Source: ABC News

Animal cruelty has officially become a federal felony after President Donald Trump signed the bill into law on Monday afternoon.

The bipartisan bill, Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, criminalizes certain acts of animal cruelty. The bill was passed in the Senate by unanimous decision on Nov. 5 after being approved in the House in late October.

"Passing this legislation is a major victory in the effort to stop animal cruelty and make our communities safer," Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said earlier this month when the bill, which Toomey sponsored along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., passed in the Senate. "Evidence shows that the deranged individuals who harm animals often move on to committing acts of violence against people. It is appropriate that the federal government have strong animal cruelty laws and penalties."

The bill, introduced in the House by Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., and Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., is an expansion on the 2010 Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act, which made the creation and distribution of "animal crushing" videos illegal

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-trump-sign-animal-cruelty-bill-law-making/story?id=67295654

---

At least something decent crossed this man’s desk.

Source: New York Times

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Friday night after experiencing chills and fever earlier in the day, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said on Saturday.

Justice Ginsburg was initially evaluated at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington before being transferred to Johns Hopkins for further evaluation and treatment of any possible infection, the spokeswoman, Kathleen Arberg, said in a statement.

Justice Ginsburg’s symptoms abated after treatment with intravenous antibiotics and fluids, Ms. Arberg said, adding the justice expected to be released from the hospital as early as Sunday morning.

Justice Ginsburg, 86, has had a series of health scares lately, including surgery for lung cancer and radiation treatment for pancreatic cancer in the last year. Over the years, Justice Ginsburg has also had surgery for early-stage pancreatic cancer in 2009 and treatment for colon cancer in 1999.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/23/us/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-hospitalized.html

Source: Law & Crime

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments next week on an effort by House Democrats to obtain the full and unredacted report by former special counsel Robert Mueller–including still secret, closely-guarded grand jury materials.

Those discussions won’t take place in front of the entire D.C. Court of Appeals, but will instead be overseen by a three-judge panel.

The panel system operates by way of the chief judge’s discretion. Here, that means Merrick Garland chose Neomi Rao, Thomas Griffith and Judith Rogers to deliberate and decide the next stage of the lawsuit aimed at forcing the release of Mueller’s entire report.

...

Rao was appointed by President Donald Trump in order to replace now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh earlier this year. A decided member of the conservative movement, Rao enraged judicial reform and women’s rights advocates just by virtue of her nomination as Trump’s hand-picked Kavanaugh successor.

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/these-are-the-judges-who-will-decide-whether-democrats-get-the-unredacted-mueller-report/