping port is believed [...]

The Washington DC Police Union filed suit Wednesday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against the city, seeking to block part of an emergency police reform bill passed in July. The Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Second Emergency Amendment Act of 2020 was approved by the District of Columbia (DC) Council [...]

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed Executive Order 7 on Wednesday, restoring voting rights and the right to qualify for public office to Iowans with felony convictions. Iowa was the last US state that permanently banned its residents with felony convictions from voting unless they appealed directly to the governor. Under Article II, Section 5 of [...]

The Massachusetts Appeals Court has said that it will no longer use the term “grandfathering” because of its racist origins. The court included its reasoning in a footnote to a decision published on Monday. The case involved a zoning dispute between the owners of adjacent waterfront parcels in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The defendants sought to tear [...]

India Vice President Venkaiah Naidu expressed concern Tuesday over a backlog of cases at all levels of the country’s court system and urged judges to address the issue to ensure prompt adjudication. Naidu expressed his concerns as part of a speech that he gave at the Platinum Jubilee meeting of the 76th Foundation Day of the [...]

Federal judge Analisa Torres of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled that over one thousand absentee ballots previously deemed invalid because they lacked a timely postmark should be counted in the New York Congressional primary election. All eligible voters in New York were allowed to cast absentee ballots [...]