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HK defends its immigration procedures after British MP was denied entry
Court Center |
2025/04/13 21:51
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Hong Kong’s government on Monday defended its immigration procedures after a British member of parliament was denied entry to the Chinese city last week, an incident that has prompted concerns among U.K. officials.
Wera Hobhouse, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party representing Bath, on Sunday wrote on the social media platform Bluesky that authorities gave her no explanation for what she described as a “cruel and upsetting blow.” She noted that she was the first British MP to face such a situation upon arrival in the former British colony since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Hobhouse had told British media that she flew to Hong Kong to visit her newborn grandchild. She is also a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China that has scrutinized Beijing’s human rights record.
The Hong Kong government, in a statement released late Monday, maintained that its immigration officers are duty-bound to question individuals to ascertain the purpose of any visit.
“The person concerned knows best what he or she has done. It will be unhelpful to the person’s case if the person refuses to answer questions put to him or her for that purpose,” the statement read. The government added that it would not comment on individual cases.
The statement also said that Chief Secretary Eric Chan discussed the matter with the U.K. Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security Douglas Alexander earlier on Monday during the British official’s visit to Hong Kong.
In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian emphasized that immigration affairs fall within the scope of national sovereignty and the city’s government has the right to handle individual immigration cases according to the law.
The British government also issued a statement on Monday about Hobhouse’s entry denial last Thursday. It stated that Alexander had raised its concerns with senior Chinese and Hong Kong counterparts and demanded an explanation during his visit to the city and mainland China.
“Unjustified restrictions on the freedom of movement for U.K. citizens into Hong Kon |
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North Carolina appeals judges hear arguments in unresolved court election
Court Center |
2025/03/19 22:58
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North Carolina appeals court judges listened to arguments Friday about whether votes on tens of thousands of ballots in an unsettled state Supreme Court election from November should remain in the tally or could be discarded.
A three-judge panel of the intermediate-level Court of Appeals will decide if the State Board of Elections in December properly dismissed the formal protests of those ballots by Republican Jefferson Griffin. A trial judge upheld the board’s actions last month.
After two recounts, Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs leads Griffin by 734 votes from more than 5.5 million ballots cast in the Supreme Court race. Griffin’s lawyers have cited more than 65,000 ballots from three categories they argued came from ineligible voters. Removing them from counts could flip the vote advantage to Griffin.
No immediate ruling was issued Friday after 90 minutes of arguments before the panel, which is composed of two registered Republicans and one Democrat. There’s no date set on when the panel will act. But there is pressure to act quickly. The eight-year term on the highest court in the ninth-largest state was supposed to begin in early January. Riggs has meanwhile remained serving in her seat. And Griffin is in his current job as one of the 15 Court of Appeals judges.
While The Associated Press declared more than 4,400 winners in the 2024 general election, the state Supreme Court election is the only race that is still undecided.
However Judges John Tyson, Fred Gore and Toby Hampson rule, their decision will likely be subject to more appeals to the state Supreme Court on which the two candidates are fighting to serve, as well as potentially federal courts.
While Griffin has recused himself from Court of Appeals deliberations in his case, having the three judges rule in a matter directly affecting a colleague and Riggs — herself a Court of Appeals judge briefly in 2023 — is extraordinary.
The panel’s judges asked many questions about the three categories of ballots Griffin challenged.
The largest category covers ballots cast by voters whose registration records lacked either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number. Other votes being challenged were cast by overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. and military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of photo identification with their ballots.
Griffin’s lawyers have argued that counting the challenged ballots violates state laws or the state constitution, and the state elections board — composed of three Democrats and two Republicans — is to blame by failing to follow them. They want these ballots declared ineligible and ultimately discounted.
Doesn’t the 2005 ruling “say that if a voter relied on board guidance that is contrary to the statute that still is not a reason to excuse the noncompliance?” Tyson asked state attorney Nick Brod, representing the board. Brod disagreed.
Riggs’ allies have held rallies across the state demanding Griffin concede. Before Friday’s hearing, several outside groups filed briefs backing the board’s decisions, including voters whose ballots have been challenged by Griffin.
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Austria’s new government is stopping family reunions immediately for migrants
Court Center |
2025/03/13 06:51
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The new Austrian government said Wednesday that family reunion procedures for migrants will be immediately halted because the country is no longer able to absorb newcomers adequately.
The measure is temporary and intended to ensure that those migrants who are already in the country can be better integrated, Chancellor Christian Stocker from the conservative Austrian People’s Party said.
“Austria’s capacities are limited, and that is why we have decided to prevent further overloading,” Stocker said.
The new measure means that migrants with so-called protected status — meaning they cannot be deported — are no longer allowed to bring family members still living in their home countries to Austria.
The new three-party coalition made up of the People’s Party, the center-left Social Democrats and the liberal Neos, has said that curbing migration is one of its top issues and vowed to implement strict new asylum rules.
Official figures show that 7,762 people arrived in Austria last year as part of family reunion procedures for migrants. In 2023 the figure was 9,254. Most new arrivals were minors.
Migrants who are still in the asylum process or have received a deportation order are not allowed in the first place to bring family members from their countries of origin.
Most recent asylum seekers came from Syria and Afghanistan, the Austrian chancellery said in a statement.
The European Union country has 9 million inhabitants.
Stocker said the measure was necessary because “the quality of the school system, integration and ultimately the security of our entire systems need to be protected — so that we do not impair their ability to function.”
The government said it had already informed the EU of its new measures. It denied to say for how long it would put family reunions on hold.
“Since last summer, we have succeeded in significantly reducing family reunification,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said. “Now we are creating the legal basis to ensure this stop is sustainable.”
All over the continent, governments have been trying to cut the number of migrants. The clamp-down on migrants is a harsh turnaround from ten years ago, when countries like Germany and Sweden openly welcomed more than 1 million migrants from war-torn countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Many communities and towns in other countries, such as Germany, also say they no longer have capacities to find shelter or homes for migrants.
The EU is trying to keep more migrants from entering its 27-country bloc and move faster to deport those whose asylum procedures are rejected.
On Tuesday, the EU unveiled a new migration proposal that envisions the opening of so-called “return hubs” to be set up in third countries to speed up the deportation for rejected asylum-seekers.
So far, only 20% of people with a deportation order are effectively removed from EU territory, according to the European Commission.
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Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody will fill Marco Rubio’s Senate seat
Court Center |
2025/01/18 17:55
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Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody will take Marco Rubio ’s seat in the U.S. Senate, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday, making Moody only the second woman to represent Florida in the chamber.
Elected as the state’s top law enforcement officer in 2018, Moody campaigned on a pledge to voters that she’d be a prosecutor, not a politician. But along with DeSantis, she boosted her political profile during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling on the federal government to “hold China responsible” for the outbreak.
In elevating her to the post, DeSantis praised Moody as a key player in his political battles, a law and order prosecutor who’s prepared to help President-elect Donald Trump “secure and shut the border,” rein in inflation, and overhaul what he described as a federal bureaucracy “run amok.”
“I’m ready to show up and fight for this nation and fight for President Trump to deliver the America First agenda on Day 1,” Moody said during Thursday’s announcement at a hotel in Orlando.
“The only way to return this country to the people, the people who govern it, is to make sure we have a strong Congress doing its job, passing laws and actually approving the regulations that these unelected bureaucrats are trying to cram down on the American people,” she added.
Before running for statewide office, Moody worked as a federal prosecutor. In 2006, she was elected to the post of circuit judge in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa. A fifth generation native of Plant City, Florida, Moody was once named queen of the city’s famed strawberry festival. She’s a three-time graduate of the University of Florida and she and her husband, a law enforcement officer, have two sons.
As the state’s attorney general, Moody has been instrumental in defending DeSantis’ conservative agenda in court and has joined other Republican-led states in challenging the Biden administration’s policies, suing over changes to immigration enforcement, student loan forgiveness and vaccine mandates for federal contractors.
“I’m happy to say we’ve had an Attorney General that is somebody that has acted time and time again to support the values that we all share,” DeSantis said. “We in Florida established our state as a beachhead of liberty, as the free state of Florida. And she was with us every step of the way.”
Moody isn’t the state’s only AG to use the office as a stepping stone to a national post. Her predecessor, Pam Bondi, is Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department and is testifying Thursday in the Senate.
Moody will be the second woman to represent the state in the Senate, and the first in nearly 40 years; Republican Paula Hawkins served in the chamber from 1981-1987.
With the appointment announced, Moody is poised to take office once the vacancy occurs. Rubio is expected to have broad support from Republicans as well as Democrats, and his confirmation vote could come as soon as Monday evening.
Under Florida law, it was up to the Republican governor to choose Rubio’s replacement after Trump picked the three-term senator to be his next secretary of state. Moody will serve in the Senate until the next general election in 2026, when the seat will be back on the ballot.
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Trump’s sentencing is set for Jan. 10. Here’s what could happen next
Court Center |
2025/01/03 15:00
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Faced with the never-before-seen dilemma of how, when or even whether to sentence a former and future U.S. president, the judge in President-elect Donald Trump ‘s hush money case made a dramatic decision that could nevertheless bring the case to a muted end.
In a ruling Friday, Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan scheduled the sentencing for 10 days before Trump’s inauguration — but the judge indicated that he’s leaning toward a sentence that would amount to just closing the case without any real punishment. He said Trump could attend the Jan. 10 proceeding remotely because of his transition duties.
Still, that would leave Trump headed back to the White House with a felony conviction.
Will it come to that? Trump wants the conviction thrown out and the case dismissed, and communications director Steven Cheung said the president-elect will “keep fighting.” But it’s tough to predict just what will unfold in this unprecedented, unpredictable case. Here are some key questions and what we know about the answers:
Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying his business’ records. They pertained to a $130,000 payment, made through his former personal lawyer in 2016, to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from publicizing her story of having had sex with Trump a decade earlier. He denies her claim and says he’s done nothing wrong.
Trump’s sentencing was initially set for July 11. But at his lawyers’ request, the proceeding was postponed twice, eventually landing on a date in late November, after the presidential election. Then Trump won, and Merchan put everything on hold to consider what to do.
That won’t be final until the judge pronounces it, and he noted that by law, he has to give prosecutors and Trump an opportunity to weigh in. The charges carry potential penalties ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.
But the judge wrote that “the most viable option” appears to be what’s called an unconditional discharge. It wraps up a case without imprisonment, a fine or probation. But an unconditional discharge leaves a defendant’s conviction on the books.
And by law, every person convicted of a felony in New York must provide a DNA sample for the state’s crime databank, even in cases of an unconditional discharge.
Can Trump appeal to stop the sentencing from happening?
It’s murky. Appealing a conviction or sentence is one thing, but the ins and outs of challenging other types of decisions during a case are complicated.
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Former Manhattan Judge Diane Kiesel said that under New York law, Friday’s ruling can’t be appealed, but that “doesn’t mean he’s not going to try.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers have been trying to get a federal court to take control of the case. Prosecutors are due to file a response with the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals by Jan. 13, three days after Trump now is to be sentenced.
The defense also has suggested it would seek the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervention if Merchan didn’t throw out the case. In a Nov. 25 letter to the judge, Trump’s attorneys contended that the U.S. Constitution permits an appeal to the high court because the defense is making arguments about presidential immunity.
Much of their argument concerns the Supreme Court’s July ruling on that topic, which afforded considerable legal protections to presidents. Trump’s attorneys might try to convince the Supreme Court that it needs to follow up by getting involved now in the hush money case.
A Trump spokesperson said no decision had been made on whether to challenge Merchan’s ruling.
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Amazon workers strike at multiple facilities as Teamsters seek labor contract
Court Center |
2024/12/21 14:28
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Workers at seven Amazon facilities went on strike Thursday, an effort by the Teamsters to pressure the e-commerce company for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.
The Teamsters say the workers, who authorized strikes in the past few days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored a Sunday deadline the union set for contract negotiations. Amazon says it doesn’t expect an impact on its operations during what the union calls the largest strike against the company in U.S. history.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, a small portion of the 1.5 million people Amazon employs in its warehouses and corporate offices.
At one warehouse, located in New York City’s Staten Island borough, thousands of workers who voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since affiliated with the Teamsters. At the other facilities, employees - including many delivery drivers - have unionized with them by demonstrating majority support but without holding government-administered elections.
The strikes happening Thursday are taking place at one Amazon warehouse in San Francisco, California, and six delivery stations in southern California, New York City; Atlanta, Georgia, and Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement. Amazon workers at the other facilities are “prepared to join,” the union said.
“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement.
The Seattle-based online retailer has been seeking to re-do the election that led to the union victory at the warehouse on Staten Island, which the Teamsters now represent. In the process, the company has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board. |
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More than 3,000 fake Gibson guitars seized at Los Angeles port
Court Center |
2024/12/02 04:06
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More than 3,000 fake Gibson electric guitars shipped from Asia were seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the Los Angeles-Long Beach Seaport, authorities said.
Had the guitars been authentic, they would have been worth $18 million, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. The agency said Gibson confirmed the guitars that were intercepted were counterfeit.
Gibson, founded in 1894 and based in Nashville, Tennessee, has the top market share in premium electric guitars and all its guitars are handcrafted in Nashville and Bozeman, Montana.
“These fraudulent guitars may look and feel legitimate for unsuspecting consumers buying them from third party online sources, street markets, unauthorized retailers, and person-to-person transactions,” said Cheryl M. Davies, CBP director of field operations in Los Angeles. “As we approach the busy Holiday shopping season, consumers should pay attention on where they are buying these goods and how much they are paying, and if is too good to be true it probably is.”
Gibson guitars have been such a fixture in music history that rock-and-roll visionary Chuck Berry was laid to rest with his instrument, blues musician B.B. King affectionately named his “Lucille,” and rock guitarist Eric Clapton borrowed one from George Harrison to play the solo on the Beatles’ song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
“This is really emotional and personal for us not only because of the protection of our players, but because of our Gibson team at large, including the artisans at our craftories in Nashville, TN and Bozeman, MT, who are generations of American families that have dedicated their entire lives to handcrafting Gibson instruments,” Beth Heidt, chief marketing officer at Gibson, said in a statement.
Authorities announced the seizure Tuesday but didn’t say when the guitars were taken, which country they came from, or who made them.
The investigation involving the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is ongoing.
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