News & Blog

Why Is R. Kelly Being Bounced Two Different Federal Courts?

Recording artist ROBERT SYLVESTER KELLY was arrested July 11 on separate indictments by the Northern District of Illinois and the Eastern District of New York. In Illinois federal court, R. Kelly is charged with: “producing and receiving child pornography, and enticing minors to engage in criminal sexual activity.  The charges accuse Kelly of engaging in sex acts with five minors and recording some of the...
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Big Huge Loss for Donald Trump – Court Rules He Cannot Ban Twitter Users

Have you been banned by @realDonaldTrump or the social media accounts of any other public official? Trump was sued by seven people who were blocked from the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account after posting critical comments. Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ. v. Trump, 302 F. Supp. 3d 541 (S.D.N.Y. May 23, 2018). The blocked users could not view the president’s tweets, reply directly to them...
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Can Taylor Swift Shake It Off? Does She Have Legal Recourse After Her Masters Were Sold Off?

What Are Taylor Swift’s Masters? In a recent Tumblr post, Taylor Swift said she was blindsided by the news that artist manager Scooter Braun would pay $300 million for Big Machine Label Group, which owns the master recordings for six Swift albums going back to when she was 15 years old. What Are Masters? A master recording is the first recording of a song or other...
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Why is Alabama Indicting a Pregnant Woman Shot in the Stomach with Manslaughter?

In 2018 27-year old Marshae Jones was five months pregnant when she got into an argument with Ebony Jemison outside a store in Birmingham, Alabama. The argument escalated and the pregnant Jones was shot in the stomach. Jones was rushed to the hospital but the shooting caused a miscarriage that ended her pregnancy. Police initially charged the shooter with manslaughter, but the grand jury found...
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Fact or Fiction: Not All U.S. State Require Unanimous Verdicts in Criminal Trials

According to TV shows, all criminal convictions require unanimous guilty verdicts from all 12 jurors, right? Actually …. no. As of 2019 Oregon is the lone holdout. In 49 U.S. states and the federal court system, a 12-0 guilty vote is needed to convict in criminal court. But Oregon permits convictions (for felonies other than murder) on a 10-2 or 11-1 vote of the jury....
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Fact or Fiction: California Extends Medi-Cal to Undocumented Adult Immigrants

This is fact! On January 1, 2020, California will become the first state in the nation to allow low-income undocumented adults aged 19-26 to sign up for state-funded health coverage. Currently, only a handful of cities or counties in the United States offer health care coverage for undocumented immigrants. These include Los Angeles County‘s My Health LA program, and San Francisco‘s Healthy San Francisco. Since  2016 California children and teens qualified...
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Should It Be Illegal for Parents to Force Vegan Diets on Their Children?

In one shocking case out of Australia this May, a 20-month-old girl was so malnourished she had no teeth and was suffering from rickets, a bone condition commonly caused by a lack of vitamin D or calcium. In criminal court the father, 34, and the mother, 32, who were not publicly identified, pleaded guilty in court to failing to provide for their daughter. The case......
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Are Men Primary Caregivers? Dads at Big Bank Sue for Equal Paternity Leave

Male and female employees at JPMorgan Chase now have equal 16-week or 4-month paid parental leave after the birth of a child thanks to a complaint filed by employee Derek Rotondo. After the birth of Rotondo’s son he applied for 16 weeks of paid leave granted to primary caregivers. But he was denied and told that, “Men, as biological fathers, were presumptively not the primary caregiver.”......
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Can Michael Jackson’s Estate Sue HBO for Defamation?

The answer is no! In the United States neither the deceased nor their estates can sue for defamation. The dead don’t have rights against defamation, even if they are world famous with billion dollar estates. But Michael Jackson’s estate nevertheless sued HBO after it aired the Leaving Neverland documentary, featuring men who very openly allege their grooming and sexual molestation as children aged 7 and......
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