Law

The Whanganui River has finally been granted legal status.

This New Zealand River Just Got the Legal Rights of a Person

It’s the end of more than a century of struggle

(Grammatical) order in the court!

A Missing Oxford Comma Just Changed the Course of a Court Case

Call it pedantic, but comma wars are a thing

Could This Chatbot Prevent Some Deportations?

Visabot helps immigrants and visitors to the United States obtain and keep visas

The late justice's papers will be housed at Harvard Law.

Antonin Scalia’s Papers Find a Home at Harvard Law

The Supreme Court justice left behind a substantial legal and archival legacy

Egon Schiele’s “Woman Hiding Her Face” (1912)

Heirs of Holocaust Victim Invoke New Law in Suit Over Two Schiele Drawings

The family of Fritz Grunbaum claims the works were stolen by Nazis

Hugo La Fayette Black was a Supreme Court justice for over three decades, and is remembered as a defender of civil rights.

This Supreme Court Justice Was a KKK Member

Even after the story came out in 1937, Hugo Black went on to serve as a member of the Supreme Court into the 1970s

What Is the Congressional Review Act?

The U.S. Congress is wiping away rules and regulations finalized in the last months of the Obama administration through a little-used 1996 law

Permanent structures are not allowed in Dabaab, the world's largest refugee camp.

World’s Largest Refugee Camp Ordered to Stay Open

A Kenyan judge called the government's plan to close Dadaab "discriminatory"

The packaged foods you get at the grocery store are all regulated by the FDA. So are drugs, medical devices, cigarettes and condoms.

Where Did the FDA Come From, And What Does It Do?

From unglamorous origins, the federal agency has risen to ensure the safety of everything from lasers to condoms

Members of an anti-flirt club

New York State Once Introduced an Anti-Flirting Bill

The law aimed to crack down on public displays of affection of all kinds

From left to right: Ricky Jackson is finally a free man; Japanese Americans head into internment in 1942; a Maryland boy (in red) has an inmate mom.

The Far-Reaching Effects of American Incarceration

Three photo essays explore the history and modern-day consequences of the world's highest incarceration rate

“Time is weird in prison,” says Ricky Jackson, in Cleveland near the scene of the murder he was wrongly convicted of in 1975, “because you don’t see a lot of change.”

After 39 Years of Wrongful Imprisonment, Ricky Jackson Is Finally Free

Locked up for a murder he didn't commit, he served the longest sentence of any U.S. inmate found to be innocent

France Says "Au Revoir" to After-Hours Work Email

A new "right to disconnect" law lets employees negotiate communication rules in order to reduce stress and exhaustion from work

Why Michigan Banned Banning Plastic Bags

A new state law prevents cities and counties from restricting use of plastic bags or disposable cups and utensils

Poland's Sjem, or lower house of parliament, was the site of a recent showdown on press freedoms.

Poland Has Lifted Its Media Ban

It’s the latest in an ongoing saga about press freedoms in the populist-led country

Harold Israel, left, and Homer Cummings, right, were linked for life.

The Suspect, the Prosecutor, and the Unlikely Bond They Forged

New evidence shows that Homer Cummings, who would later be FDR's attorney general, rescued an innocent man accused of murder

Gold armband

Dutch Court Rules Crimean Artifacts on Loan Will Return to Ukraine

Following Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula, Ukraine's government asked that the artifacts be returned to Kiev

A jar of the world's pinkest pink paint pigment.

This Artist Is the Only Person Banned From Using the World’s Pinkest Pink

It's a brightly colored revenge for restricting the world’s blackest black

Pinball players are no longer scofflaws in the eyes of Kokomo, Indiana law.

Pinball Is Finally Legal Again in This Indiana City

Kokomo, Indiana, has reversed a 61-year-old ban on the game

This Egon Schiele painting, Portrait of Wally, was looted during World War II and became the subject of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit in the 2000s after it was exhibited in New York.

Reclaiming Nazi-Looted Art Is About to Get Easier

HEAR Act removes legal loopholes that prevented victims of Nazi art plunder to restore what’s rightfully theirs

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