The Chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs announced Friday that the Committee would begin contempt proceedings against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, amid his refusal to comply with a subpoena for records into his “transparently political misuse of Department resources.” Three separate House committees sent Pompeo multiple letters in September [...]

The US Department of Justice on Wednesday executed Lezmond Mitchell, a 38-year-old member of the Navajo Nation who had been sentenced to death for the murder of Alyce Slim and her granddaughter, Tiffany Lee, in 2001. Mitchell’s death marks the fourth federal execution since the revival of federal capital punishment earlier this year. However, Mitchell’s [...]

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Legislative Assembly passed the Sexuality and Gender Identity Conversion Practices Bill on Thursday, banning the practice of conversion therapy on LGBTQ persons. Sexuality or gender identity conversion practices are “treatment or other practice the purpose, or purported purpose, of which is to change a person’s sexuality or gender identity.” However, [...]

The Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security issued a report on Wednesday suggesting that secrecy offenses should still be applicable to journalists who publish sensitive national security information. The Australian Parliament created the report as the result of an inquiry in press freedom following the Australian Federal Police (AFP) raids on the national [...]

The Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) heard oral arguments Tuesday and Wednesday in the appeal of former Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina military commander Ratko Mladić. Mladić appealed his 2017 conviction and life sentence for genocide, crimes against humanity and violation of the laws or customs of war in [...]

The High Court of New Zealand sentenced Brenton Tarrant to life imprisonment on Thursday after he admitted to 51 charges of murder, 40 charges of attempted murder and a charge of committing a terrorist act during the 2019 shooting at Al Noor mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre, which he live-streamed on Facebook. Brenton Tarrant, a [...]

The UN Security Council (UNSC) president, Indonesia, on Tuesday declined to take further action on the US’s request to reimpose all UN sanctions on Iran due to disagreement among the 15-member UNSC. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had filed a complaint with the UNSC to start a 30-day process (“snapback”) to reimpose international sanctions [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on Wednesday that it was unlawful for a Virginia school board to deny a transgender student access to the bathroom that corresponded with his gender identity. The court determined that preventing the student from accessing the bathroom of his choice was a form of sex [...]

The US Mission to International Organizations in Geneva (US Mission) responded Wednesday to a UN panel that determined certain states “appear to be manipulating the COVID-19 crisis to curb access to essential abortion care.” In its response, the US Mission rejected the idea of an “assumed right to abortion” and denounced the panel’s interference. The [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Thursday that the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) new lethal injection protocol violates Food and Drug Administration (FDA) laws. This case arose when Keith Nelson, a prisoner sentenced to death in 2002, sued the government for failing to adhere to the Administrative Procedure [...]