Recent Posts
11 Mar 7:47 pm
UN Human Rights spokesperson on Syria confirmed the deaths of 111 Syrian civilians in recent mass killings, in a Geneva press briefing on Tuesday. The spokesperson remarked that the true number is believed to be “significantly higher.”
UN spokesperson on Syria, Thameen Al Kheetan said that the office is currently working on verifying and documenting civilian deaths, adding that:
Many of the cases documented were of summary executions. They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis, in Tartus, Latakia and Hama governorates – reportedly by unidentified armed… [read
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11 Mar 7:45 pm
John Wilkes Booth was a racist murderer, but that apparently wasn’t the worst thing about him. The worst thing was that he used “the N-word.”Isn’t that a bizarre thing to say? Not too bizarre, evidently, for the social media campaign that pressured a Northwestern University theater group into cancelling its production of Stephen Sondheim's classic musical “Assassins.”I explain in a new column at The Hill. [read
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11 Mar 7:34 pm
Trust and Will: “Filial responsibility is a legal concept in which an adult child is financially responsible for their parents’ unpaid healthcare costs. Not all states have filial responsibility laws, and not all families are liable. In our guide, What is Filial Responsibility: we dive into an explanation of when these laws can possibly apply. In short, an individual could have filial responsibility if they have the means to pay for their parents’ unpaid long-term case bills, when their parents are not covered by Medicaid but do not have the financial means to pay for… [read
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11 Mar 7:23 pm
Joseph Gardens – Botanizing: The best hobby you’ve never heard of: “The quickest way to describe botanizing is that it is like bird-watching, but for plants. To botanize, you go out into natural areas and look for plants growing in the wild, maybe hoping to see new species or particularly impressive populations of familiar species. Professional botanists do this to monitor the health of species, track the impacts of threats to their habitats, and better understand their natural ranges and ecology. Amateur botanists, like me, do it for fun. I think I first heard… [read
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11 Mar 6:43 pm
NYT:
Elon Musk has signaled to President Trump’s advisers in recent days that he wants to put $100 million into groups controlled by the Trump political operation, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
It is unheard-of for… Continue reading
The post “Musk Seeks to Put $100 Million Directly Into Trump Political Operation” appeared first on Election Law Blog. [read
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[Stephen Halbrook] Second Amendment Roundup: Rehearing En Banc Sought in 5th Circuit Suppressor Case
11 Mar 6:24 pm
[The panel’s ruling that suppressed firearms aren’t protected should be reconsidered.]
A petition for rehearing en banc has been filed seeking review of the Fifth Circuit's panel decision in United States v. Peterson, which held that noise suppressors (aka silencers or mufflers) are not "Arms" protected by the Second Amendment. As I recently posted about the case here, the decision overlooked that millions of law-abiding Americans use suppressed firearms for ear protection and reduction of recoil, attributes just as relevant to the scope of the Second Amendment as… [read
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11 Mar 6:00 pm
"[P]arental authority over a child’s upbringing is a fundamental liberty, deeply rooted in this Nation’s history...This principle is settled law"
The post Brief Supporting Parental Right to Opt Kids Out of “Gender and Sexuality” Instruction Filed by Legal Insurrection Foundation first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion. [read
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11 Mar 5:59 pm
As detailed on this page on the its website, the US Sentencing Commission has a public hearing scheduled "for Wednesday, March 12 and Thursday, March 13, 2025 tentatively beginning at 9:00 a.m. (EDT) on both days ... to receive testimony... [read
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11 Mar 5:58 pm
An UN spokesperson announced Tuesday that USAID funding cancellations have resulted in the closure of a UN human rights program intended on helping torture victims and the families of missing persons in Iraq.
Speaking to the media at a Geneva press conference, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani stated, “Now was time for more investment in human rights, not less, to help in preventing conflicts and resolving crises.” In a similar vein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has requested all states… [read
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11 Mar 5:46 pm
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned about the increasing backlash against women’s rights worldwide on Tuesday. At the ongoing 69th Commission on the Status of Women, Guterres called for urgent action to safeguard hard-won progress.
Guterres warned:
Women’s organizations and civil society played a major role in securing those gains. I applaud your efforts. Yet, women and girls still face an appalling array of wrongs, Around the world, women’s rights defenders face harassment, threats and violence – even murder. They face shrinking… [read
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11 Mar 5:42 pm
A group of 20 human rights organizations said on Monday that Bulgarian authorities should suspend plans to deport Saudi human rights defender Abdulrahman al-Khalidi to Saudi Arabia and allow his resettlement to a third country.
Al-Khalidi has been a human rights defender and prisoners’ rights advocate for over a decade. After fleeing Saudi Arabia in 2013 fearing persecution, he continued criticizing the Saudi government by writing articles and participating in the online movement “Bees Army,” founded by Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. When Khashoggi was murdered in… [read
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11 Mar 5:33 pm
A UN expert on the human rights situation in Haiti, William O’Neill, said that the country is at risk of falling under gang control and reiterated a call for stronger action from the international community, in a statement in New York on Tuesday. This echoes the UN High Commissioner’s warning several weeks ago that Haiti’s worsening human rights situation requires assistance from the international community.
O’Neill returned from a field mission in Haiti before addressing the UN. He emphasized the increasingly worsening situation, stating that “despite the… [read
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11 Mar 5:32 pm
“The Supreme Court’s Zest for Wine: The Supreme Court’s history of enjoying wine goes back to Chief Justice John Marshall in the 1800s.” Tony Mauro has this post at his “The Marble Palace Blog” online at The National Law Journal. [read
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11 Mar 5:30 pm
Peru’s public prosecutor announced Monday that its Extinction of Domain prosecutor in Ayacucho is the office with the highest number of rulings uner the country’s controversial asset forfeiture law. Between 2019 and 2024, the prosecutor’s office in Ayacucho issued a total of 255 rulings, confiscating a total of 3,943,235 soles ($1,074,427) in assets and cash linked to illicit activities.
The Extinction of Domain Law allows the government to seize assets obtained through illicit means. Under this law, the state can seize real estate, vehicles, and money linked to… [read
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11 Mar 5:25 pm
Congress will soon be deciding whether to use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn several EPA waivers that allow California to regulate vehicle emissions. There have been two important developments since I initially posted an explainer on Legal Planet about this issue. First, two lawyers, Michael Buschbacher and Jimmy Conde, posted a lengthy piece on this site responding in part to my previous arguments and advocating that Congress should move forward on overturning the waiver. And second, the Government Accountability Office has issued a new legal opinion arguing that the… [read
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11 Mar 5:16 pm
The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) recently published its report Safe, Informed, Supported: Reforming Justice Responses to Sexual Violence.From the press release:"[The Commission] concluded that the justice system is currently failing to meet the twin goals of access to justice and accountability. The justice system is not supporting those who have experienced sexual violence to seek justice, nor holding those who use sexual violence to account (...)""In at least some Australian jurisdictions, between 75-85% of reports to police do not proceed to charge, and even… [read
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11 Mar 5:13 pm
As reported in this NBC News piece, a "federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked Louisiana's first execution in 15 years after lawyers for the condemned man argued a new method known as nitrogen hypoxia would violate his constitutional rights." Here... [read
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11 Mar 5:04 pm
The US Supreme Court on Monday revived a case on the fate of “Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain,” a painting by French impressionist Camille Pissarro now worth millions.
The court ordered that the case be reconsidered under a recently-passed California law intended to make it easier for Holocaust survivors and their families to recover stolen art. The painting is currently in a Spanish museum but could be returned to the plaintiffs, the descendants of the owner from over eight decades ago.
The painting was originally sold in 1939 by Lilly Cassirer… [read
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11 Mar 5:03 pm
Write about whatever you want in the comments. [read
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11 Mar 4:41 pm
The Artist Rights Institute filed a comment in the UK Intellectual Property Office’s consultation on Copyright and AI that I drafted. We will be posting excerpts from that comment from time to time.
Mass Digitization Foreshadowed the Current Crisis
The lobbying effort that relates to the IPO’s AI and Copyright consultation is the most recent in a long history. At the outset of the Google Books mass digitization project, it was apparent that they were up to something. Google Books was only the first step on a long journey toward the digitization… [read
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