Last week, U.S. District Judge Lance Walker rejected Maine Republican congressional incumbent Bruce Poliquin’s lawsuit, which sought to have the state’s ranked voting system declared unconstitutional.

Last week Congress voted to pass a farm bill that addresses the legalization of cultivating hemp in the U.S. as well as other issues such as nutrition, conservation, trade, energy, and forestry. The bill received support from both major parties, and is expected to be signed into law by President Trump.

On Monday, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled unconstitutional a state law that had the effect of prohibiting all secret recordings of any encounter with a police officer or other government official. According to Chief Judge Patti B. Saris, of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts law is not sufficiently "narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest" to curtail the plaintiffs' free speech rights under the First Amendment.

California legislators have proposed a tax on text messages to increase funds for programs that provide underserved residents with connectivity. The new tax plan, proposed by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), would not charge per text message, but would implement a monthly fee based on a cellular bill that includes any charges for text messages. Most cellular carriers charge a flat fee for texting and include similar fees for other services, such as calls. The specifics of the charge associated with the tax would vary across carriers.

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.