Content about Law
In order to discover and address systemic problems facing men of color in higher education, the Heman Sweatt Symposium on Civil Rights continues the legacy of one famous African-American.
As I write this column on Thursday (yesterday), the sports office of The Daily Texan, as I’ve known it for the last four years, has remained relatively unchanged. The red couch with pillows bursting at the seams still festers with the stench of sweaty writers who plop on the couch regularly after coming back from some availability or another to furiously file a story. The small tube TV sitting on top of a ruddy filing cabinet is still missing the power button and the remote only functions when you hold it at just the right angle from just the right distance.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy’s recovery looks enduring. It’s just not very strong.
Hiring, housing, consumer spending and manufacturing all appear to be improving, yet remain less than healthy. Economists surveyed by The Associated Press expect growth to pick up this year, though not enough to lower unemployment much.
A clearer picture of the nation’s economic health will emerge Friday, when the government reveals how many jobs employers added in April.
BEIJING — On Thursday, legal activist Chen Guangcheng told the United States that he wants to leave China, deepening a diplomatic dispute. His case has drawn comments from other prominent Chinese activists and dissidents — both to Chen directly and in other forums.
HAVANA (AP) — After controlling the comings and goings of its people for five decades, communist Cuba appears on the verge of a momentous decision to lift many travel restrictions. One senior official says a “radical and profound” change is weeks away.
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s border control union has set a strike date for May 10 as part of its dispute with the government over retirement ages.
Lucy Moreton, the deputy general secretary of the Immigration Service Union, says workers at major airports such as London’s Heathrow as well as seaports will be affected by the 24-hour strike.
Border controls in Paris and Brussels connected to the Eurostar train service will also be affected.
“It is with deep regret,” Moreton said of the strike.
SAN DIEGO — A college student picked up in a federal drug sweep in California was never arrested, never charged and should have been released. Instead, authorities say, he was forgotten in a holding cell for four days.
Without food, water or access to a toilet, Daniel Chong had to drink his own urine to survive and began hallucinating after three days because of a lack of nourishment, his lawyer said.
Wednesday evening, an audience at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center was confronted with a rare dilemma. If the speaker is an ex-convict, do you clap when they take the stage?
Ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff was invited to UT to launch the McCombs School of Business’ “Ethics Unwrapped” speakers series, and spoke to audience members about the dilemmas of legality and morality in the lobbying industry in an event titled “You Don’t Know Jack”.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A federal judge in San Antonio has at least temporarily stopped the execution of a rapist who was on parole when prosecutors say he killed a neighbor and stole the man’s motorcycle.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery granted a reprieve Wednesday afternoon to 55-year-old Anthony Bartee after his lawyers filed a civil rights lawsuit against Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed. Bartee was scheduled for lethal injection later in the day.
His lawyers want additional items from the crime scene to undergo DNA testing.
After two semesters and a summer of planning, a new online African-American UT publication will launch in the fall.
Cheyenne Matthews-Hoffman, editor-in-chief of the publication and a journalism sophomore, said the student organization Black Ink Association is attempting to launch a publication similar to the “The Griot,” which was an African-American print publication at UT in the ’80s and the ’90s.
NEW YORK (AP) — Twenty activists who converged on a police station to protest a controversial police technique went on trial Monday in a case that they hoped would highlight their cause but prosecutors called a simple matter of breaking the law.
The demonstrators, who include ministers, local activists and Princeton University scholar and civil rights advocate Cornel West, lined three rows of courtroom seats in one of the biggest group trials of protesters in the city in recent years. Supporters waited in line for spots.
Dear South Mall Lawn,
I was asked to reflect on my time here at UT and felt it was fitting to address this letter to you. You have seen thousands of students walk around you and have become a special place for not only me, but for many.
Your lawn was the home of lots of fun adventures including Holi, where I got to throw paint powder and water balloons on my friends, and the gigantic dance parties at “Gone to Texas” and even the days where I just want to twirl around on the lush of your grass.
The Facilities Services division of the J.J. Pickle Research Campus is undergoing restructuring affecting 52 employees. This restructuring will allow the department to “improve efficiency” and fund a “contingency reserve” that could pay for merit-based pay increases.
LONDON — A committee of British lawmakers called Rupert Murdoch unfit to run his global media empire — a finding that reflects just how deeply the phone hacking scandal born of his defunct News of the World has shaken the relationship between the press and politics.
The divisive ruling Tuesday against Murdoch, his son James and three of their executives also exposed the waning influence of the media tycoon, and could jeopardize his control of a major broadcaster.
Texas fans rejoiced euphorically on Dec. 6, 1969, as the Longhorns defeated Arkansas, 15-14, in the national championship game.
It was a game that would long be celebrated for what the Longhorns had accomplished on the field, but history was also being made among the members of the team itself.
A program created to educate and keep youth out of jail is aiming to improve job prospects in East Austin and is relying on local feedback to expand educational services for adults.
Editor’s note: From a former UT quarterback to the new UT System student regent, these are among our favorite quotes from the past several days.
Editor’s note: On behalf of the Center for Asian American Studies, Eric Chen, a 2009 UT alumnus, describes some Asian-American perspectives on the case of Fisher v. UT.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man was executed Thursday for his role in a 2002 robbery in which three people were shot, one fatally.
The lethal injection of Beunka Adams, 29, was carried out less than three hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-day appeal to postpone the punishment, the fifth this year in Texas.
Adams expressed love to his family and apologized to witnesses, including one of the women who survived the attack and relatives of the man who was killed.
He said he was a stupid kid in a man’s body at the time of the crime.
Editor’s note: This is the final installment in a three-part series about the legislative student organizations at UT and their transition to new leadership over the next few weeks.
Michael Redding describes being the new president of Graduate Student Assembly as kind of like going on a first date. When he started, Redding said, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.
BRUSSELS — For more than a year, European Union officials have called for austerity, austerity and more austerity as a means to solve Europe’s debt crisis. Now people who don’t want to pay the price are taking their fight from the streets to the ballot box.
Governments have fallen, more are at risk and in some places, a stark streak of nationalism is on the rise that could swing Europe ever deeper into a fortress mentality.
NEW ORLEANS — Federal prosecutors brought the first criminal charges Tuesday in the Gulf oil spill, accusing a former BP engineer of deleting more than 300 text messages that indicated the blown-out well was spewing far more crude than the company was telling the public at the time.
Kurt Mix of Katy, Texas, was arrested and charged with two counts of obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying evidence.
JERUSALEM — Israel legalized three unsanctioned West Bank settler outposts and was trying to save another on Tuesday, infuriating the Palestinians as the chief American Mideast envoy was in the region laboring to revive peace efforts.
The decision fueled suspicions that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline coalition would try to legalize as many rogue settlement sites as possible to cement Israel’s hold on occupied land the Palestinians claim for a state.
By age 17, Richie Gill, Plan II and economics junior, knew he did not want to work under a boss for the rest of his life.
So while still in high school, Gill earned his real estate license and started an online advertising business. After successfully running the business for two years, he sold it to improve his college GPA, but could not resist the urge to run his own business and earn money once again.
Gill started Mr. West Campus, a real estate agency for students looking to live close to campus in late 2010.
SANFORD, Fla. — By questioning a state investigator on the witness stand during a routine bail hearing, George Zimmerman’s defense attorney showed some of the weaknesses in prosecutors’ claims that the neighborhood watch volunteer committed second-degree murder, legal experts say.
