By Sofia Ellington In 2018, a huge decision by The United States Supreme Court changed the landscape of legalized gambling. In Murphy v. NCAA, the Court functionally legalized sports betting by striking down a federal law that had categorically prohibited the practice. The decision left the door open for states to decide how to handle regulation. Sports betting is a multi-billion dollar industry, and many states have moved to legalize the practice to get a piece of the growing pie.  Washington State took the opportunity to legalize sports betting by entering into tribal-state compacts wi ..read more

By: Sam Kuper  When (fingers crossed) I graduate from law school next spring, my six-figure law school investment will come up against the bar—a test that almost every attorney in Washington State has taken since the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) was introduced in 1972. While the content of the test itself has changed forms across time and jurisdictions—the exam was only administered orally for over a hundred years, and the Washington Supreme Court just announced huge changes for 2026—one requirement for bar admission has stayed consistent: “Every person . . . must be of good moral ch ..read more

Photo by Vishnu R Nair on Pexels.com By Mackenzie Kinsella The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival  The Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival is undoubtedly one of the most iconic music festivals. Coachella is held yearly in Indio, California. The festival is traditionally held over two weekends in April and lasts three days per weekend. Since its inception in 1999, this festival has hosted some of the most popular names in music including Harry Styles, Beyonce, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lady Gaga and Prince. In the early 2020s, Coachella has attracted record break ..read more

Photo by Picography on Pexels.com By: Drew Carlson In late 2022, writer Chris Wozniak sued Warner Brothers, claiming that the 2022 hit film The Batman copied a comic book story he’d proposed thirty years prior. In a 45-page judicial opinion from March 27th, Judge Paul Engelmayer held that the recent movie had not infringed on Wozniak’s copyright and even declared that Wozniak infringed on DC’s copyrights by writing a Batman story. Was there infringement? If so, from whom? What’s the situation, Commissioner? In 2022, The Batman was released in theaters. Set in a corrupt and strife-filled Gotham ..read more

By: Bethany Butler Last month, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital successfully transplanted a genetically engineered pig kidney into a 64-year-old patient. Scientists removed porcine genes and added human genes via the CRISPR-Cas 9 gene editing technology. In total, sixty-nine of the pig’s genes were modified prior to transplantation. The surgery took approximately four hours, with the kidney functioning almost immediately after transplantation. eGenesis, a biotechnology company focused on genetically engineered, human-compatible organs, invented this procedure and the resulting geneti ..read more

By: Mayel Andres Tapia-Fregoso On March 21, 2024, Amazon Studios released its latest blockbuster film “Road House,” a remake of the original 1989 action classic. Following its launch on Amazon Prime Video, Amazon’s streaming platform, the studio revealed that as of April 1, 2024, the film reached 50 million viewers. Yet, despite the film’s apparent success, Amazon’s Road House production has been filled with controversy. On February 27, 2024, R. Lance Hill, the writer of the original Road House (1989) screenplay, filed a lawsuit against Amazon Studios and its subsidiary MGM, alleging copyrigh ..read more

By: Bella Hood Wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried, otherwise known as “SBF”, was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $11 billion on March 28, 2024. A federal court convicted SBF in November on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit commodities and securities fraud. The former 32-year-old billionaire is the son of two Stanford law professors. After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he worked at Jane Street Capital, a quantitative trading firm. FTX, an abbreviation of “Futures Exchange” was founded by SBF in 2018 as a cent ..read more

Photo by Thomas Laukat on Pexels.com By: Bethany Butler 2022 Olympic Women’s Singles Figure Skating Doping Controversy  The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing were overshadowed by an intense doping scandal in the women’s singles figure skating event. In February 2022, Kamila Valieva, a 15-year-old Russian figure skater (competing under the ROC “Russian Olympic Committee” due to Russia’s previous doping issues), participated in the Olympic figure skating team event. With the help of Valieva’s top scores, the ROC placed first in this event, followed by the United States in second, Japan in thi ..read more

By: Karina Paup Byrnes On March 24,2024, Washington’s State Governor, Jay Inslee, signed into law the “Strippers’ Bill of Rights” (SB 6105/ HB 2036), which provides adult dancers with increased safety protections in the workplace. Adult entertainers employed at strip clubs across Washington state are now legally entitled to safeguards such as keypad entrances to dressing rooms, panic buttons in private room where employees are alone with customers, mandatory sexual harassment training for all employees, and security guard staffing on site. However, this bill represents more than just a win fo ..read more

By: Kevin Vu Nintendo, the developer of various beloved video games and consoles, was recently in the news for its lawsuit against, and subsequent settlement with, Tropic Haze, the developers of the Nintendo Switch emulator “Yuzu.” In the initial complaint, Nintendo alleged that “[w]ith Yuzu in hand, nothing stops a user from obtaining and playing unlawful copies of virtually any game made for the Nintendo Switch, all without paying a dime to Nintendo or any of the hundreds of other game developers and publishers making and selling games for the Nintendo Switch. In effect, Yuzu turns general ..read more