An indictment unsealed on Tuesday revealed that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya has been charged with obstruction of justice by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Though this indictment involves a separate case, Veselnitskaya has been identified as a key figure in the Special Counsel‘s Russia probe due to her involvement in a 2016 Trump [...]
Protests have been ramping up across Sudan in response to the nation’s acute economic crisis. Inflation reached 70% in November and many have been forced to spend significant portions of their income on bread, leading some to refer to the demonstrations as the “bread protests.” Protesters have reportedly called for President Omar al-Bashir, who has been [...]
The closed trial of detained human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang began Wednesday in Tianjin amid protests. Wang and approximately 300 other lawyers and legal activists were arrested during the 709 Crackdown on July 9, 2015. Though most of the detainees were eventually released, Wang has not been seen in three years, despite international pressure to [...]
The US Senate unanimously passed a bill on Wednesday to make lynching a federal hate crime. The “Justice for the Victims of Lynching” bill is a bipartisan effort sponsored by three senators: Democrats Kamala Harris and Cory Booker and Republican Tim Scott. The bill defines lynching as “2 or more persons willfully caus bodily injury to [...]
Ohio Governor John Kasich vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have shifted the burden of proof from the defendant to the prosecutor in self-defense cases. Ohio is the only state that requires defendants to prove that their use of force was justified in self-defense. The proposed bill would shift this burden to the prosecution: [...]
Bolivia’s Multinational Electoral Tribunal (OEP) announced late Tuesday that it had accepted current President Evo Morales’ bid for reelection, sparking protests in La Paz and a general strike on Thursday. Morales is the first indigenous president to be elected in Bolivia and has been in power since first assuming office 2006. Though Bolivia’s constitution limits presidents [...]
The Wisconsin state legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance (JCF) proposed a package of controversial legislation early Tuesday morning in an extraordinary session. The legislature approved the extraordinary session—an extension of their normal season—on Friday. In a joint statement, Robin Vos, the speaker of the State Assembly, and Scott Fitzgerald, the Republican Majority Leader in the Senate, defended [...]
US President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty on Thursday to making false representations to Congress about Trump’s business dealings in Russia. According to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s court filing, Cohen made several false statements in a letter to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Both committees [...]
Brazil’s Senate Social Affairs Committee approved a draft bill on Wednesday to legalize marijuana cultivation for personal medical use. Though selling and trafficking marijuana carry criminal penalties in Brazil, cultivating cannabis has been decriminalized since 2006. The new bill would lift the penalties currently imposed for marijuana cultivation and allow Brazilians to grow cannabis for personal, therapeutic [...]
Judge Timothy Kelly of the US District Court for the District of Columbia temporarily restored journalist Jim Acosta’s White House credentials on Friday. CNN filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against US President Donald Trump and others after the administration revoked Acosta’s credentials following an incident at a post-election press conference. Following a hearing on Wednesday, Kelly granted [...]
