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Archive: 2020 (258 Posts)

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December 2020 Congress.gov New, Tip and Top

Posted by: Margaret Wood

Last month, Robert introduced us to the new Congress.gov Help Center. As part of this month’s release, we have made additional improvements to Help Center search results navigation. Now users can navigate through their search results or return to the results page. The other enhancement to the Help Center is the improved Error Message page …

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Updated Report on US Government Responses to the Coronavirus

Posted by: Anna Price

In September we posted about a newly-published report on federal and state executive responses to COVID-19. Over the past couple months we expanded our research and reviewed actions by local governments and Congress related to the pandemic. Our earlier report has now been updated to include our new findings, and is available on Law.gov. The …

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Did You Know That Eddie Van Halen Had a Patent?

Posted by: Anna Price

On October 6, 2020, we lost Eddie Van Halen, the lead songwriter and guitarist for American rock bank Van Halen. While his memory will live on through his music and fans, his contributions to performing arts are also memorialized in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), where he is listed as the inventor of …

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Irish Supreme Court Rules Subway Serves Freshly Baked Cake

Posted by: Geraldine Davila Gonzalez

The following is a guest post by Clare Feikert-Ahalt, a senior foreign law specialist at the Law Library of Congress covering the United Kingdom and several other jurisdictions. Clare has written a number of posts for In Custodia Legis, including Weird Laws, or Urban Legends?; FALQs: Brexit Referendum; and The UK’s Legal Response to the London Bombings of 7/7. On September …

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An Interview with Viktoria Simone Fritz, Foreign Law Intern

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

Today’s interview is with Viktoria Simone Fritz, a foreign law intern working with Foreign Law Specialist Jenny Gesley at the Global Legal Research Directorate of the Law Library of Congress. Describe your background. I was born and raised in Austria. So yes, I do own a dirndl and I absolutely adore our mountains, but only for vacation. I have …

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The 400th Anniversary of the Mayflower Compact

Posted by: Nathan Dorn

This month marks the 400th anniversary of the signing of the Mayflower Compact. Signed on November 21, 1620 (November 11, Old Style), the Mayflower Compact was an agreement that joined the people onboard the Mayflower – the ship that carried the colonists who first settled Plymouth, Massachusetts – in a single self-governing community. People have often …

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Research Guides in Focus – Legal Research: A Guide to Case Law

Posted by: Anna Price

The following is a guest post by Louis Myers, the Law Library’s current Librarian-in-Residence. Today we are pleased to be back with another exciting chapter of Research Guides in Focus. We are introducing our newest guide, Legal Research: A Guide to Case Law. This guide covers strategies and resources to aid researchers as they navigate …