On Monday, December 3, 2018, the United States Supreme Court vacated the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals's decision in Fleck v. Wetch, No. 16-1564 (8th Cir. 2017) and remanded the case to the 8th Circuit to decide whether mandatory state bar association fees translate to compelled association and compelled speech.

The US Supreme court will not hear two cases stemming from state efforts to prevent Planned Parenthood clinics from receiving funding under Medicaid. Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito voted to hear the cases, but Chief Justice Roberts and the newly-confirmed Justice Kavanaugh voted with the Court's liberal justices to turn the cases away; four votes are needed to hear a case. This split among the conservative wing of the Court may reflect Chief Justice Roberts' intention to keep the Court out of hotly contested issues, and of Justice Kavanaugh's willingness to follow along, at least for the time being.

Now that marijuana is legal in Canada and its legality is expanding in a majority of U.S. states as well, many companies are racing to patent new formulations of the product.

The Court of Cassation in Italy has decided that a bronze sculpture found in the Adriatic Sea in 1964 should be taken from the Getty Villa near Los Angeles and returned to Italy. The bronze is known as Victorious Youth and was purchased by the Getty Trust in Germany in 1977. It…

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has struck down a challenge to a New Jersey law which limits the amount of ammunition, to no more than 10 rounds, that may be held in a single magazine of a firearm. The law was enacted in response to the rise of…

Last week, a group of Jewish United States citizens sued Airbnb in a U.S. federal court in Delaware, claiming religious discrimination.

Two lawsuits were filed earlier this week against Harvard University over a campus policy discouraging private, single-sex organizations. International sorority Alpha Phi, it's local Cambridge chapter, and a housing management company that represents the Delta Gamma Fraternity sued Harvard in Massachusetts state court. The second lawsuit was filed in federal federal court by three anonymous Harvard students, sororities Kappa Alpha Theta and Kappa Kappa Gamma, and fraternities Sigma Chi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

The Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland released a report last week that discussed an investigation into a complaint against the social media network LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft. In the investigation, the Data Protection Commission found that LinkedIn U.S. had collected the email addresses of 18 million people who were not users of the network.…

Reports from CNN and New York Times state that the Trump administration will ban bump stocks, devices that allow semiautomatic weapons to mimic machine guns, within the next few days. CNN reports that the new legislation will mandate that people who own bump stocks must turn in or destroy the devices within 90 days.

On Tuesday, November 27, 2018, Major League Baseball announced an agreement with MGM Resorts for the hospitality and entertainment company to become baseball's first gambling industry partner.