Law

A Michigan judge has been ordered by a circuit court to stop putting defendants in jail because they can’t afford to pay court fines. The district judge will now consider a defendant’s job status, assets, basic living expenses and any other special circumstances that might affect their ability to pay. RT reports: The court order was a victory for the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued Eastpointe Judge Carl Gerds III over what it called an unconstitutional practice.

The New York judge who dismissed claims against Saudi Arabia by families of victims of the 9/11 attacks has ruled against Iran…. despite over a dozen Saudis citizens not Iranians being involved on September 11 Iran was hit with a judgment after failing to defend court claims and have been ordered to pay more than $10.5 billion in damages to families of people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and to a group of insurers.

A U.S. federal judge has confirmed that the NSA’s infamous PRISM program does exist – allowing the agency to collect user data directly from major technology companies such as Yahoo, Google, Apple and Microsoft without the users’ knowledge and without a court order.  The stunning admission by the judge means that the PRISM program, originally leaked by Edward Snowden, has given the American government the ability to physically access the servers of numerous internet companies since 2007 in order to snoop on U.S. citizens.

In April 2015 nursing student Nichole Rolfe was fired from her job after she refused to lie to patients and push pro-vaccine propaganda to them, as directed by her teachers.  Nichole fought back against the college with a lawsuit. Baker College recently requested that the case be dismissed, but the judge presiding over the case denied the motion meaning that Nichole will finally be allowed to argue her case in front of a jury this summer.

French authorities are looking into the case of a woman who allegedly smuggled a baby on board an Air France flight. The small child aged between one and two years old was found hidden in carry-on luggage. The Evening Standard reports: The French company said in a statement the child was discovered on board the 1891 flight from Paris to Istanbul on Monday without a valid ticket. French website Planet.fr quoted a witness who said the child appeared to be about one or two years old. The passenger reportedly told the title: “The bag belonged to a woman sat near the back of the plane.