Malaysia’s Parliament Tuesday passed two bills reforming death penalty sentencing and abolishing the mandatory death penalty for certain offenses. Human rights groups welcomed the move as a step towards abolishing capital punishment entirely. The Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Bill 2023 and the Revision of Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life Bill 2023 [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Friday ruled that an Indiana school district did not violate a teacher’s right to exercise his religious practices after the school terminated the teacher for refusing to use students’ preferred names or pronouns as required by school policy. US Circuit Court Judge Ilana Rovner found [...]

A federal judge for the US District Court of Minnesota Friday struck down a Minnesota law requiring individuals to be at least 21 to obtain a permit to carry a handgun in public. US District Judge Katherine Menendez ruled that the minimum age requirement violated the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and [...]

The US Supreme Court Tuesday released a unanimous opinion holding that certain abandoned financial instruments that are similar to money orders may be recovered by the state in which they were purchased. In Delaware v. Pennsylvania, the court ruled that these abandoned financial instruments, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, fell under the definition of [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday announced Russia will suspend its participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). The treaty represents the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the US and Russia. Putin claimed the US wanted to “inflict a strategic defeat” on Russia and “climb on nuclear facilities.” A statement from the [...]

South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem signed a bill Monday banning both surgical and non-surgical gender-affirming treatments for minor patients. The bill, HB 1080, is set to go into effect on July 31. The new law will prohibit healthcare professionals from providing gender-affirming treatments to those under the age of 18, including hormone therapy, puberty [...]

The Kumamoto District Court in Japan has ordered compensation to two people who were forcibly sterilized 40 years ago due to disability under the then-existing Eugenic Protection Law. The Kumamoto court Monday found the eugenics legislation to be unconstitutional and awarded ¥22 million ($170,000) in damages. Of the two, one was forced to undergo sterilization [...]

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has filed a motion seeking more time between seven upcoming executions to ease the burden on the state’s Department of Corrections (DOC) and allow more time to prepare for executions. The request, filed Tuesday, calls on the court to space out the executions by 60 days, rather than the current [...]