The US Department of Justice on Monday filed the first two federal grand jury indictments in connection with last week’s Capitol riots. The first of the indictments charges Mark Leffingwell of Seattle with civil disorder, violent entry into a restricted building, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding two police officers. According to the criminal complaint filed [...]

The US Supreme Court refused Monday to expedite the remaining Donald Trump campaign election challenges in an order unaccompanied by further comment or explanation. The justices’ refusal to consider the petitions before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration may render the claims moot. The Trump campaign sought to expedite eight separate petitions over the election results in [...]

The US Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a case on protest-free buffer zones for abortion clinics. The case involved an ordinance in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that prohibits protesters from demonstrating within 15 feet of abortion clinics. The plaintiffs were religious, pro-life, sidewalk counselors. They contended that they did not demonstrate under the ordinance and instead [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday that up to 3 percent of its email mailboxes were accessed during the SolarWinds cyberattack in December. DOJ Spokesperson Marc Raimondi released a statement on the incident: On Dec. 24, 2020, the Department of Justice’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) learned of previously unknown malicious [...]

US President-elect Joe Biden will appoint Merrick Garland as Attorney General, according to reports Wednesday. Garland is a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Then-president Barrack Obama had nominated Garland to the Supreme Court following the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Despite the nomination, [...]

A judge for the US District for the Southern District of New York on Monday blocked an executive order by President Donald Trump to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC). The sanctions included a prohibition on US citizens cooperating with officers of the ICC. The court blocked the executive order stating that the order would [...]

The legislative assembly of the state of Assam in India passed a bill Wednesday to convert State-run madrasas (Islamic schools) into general schools. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that the schools did not provide an adequate education. Assam Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, “We need more doctors, police officers, bureaucrats, and teachers, from [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed multiple laws Wednesday to restrict the influence of US social media companies like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The first law passed by the president allows Russia to block internet sites that allegedly discriminate against Russian media, while the second imposes a substantial fine on social media companies that fail to [...]

The Parliament of Montenegro Tuesday amended parts of the Law on Freedom of Religion or Belief and the Legal Status of Religious Communities that related to property and were allegedly anti-Serbian. The option of nationalizing church property has now been removed. Thousands of Montenegro nationals had taken to the streets of the capital Podgorica in protest [...]

According to Reuters Monday, Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating Oleksandr Tupytskyi, the Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, for suspected bribery of a witness. The alleged incident under investigation occurred in 2018 when Tupytskyi was deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court has been at odds with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy since October. Zelensky [...]