The Oregon Supreme Court on Monday stayed Circuit Court Judge Matthew Shirtcliff’s order that granted a preliminary injunction against Governor Kate Brown’s stay-at-home orders. Brown has issued multiple stay-at-home orders since March 8 due to COVID-19. Brown’s orders have closed schools, non-essential businesses, and dine-in services at restaurants and bars. In response, various Oregon churches [...]

The Illinois Supreme Court on Monday disbarred former governor Rod Blagojevich. His law license had been suspended since 2011. The decision comes almost a decade after Blagojevich was convicted of corruption charges. The former governor was found guilty in 2011 of attempting to sell the vacant Illinois Senate seat held by Barack Obama before his [...]

US President Donald Trump threatened Monday to permanently end US funding for the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO is an international organization responsible for monitoring public health concerns and coordinating governmental responses. The US contributes between $400 and $500 million annually to the WHO. In a public letter to the director of the WHO, [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday in Opati v. Republic of Sudan that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) permits a punitive damages award against Sudan for the role it played in 1998 al Qaeda bombings that occurred outside of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Following the 1998 bombings, victims and family members sued [...]

A federal appeals court dismissed a Missouri death row inmate’s petition for post-conviction relief Sunday, despite questions about the evidence used to convict him, clearing the way for his execution to take place on Tuesday. This order will vacate a 30-day stay of execution that a federal judge granted to Walter Barton on Friday. Walter [...]

Puerto Rico’s newly-elected Governor, Wanda Vázquez Garced, announced in a press conference Saturday that Puerto Rico will hold a non-binding referendum on November 3, the same day as US presidential election, to decide whether Puerto Rico should become a US state or remain a territory. “It is never too late to be treated as equals,” [...]

French authorities arrested Félicien Kabuga, a leading figure in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, on Saturday in Paris. A release from the UN said Kabuga, 84, “was indicted by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1997 on seven counts of genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempt to [...]

With an expected increase in mail-in voting during the COVID-19 pandemic, voter rights advocates have filed lawsuits across the country challenging existing obstacles in states’ mail-in voting procedures. Challenges to mail-in voter restrictions have been filed in Tennessee, Texas, Minnesota, Georgia and North Carolina, among others. Some challenges primarily address the general restrictions states have [...]

The European Union Court of Justice on Thursday ruled that Hungary’s confinement of third-country asylum seekers subject to a “return decision” in transit zones at the Serbian-Hungarian border “must be classified as detention.” Additionally, it found that those detained for no reason must be released immediately, following a judicial review by a national court. The [...]

The U.S. Senate passed a bill on Thursday in support of the Uyghur Muslim minority in China. The bill would require the president to make a report to Congress regarding China’s crackdown on the Uyghurs and other minorities in the region. The report would identify persons responsible for the crackdown, whether they are officials with [...]