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Polish director demands apology from justice minister for comparing her film
Lawyer Media News |
2023/09/15 11:45
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Film director Agnieszka Holland demanded an apology from Poland’s justice minister after he compared her latest film, which explores the migration crisis at the Poland-Belarus border, to Nazi propaganda.
Holland said Wednesday that she planned to bring defamation charges against Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro unless she receives an apology within seven days. She also demanded that he make a charitable donation of 50,000 Polish zlotys ($11,600) to an association that helps Holocaust survivors.
Holland’s feature film, “Green Border,” explores a migration crisis that has played out along Poland’s border with Belarus over the past two years. It takes a sympathetic approach toward the migrants from the Middle East and Africa who got caught up as pawns in a geopolitical standoff.
It also looks critically at the way Poland’s security services pushed back migrants who were lured to the border by Belarus, an ally of Russia.
Ziobro slammed the film earlier this week, saying: “In the Third Reich, the Germans produced propaganda films showing Poles as bandits and murderers. Today, they have Agnieszka Holland for that.”
He made his comment on the social platform X, formerly Twitter, on Monday, a day before the film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Holland noted in a statement that Ziobro, who serves as prosecutor general as well as justice minister, commented on her film without having seen it and that she believed his words amounted to defamation, calling them “despicable.”
“I cannot remain indifferent to such an open and brutal attack by a person who holds the very important constitutional position of minister of justice and prosecutor general in Poland,” she wrote in a statement from Venice dated Wednesday but published in Poland on Thursday. |
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Russian court imposes 3- to 6-year sentences for distributing tainted drinks
Lawyer Media News |
2023/08/07 14:22
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A Russian court on Monday sentenced seven defendants to as little as three years in prison for distributing methanol-tainted drinks that killed 44 people.
The court in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, convicted the seven of charges including sale of goods that do not meet safety requirements and result in the deaths of two or more people; sentences ran from three to six years.
Prosecutors said the seven had illegally sold alcohol since 2020 and that in 2021 they sold drinks containing excessive amounts of methanol, which is commonly used as a solvent. A total of 51 people were sickened by the drinks, of whom 44 died. |
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First over-the-counter birth control pill gets FDA approval
Lawyer Media News |
2023/07/13 10:22
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U.S. officials have approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, which will let American women and girls buy contraceptive medication from the same aisle as aspirin and eyedrops.
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it cleared Perrigo’s once-a-day Opill to be sold without a prescription, making it the first such medication to be moved out from behind the pharmacy counter. The company won’t start shipping the pill until early next year, and there will be no age restrictions on sales.
Hormone-based pills have long been the most common form of birth control in the U.S., used by tens of millions of women since the 1960s. Until now, all of them required a prescription.
Medical societies and women’s health groups have pushed for wider access, noting that an estimated 45% of the 6 million annual pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Teens and girls, women of color and those with low incomes report greater hurdles in getting prescriptions and picking them up.
Some of the challenges can include paying for a doctor’s visit, getting time off from work and finding child care.
“This is really a transformation in access to contraceptive care,” said Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health, a non-profit group that supported the approval. “Hopefully this will help people overcome those barriers that exist now.”
Ireland-based Perrigo did not announce a price. Over-the-counter medicines are generally much cheaper than prescriptions, but they typically aren’t covered by insurance.
Forcing insurers to cover over-the-counter birth control would require a regulatory change by the federal government, which women’s advocates are urging the Biden administration to implement.
Many common medications have made the switch to non-prescription status in recent decades, including drugs for pain, heartburn and allergies. Birth control pills are available without a prescription across much of South America, Asia and Africa. |
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German court: naked landlord doesn’t justify lower rent
Lawyer Media News |
2023/04/26 16:48
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A German court said Wednesday that a landlord sunbathing naked in the courtyard of his building wasn’t a reason for his tenants to reduce their rental payments.
The case involved a building in an upmarket residential district of Frankfurt, which included an office floor, rented by a human resources company. The company withheld rent because it objected, among other things, to the landlord’s naked sunbathing. In response, the landlord sued.
The Frankfurt state court rejected the company’s reasoning, finding that “the usability of the rented property was not impaired by the plaintiff sunning himself naked in the courtyard.”
It said in a statement that it couldn’t see an “inadmissible, deliberately improper effect on the property.”
Judges were ruling on an appeal against a lower court decision that went in the landlord’s favor, and the tenant had only limited success overall. They found that the tenant had been entitled to reduce rental payments for three months only because of noisy construction work in the neighborhood.
The court said that the spot where the landlord sunbathed could only be seen from the rented office by leaning far out of the window.
It also said the tenant failed to prove that he took the stairs to the courtyard unclothed. “On the contrary, the plaintiff stated credibly that he always wore a bathrobe which he only took off just before the sun lounger,” it said. |
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Democratic senators urge chief justice to probe Thomas trips
Lawyer Media News |
2023/04/11 22:39
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Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee called on U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday to open an investigation into the undisclosed acceptance of luxury trips taken by Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife that were paid for by a Republican megadonor.
The letter said the committee plans to hold a hearing in coming days regarding the “need to restore confidence in the Supreme Court’s ethical standards.” And if the Supreme Court does not deal with the issue on its own, the committee will consider voting on legislation. Such a measure would also need support from the Republican-led House to become law.
“But you do not need to wait for Congress to act to undertake your own investigation into the reported conduct and to ensure that it cannot happen again,” the 11 Democratic senators wrote to Roberts. “We urge you to do so.”
The nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica reported Thursday that Thomas, who has been a justice for more than 31 years, has for more than two decades accepted luxury trips from Republican donor Harlan Crow nearly every year.
Thomas, 74, and his wife, Virginia, have traveled on Crow’s yacht and private jet as well as stayed at his private resort in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, ProPublica reported. A 2019 trip to Indonesia the story detailed could have cost more than $500,000 had Thomas chartered the plane and yacht himself. |
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Massachusetts governor signs bill protecting abortion access
Lawyer Media News |
2022/07/29 10:56
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A sweeping abortion bill designed to protect access to the procedure in Massachusetts at a time when many other states are restricting or outlawing abortions was signed into law Friday by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker.
The new law attempts in part to build a firewall around abortion services in the state after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturned Roe v. Wade last month.
The law protects abortion providers and people seeking abortions from actions taken by other states, including blocking the governor from extraditing anyone charged in another state unless the acts for which extradition is sought would be punishable by Massachusetts law.
The bill also states that access to reproductive and gender-affirming health care services is a right protected by the Massachusetts Constitution; requires the state’s Medicaid program, known as MassHealth, to cover abortions; allows over-the-counter emergency contraception to be sold in vending machines; and requires public colleges and universities to create medication abortion readiness plans for students.
A unique Texas law banning most abortions after about six weeks is enforceable through lawsuits filed by private citizens against doctors or anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion.
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