The Tennessee House of Representatives approved a bill on Thursday that criminalizes adults who knowingly take minors away from Tennessee to help them receive gender-affirming medical procedures without the consent of their parents. The companion bill was introduced to the Tennessee House of Representatives on January 29, 2024 as HB 2310 by Representative Bryan Richey [...]

The Alabama House of Representatives voted 72-28 to pass HB 385, which prohibits public libraries from providing materials that are “harmful to minors” or “obscene.” The bill, which passed on Thursday, will now go to the Alabama Senate. Under the bill, it is a public nuisance for public libraries to provide obscene or harmful materials [...]

A New York federal judge rejected former US President Donald Trump’s request for a new trial or judgment in his favor on Thursday in the defamation case won by E. Jean Carroll. Trump challenged the $83.3 million jury verdict against him—which includes $18.3 million in compensatory and $65 million in punitive damages—but Judge Lewis Kaplan [...]

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced on Wednesday that a state grand jury returned an indictment against 18 individuals associated with former US President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn Arizona’s election results in the 2020 presidential election. The indicted individuals face charges of fraud, forgery and conspiracy. The indictment names 11 of the 18 individuals, [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in the case concerning whether a 1986 federal law preempts Idaho’s near-total abortion ban. The Idaho statute criminalizes performing or attempting to perform an abortion unless not doing so would result in the mother’s death. The Biden administration argues that the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act [...]

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a rule Tuesday banning employers from using non-compete clauses in worker’s employment contracts. Non-compete clauses are portions of language in employment contracts that restrict an employee from working in a certain sector of business or for certain employers after their contract with their current employer ends. The rule, [...]

A federal judge in North Carolina found on Monday that the state’s 147-year-old voting law is unconstitutional. US District Judge Loretta Biggs found that the since-amended state law, which prevented convicted felons from casting a vote, violates the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. The [...]

A group of 120 protesters were arrested at a pro-Palestinian encampment Monday in front of New York University’s business school, according to NYU student newspaper Washington Square News. The arrests come as Columbia University, citing safety, shifted its classes on its Morningside, Manhattan campus to a hybrid online/in-person format after a protest encampment there became [...]

The US Department of State released its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices on Monday, amidst the seventy-fifth anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or UDHR. The report emphasized “several new commitments, including to renew investments around the world in democracy and human rights, to help protect human rights defenders online, [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday on whether enforcing public camping ordinances against unhoused people without adequate shelter is cruel and unusual punishment and, therefore, prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. The case, Grants Pass v. Johnson, originated in southern Oregon. The central question before the court revolves around the [...]