A federal court judge on Friday issued a preliminary injunction against attendance restrictions imposed on religious gatherings in New York state. Judge Gary Sharpe’s order affects the limits that both governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio placed upon religious gatherings in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Both officials had issued [...]

Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp signed the State’s first hate crime bill into law on Friday. The bill adds enhanced penalties against defendants who are motivated by race, sex, disability, or other similar categories. Kemp signed HB 426 in a signing ceremony in the state capital, affirming “a simple but powerful motto: Georgia is a state too [...]

The US Air Force announced on Thursday that their inspector general would be opening an investigation into whether reconnaissance aircraft had been improperly deployed to surveil protests in Washington D.C. and Minneapolis earlier this month. The New York Times reports that it has seen messages indicating that on the morning of June 2 the West [...]

A three-judge panel, on Thursday, denied a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), a coalition of labor unions, to enforce emergency safety standards for essential workers. The suit, filed on May 18, asked for a writ of mandamus from the court to compel the Occupational Safety and [...]

While California’s governor and legislature work to get mail-in ballots to every voter in the state, Republicans in Iowa’s senate voted Thursday to prevent mailing applications for absentee ballots to all Iowa voters. California Governor Gavin Newsom has issued two executive orders aimed at making voting safer and easier in light of the novel coronavirus [...]

The Law firm of Dorsey and Whitney announced Tuesday that it would be ending its long-standing relationship with the Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office. For more than forty years the firm had assisted the city with prosecuting misdemeanor cases. However, in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, [...]

A federal judge for the district of Colorado issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the Denver Police Department (DPD) on Friday. The TRO was issued in response to a complaint filed by four Denver residents on Thursday. The four have participated in protests in Denver following the May 25 death of George Floyd in [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed on Friday a statement of interest in a case in the US District Court for the District of Maine concerning the mandatory self-quarantine of out-of-state visitors. The filing came as district court judge Lance Walker denied a preliminary injunction to the plaintiffs in the case. As part of [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest on Friday in the US District Court for the District of Colorado in support of a Colorado church suing the governor over an executive order restricting church services. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Colorado Governor Jared Polis issued Executive Order D 2020 044 [...]

A judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a decision on Monday allowing a salvage company to go ahead with an expedition to recover artifacts from the wreckage of the Titanic. R.M.S. Titanic, Inc. (RMST) was appointed salvor-in-possession of the wreckage in 1994, and has carried out many dives [...]