Courthouse News Service

ELKO, Nev. — The Biden administration proposed new protections for Nevada's Ruby Mountains. The petition for the 20-year withdrawal of the area from public land laws, mining laws and mineral and geothermal leasing laws follows requests from Native American tribes, environmentalists and local communities.

The National Ice Core Facility in Lakewood, Colorado, holds 13.67 miles of ice cores preserved at -40 degrees Fahrenheit year-round to support scientific research and artistic inquiry.

Police identified the New Jersey woman as a 57-year-old named Debrina Kawam.

From state court to SCOTUS, Courthouse News readers couldn't get enough of these trials and tribulations. Read our most popular stories from 2024.

CHICAGO — Near the coast of Ecuador, a powerboat capsized and sank in a storm, and only one crew member survived. The ship companies he says are responsible for the vessel's seaworthiness and maintenance filed a suit to limit their alleged liability for the sole survivor's suffering, but because they waited more than six months after the sailor gave them notice of his own claims, their liability limitation case is untimely.

WACO, Texas — A Texas man who was convicted for evading arrest will receive a new trial because an appellate court agreed that the jury should have been instructed on his affirmative defense of necessity. He feared for his life because he was previously assaulted during a traffic stop by a different officer; he says he only fled from this traffic stop because the circumstances were similar to his assault and he was terrified of it happening again.

LOS ANGELES — An appeals court in California upheld the denial of a trans person's request for a new birth certificate with a change in their gender marker. The court needs more evidence than three pages of uncertified medical records and an unsworn letter before it will agree that the petitioner was properly diagnosed as trans and that a sex reassignment surgery had been properly performed.

The chief justice called out judicial browbeating as the source of waning trust in the judiciary.

Seattle's ordinance imposing rules around how and why an app-based worker can be fired will go into effect in the new year, as planned.

Parts of the law will still take effect Wednesday.