The US Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear arguments that a Pittsburgh rapper’s First Amendment rights were violated after he was convicted for song lyrics. Jamal Knox, who rapped under the name Mayhem Mal, argued that his conviction for song lyrics about killing two police officers violated his First Amendment right. Knox was charged with [...]

A white man accused of burning down three predominately black churches in Louisiana was charged by prosecutors with hate crimes on Monday. The charges were added to three existing arson charges that were filed last week. The man, 21-year-old Holden Matthews, is the son of a Louisiana Deputy Sheriff. He was arrested last week and [...]

The North Carolina state Senate on Monday approved a bill that would make it a felony not to perform lifesaving procedures on an infant born alive as the result of a botched abortion. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act was passed by a vote of 28-19. It still has to be passed by the North [...]

The State Duma, the lower house of parliament in Russia, approved a bill Tuesday aimed at tightening government control of the internet in the country. The bill, which sponsors said is aimed at securing “reliable” access to the World Wide Web independently from the control of other countries, would force Internet Service Providers to route [...]

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin agreed Monday to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of a series of restrictive laws passed during a special session of the state legislature in late 2018. Following the election of Democratic Governor Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul in 2018, the Republican-controlled state legislature convened a special session [...]

Five parents in New York City (NYC) on Monday filed a lawsuit against the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene over the recent emergency vaccination order, saying the order lacks sufficient evidence of the measles outbreak and violates legal religious exemptions. The order was issued last Tuesday in response to a measles outbreak [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases Monday to start off its April session: Iancu v. Brunetti, a free speech and trademark case, and Emulex Corp. v. Varjabedian, a question of faulty disclosures in public investment offers. In Iancu v. Brunetti, the court will decide whether the Lanham Act’s “prohibition on the [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a gay death row inmate’s appeal claiming the jurors were biased against him because of his sexual orientation. Charles Rhines was convicted of the murder of Donnivan Schaeffer during the burglary of a Rapid City doughnut shop in March 1992. Multiple jurors made comments about Rhine’s sexuality [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed a class action suit against magistrates, a chief judge and the county sheriff who preside over arraignments in Detroit, alleging that their broken bail system discriminates against the poor who cannot afford to pay the amounts. With the high rates of poverty impacting Detroit, the ACLU alleges [...]

German prosecutors on Monday charged former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn and four others with fraud, unfair competition and breach of trust in connection with the company’s massive, multi-year effort to cheat on diesel emissions testing. Prosecutors said that Winterkorn knew about the deceptive practice since May 2014 and failed to stop it. The company has [...]