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After Dana Hayes Jr. had a gun possession charge expunged last year, he assumed that all records of his arrest and subsequent probation would be removed from the public eye before he applied for an accounting job at the Baltimore Police Department. In Maryland, record expungement is akin to obliteration, and for all intents and purposes, expunged records no longer exist. State law prohibits d...

Download mp3 (15.62 MB) Legislation known as Right to Try was signed into law by then-President Donald Trump in 2020. At its core, the goal is to allow patients and families of patients to pursue potentially life-saving treatment that hasn’t received the approval of the Food and Drug Administration. During this current session, Arizona lawmakers approved an updated version called Right to Tr...

The DSA is a part of a two-fold blow by the EU to address the challenges posed by the emergence of tech giants, writes Trishla Ostwal. Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Culminating in a 16-hour negotiation, the European Union reached a deal on Saturday on a regulation that will effectively force tech giants like Meta and Google to combat misinformation, illegal content and rest...

Story at a glance Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) has signed into law a measure adding harsh penalties to an existing law barring transgender athletes from competing on school sports teams that match their gender identity. Under the law, funding will be withheld from school districts that refuse or fail to verify the gender listed on a student-athlete’s “original” birth certificate. The state leg...

Download mp3 (9.58 MB) Arizona is already struggling with having enough families to foster and adopt children, and some advocates are concerned that a new law signed by Gov. Doug Ducey earlier this month is going to exacerbate the challenges. The law ostensibly provides religious belief protections for any fostering or private adoption agency. Could that allow those agencies to discriminate a...

Lessons in Arbitration Construction Dispute - In December 2021, Alex Turner, Jeff Patton, and Lee Denton in Spilman's Winston-Salem office arbitrated a construction dispute in Norfolk, Virginia on behalf of Sure Lift, Inc. The arbitration, required by the parties’ contract, resolved Sure Lift’s claims against the general contractor on a Virginia Department of Transportation (“VDOT”) project f...

A resolution introduced by Duval County School Board Member Charlotte Joyce on Tuesday aims to support Florida's polarizing Parental Rights in Education Bill — known by critics as the 'Don't Say Gay' bill — as well as to disapprove of the district's current LGBTQ Support Guide and thank Gov. Ron DeSantis for his work. "Be it Resolved that the Duval County School Board ... unequivocally supp...

Walking the valley of Great Langdale in England's Lake District. Peter Mulligan / Getty Images Efforts to expand public access to green open spaces in England have stalled, with a recent review of current laws by the UK’s Treasury department shelved indefinitely. “I think we are blessed in this country with hundreds of thousands of miles of public footpath to allow people to access the cou...

A North Carolina man whose successful civil rights claim over the state’s sex-offender registration system was mooted by legislation enacted in response to his suit may recover attorneys’ fees, the Fourth Circuit affirmed Tuesday. Because the legislative change came both after and in response to his legal win, he remained a “prevailing party” entitled to attorneys’ fees under federal fee-shif...

Increasing numbers of vehicles are driving on the exposed lakebeds. (Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands via KSL.com) An undated photo of dust picked up by the Great Salt Lake by a vehicle illegally driving on the dried lakebed. A new bill that goes into effect May 4 clarifies that all motor vehicles are banned from dried lakebeds and navigable rivers in the state. Salt Lake • Mo...