Oregon’s Legislative Counsel Committee had a meeting this morning to discuss the copyright claim on the Oregon Revised Statutes. After taking legal counsel from Dexter Johnson, talking with Karl Olson, Carl Malamud, three Oregon citizens and myself, they unanimously voted to not to enforce any copyright claims on the Oregon Revised Statutes.
From: Law, Technology, and […]

Four years ago nearly 4,000 gay couples were married in San Francisco, only to find their unions annulled by the state’s supreme court within months. But from yesterday many of those same couples, and thousands more, were expected to take advantage of the court’s latest ruling permitting gay partners to become “spouses for life”.
The ruling […]

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.
In its third rebuke of the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges […]

Today only small numbers of Ainu remain, and they constitute one of Japan’s most marginalised groups.
On Friday they will have something to celebrate.
Japan’s parliament is to adopt a resolution that, for the first time, formally recognises the Ainu as “an indigenous people with a distinct language, religion and culture”.
In a nation that has always preferred […]

The number of felons walking back through the state’s prison doors for another stay dropped to an alltime low since 2004, Gov. Rod Blagojevich said recently. Blagojevich said the repeat cycle of crimes by formers offenders was halted by statewide reforms that translated into an estimated $64 million in prison costs savings for taxpayers.
Convictions among […]

The number of conflicts in which children are used as soldiers has dropped sharply in the past four years, to 17 from 27, according to a research report released this week by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.
The report, the first since 2004, in some ways reflects the now nearly universal consensus […]

The state of Texas should not have removed children from a polygamist sect’s ranch because it didn’t prove that they were in “imminent danger,” an appeals court ruled Thursday.
In the ruling, a three-judge panel did not order that the children be returned to their families on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas.
Instead, […]

they wonder if the tribe is engaged in a shrewd chess game to block Shakopee’s development plans, then move out into open countryside to start reacquiring vast stretches of ancestral land. It’s a question emerging from New York to California as tribes riding high on casino profits have begun spending that wealth to reassert […]

Djibouti has become the first country to launch a joint programme by United Nations agencies to move more quickly to eliminate female genital mutilation (FGM).
The joint programme, run by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), is to begin in a country where nine out of every ten females has undergone […]

The first legalised home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, but a ban remains on internet access.
This is the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks.
[…]
In recent weeks thousands of Cubans have snapped up mobile phones and DVD players.
Full Story: BBC
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