Credit: Robert F. Bukaty/AP/File Some House of Lords members (the UK’s upper House of Parliament) believe the bill should go further and include certain invertebrates. It would recognize that all shellfish feel pain. Speaking during the House of Lords debate in June, Baroness Janet Fookes said she was “shocked by some of the treatment of animals, such as lobsters, crabs and squid, in the way they have been stored and, very often, killed.” Maisie Tomlinson, co-director of Crustacean Compassion, a campaign group that lobbies for welfare rights for decapod crustaceans, said that lobsters are undoubtedly sentient beings. She said studies by professor Robert Ellwood at Queen’s University in Belfast tested the theory and proved that crustaceans retain a memory of a painful experience. These studies also examined whether decapods (shrimp, crab, lobster) had the capacity to weigh competing courses of action to avoid electric shock “and they did,” she said.
New SEC petition for NFT regulation & an exclusive interview with Brock Pierce. A recent petition to the Security & Exchange Commission (SEC) asked for some clarification around Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), hoping to resolve any uncertainty the might hinder the juggernaut bullet train of NFT projects, art, collectibles, media, gaming, and so on barreling toward a bright future with a new form of digital ownership. The petition notes a securities law from the 1930s that could possibly “provide a crude mechanism for the regulation of NFTs.” The petition then refers to the SEC’s Howey guidance to address the issue of whether NFTs should be considered securities which would cause all platforms selling and trading NFTs to be classified as exchanges or broker-dealers by the SEC.
Business of Law Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, law firms are starting to embrace virtual offices but will it last? By Danielle Braff Illustration by Sara Wadford/Shutterstock Blame it on the pandemic. Law offices throughout the country are finally tiptoeing into the virtual world. For most professions, this is nothing new: More than half of professionals worked remotely at least half the week before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March, according to International Workplace Group research. But law firms always do things at their own pace. According to the 2019 ABA TechReport, roughly 70% to 90% of law firms across all sizes other than solo firms primarily utilized traditional office spaces. For solo firms, approximately one-third were home-based.
WILMINGTON â Robert Elwood âBobâ Spencer of Wilmington passed away at the age of 79 on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020. Bob was born on May 2, 1941, in Greensboro to the late Robert Elwood Spencer and Fay Rees. On his fourth birthday, Bob suffered the tragic loss of his father. Bob graduated from Henderson High School in 1959 and attended N.C. State University. He left college early to serve his country in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. He served on the USS Pine Island and later found great joy reconnecting with his shipmates at reunions. He returned from the war and completed his education at UNC Wilmington in 1970.