A US federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the entry into force of a Louisiana law that would require all public classrooms in the state to prominently display the Ten Commandments. The ruling came in response to a motion by plaintiffs to enjoin state authorities from enforcing the law, which had been set to take [...]

Following 11th-hour efforts to prevent federal observers from monitoring Texas polling stations, the state reached an agreement Tuesday with the US Department of Justice (DOJ), permitting its monitors to conduct their work, albeit subject to strict limitations. Earlier this month, the DOJ announced plans to monitor polling stations in 27 states as voters cast their [...]

Amid a broader global deterioration in rule-of-law indicators, the US has dropped six places to rank 43rd globally in measurements of “lawful transition of power,” according to the World Justice Project‘s (WJP) latest Rule of Law Index, released Wednesday. The decline comes just two weeks before the 2024 presidential election, which have proven deeply divisive [...]

An investigation into the death of a former Salvadoran security official revealed significant flaws, Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced Tuesday. Alejandro Muyshondt had been serving as a national security advisor to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele in August 2023 when he was arrested on charges of having disclosed state secrets to a political adversary. His arrest [...]

Ernesa Shala is a JURIST staff correspondent in Kosovo and a recent graduate of the University of Pristina Faculty of Law.  Kosovo’s Ombudsperson is currently examining the case of an 18-year-old student expelled from Bedri Pejani high school in Peja municipality for wearing a headscarf, commonly known as the hijab. Despite a meeting between Minister [...]

Iran launched scores of ballistic missiles into Israeli territory on Tuesday, in what it described as an exercise of its “legitimate right to self-defense under the UN Charter.” The attack came hours after Israel announced a ground incursion into Lebanon, and as UN experts warned of the dire consequences of regional hostilities. In a statement, [...]

UN officials warned of a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis in Lebanon on Thursday as death tolls mounted from Israeli air strikes. On Wednesday, advocacy group Human Rights Watch called for urgent UN action, reporting that some 1,600 Israeli strikes had killed at least 558 people, including 50 children, and injured thousands in the span of [...]

Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, pleaded guilty Thursday to federal tax charges in a surprise move just before jury selection was set to begin in his Los Angeles trial. Biden, 54, admitted to failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019 while spending millions on what prosecutors [...]

Social media platform TikTok and its parent company ByteDance are facing civil charges of violating children’s privacy laws, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday. US authorities claim that TikTok knowingly allowed children under 13 to create accounts and share content without parental consent, failing to adequately protect minors’ personal information as required by [...]

US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election on Sunday. He wrote in a letter to the American people: It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest [...]