Tag: law

Families of 24 detained Ukrainian sailors have expressed pessimism over their potential release later today. A court in Moscow is set to decide whether to extend their custody. The two-dozen sailors were detained by the Russian Navy last November in the Kirch Strait, off the Crimean peninsula. The sailors and three of their navy vessels were fired upon and captured by Russia as they attempted to pass through the Kirch Strait, a narrow stretch of water that separates mainland Russia from...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Senator and presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday clashed with Mark Esper, President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. defense secretary, saying he should be not be confirmed to the post because of ethical concerns related to his former lobbyist job at defense contractor Raytheon Co. The sharp exchange between Esper, the current Army secretary, and Warren was a rare contentious moment during his otherwise smooth Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing, with panel members eager...

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Monday moved to bar almost all immigrants from applying for asylum at the country’s southern border, requiring them to first pursue their claims in a third country they traveled through before seeking safe haven in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement issued with the Department of Justice, said the interim rule would set a “new bar” for immigrants “by placing further restrictions or limitations on eligibility...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway defied a subpoena and failed to appear on Monday at a congressional hearing about allegations she violated the Hatch Act, a law that limits federal employees’ political activity. The top White House lawyer directed Conway not to appear at the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee hearing, arguing that current and former White House officials were “absolutely immune” from being required to testify before Congress, according to a letter released...

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Monday unveiled a new rule to bar almost all immigrants from applying for asylum at the southern border, requiring them to first pursue safe haven in a third country through which they had traveled on the way to the United States. The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement issued with the Department of Justice, said the rule would set a “new bar” for immigrants “by placing further restrictions or limitations...

Alan Turing, a crack World War II code-breaker and visionary mathematician who was convicted under Victorian-era anti-gay laws, will be the face of Britain’s new £50 note. “Alan Turing was an outstanding mathematician whose work has had an enormous impact on how we live today,” said Bank of England governor Mark Carney. “As the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, as well as a war hero, Alan Turing’s contributions were far-ranging and path-breaking. Turing is a giant on whose shoulders...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, unveiled a healthcare plan on Monday estimated to cost $750 billion and paid for partly by higher tax rates for the wealthy and doubled tax rates on capital gains. “The Biden plan to protect and build on the Affordable Care Act” seeks to strengthen the signature healthcare plan, popularly known as Obamacare, enacted under former Democratic President Barack Obama. Biden was Obama’s vice...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has the authority to waive sanctions on Turkey for its purchase of Russian air defence systems and should find a "middle ground" in the dispute, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday. Erdogan's comments came two days after NATO member Turkey took delivery of the first consignment of advanced Russian S-400 missile defence system parts, despite warnings from Washington that the move would trigger U.S. sanctions. Broadcaster Haberturk quoted Erdogan as telling Turkish journalists that...

The Los Angeles LGBT Center participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by U.S. Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D-Los Angeles County), who is introducing legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives to federally ban conversion therapy. “If we are truly, as a community, going to thrive as healthy, equal, and complete, conversion therapy needs to stop—and it needs to stop now,” the Center’s Terra Russell-Slavin said at the roundtable, held at UCLA School of Law on June 6. Russell-Slavin, director of policy...

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday appeared unlikely to grant President Donald Trump’s request that it block a congressional subpoena for his financial records. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments in a lawsuit Trump filed arguing his accounting firm, Mazars LLP, does not need to comply with a House of Representatives Oversight Committee subpoena. The three judges on the panel did not say how or when they would rule....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives approved a $733 billion defense policy bill on Friday, defying President Donald Trump’s veto threat by including provisions like a clampdown on funding for his planned wall on the border with Mexico. The House passed its version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, by a 220 to 197 vote without a single Republican voting in favor of the bill and after some of the most liberal Democrats opposed...

MANILA – During his elementary school days, he was bullied for being gay, an identity that he carried with shame. Later in life, he was able to overcome. While he had fully come to terms with who he is, Ateneo law school valedictorian Sean Borja said many in the LGBT community are still afraid to come out and need some encouragement. Borja believes topping the 2018 Bar exams gives him a platform to push for LGBT rights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzahxbggKvY “Other than the mundane, I...

EXCLUSIVE: Extreme law to be passed in the next two weeks Brunei will pass its Sharia Penal Code (SPC) by 3 April, Gay Star News has learned. The controversial penal code includes death by stoning for people convicted of sodomy, among other numerous brutal sentences. Other Sharia punishments include the amputation of limbs for those found guilty of theft. Anyone found guilty of apostasy will be handed a death sentence. ‘I am extremely concerned by this move. Some of the laws that we...

It seems our fears have come to fruition as Indonesia is gearing up to officially make homosexuality illegal. We’ve been watching the country’s increased hostility towards LGBTQ people in the past two years or so. To go along with that increase in social intolerance towards LGBTQ people, the government has become exceedingly volatile when it came to the treatment of its citizens. Now, it seems the politicians are preparing to make homosexuality officially illegal, so that they don’t have to use...