Around ten thousand protestors surrounded the Georgian parliament building in Tbilisi on Thursday, in response to a visiting Russian lawmaker being allowed to deliver a speech from the seat of the parliament speaker. More than sixty police and protestors were hospitalized as the rally was repulsed with tear gas and rubber bullets to prevent the protestors from storming the parliament. Opposition MPs called the protests, which in turn call for speaker Irakli Kobakhidze’s resignation. Tensions have been high between Georgia and Russia for over a decade, since the regions of…
As India deals with a deadly drought that has cost hundreds of lives, its sixth largest city faces the prospect of running dry as the reservoirs supplying drinking water are depleted. Chennai, capital of the state of Tamil Nadu, has been in this state for weeks, with the city’s water company cutting water supplies even as temperatures spike above 40C (104F). Indian courts have accused the state government of negligence in its response to the crisis, and specifically of intending to merely wait for the seasonal monsoon rather than take…
In 1984, the Supreme Court of Florida denied a rehearing to Miami Herald Publishing Co., who had petitioned after their appeal in the Third District Court. The question at hand was whether a plaintiff who was neither a public figure nor a public official needed to establish malice or reckless disregard as cause of action for a libel suit. The Miami Herald had falsely indicated that the respondent, Aurelio Ane, had been named (by the Monroe County Sheriff) as owner of a beer truck containing marijuana. The majority…
The first step in the process of bringing the case to trial is the filing of a complaint or demand for retraction, followed by the filing of the actual suit and the defendant being served. After this comes discovery, in which both the plaintiff and defendant’s attorneys investigate the case and gather documents, statements, and witnesses. Depositions, interviews under oath, are taken by the attorneys of both sides. This continues to a mediation period in which settlements outside of court may be considered. The pretrial process may take several years…
Ohio’s Oberlin College and its dean of students have been ordered to pay a total of $33 million in punitive damages, in a defamation case sparked by an act of shoplifting. Three African-American Oberlin students attempted to shoplift wine from Gibson’s Bakery on Nov. 9, 2016, resulting in a scuffle with the store clerk and the students’ arrests. The result: two months of protests by Oberlin students, directly supported by the college and dean, according to the accusations placed by the Gibson family. Protestors, including Dean Meredith Raimondo, accused the…
In a strange end to the events that began in 2013, Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s former president who was ousted by a military coup, has died during his own trial on Monday. Morsi was kept within a soundproof glass cage at the trial, and collapsed after addressing the court on the espionage charges of which he was accused. He was pronounced dead after being taken to a local hospital. While the Egyptian prosecutor reported no signs of injuries related to Morsi’s death were found, the question immediately rose whether Morsi’s treatment…
On Sunday, a massive power failure originating in Argentina caused a blackout spanning multiple countries. All of Argentina and Uruguay were affected, along with parts of Paraguay and Brazil. Argentina exports energy to its three neighbors, enabling the wide reach of the power failure. The power went out at 7:06 a.m. local time, according to the Uruguayan National Administration of Power Plants and Transmissions. In Argentina, this coincided with citizens preparing to head out and vote in local elections. In total, some 48 million persons were left without power by…
The law considers public figures and public officials to have greater recourse against the media when responding to false statements due to their public standing and ability to make public statements, and thus it holds them to a higher standard of evidence when bringing action against the media in court. The standard of ‘actual malice’ was set by the United States Supreme Court in the case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, and requires that a plaintiff who is a public individual show that the press made false statements…
Cooke, Duranty, and Laurence are three former journalists united by the condition of being Pulitzer Prize winners who later came under threat of having their Pulitzers revoked for creating invented or misleading stories. Cooke, writing for the Washington Post in 1980, wrote of a supposed eight-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy living in Washington D.C, basing the story on anonymous sources. Public reaction to the story led to a police search for Jimmy and to claims by the mayor that Jimmy had been placed in treatment and later died. Cooke received…
Restaurant chain Whataburger has long prided itself on being Texas-based and family-owned, but is now making a change as majority ownership is sold to a Chicago investment firm. BDT Capital Partners will be acquiring majority interest through its affiliated funds, according to a Friday press release. The chain’s current chief financial officer, Ed Nelson, will be promoted to president, while the current president Preston Atkinson and Board Chair Tom Dobson will continue on the board of directors. The announcement was not taken well by many Texans, who have long viewed…