The US Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a black prisoner on death row in Mississippi was unreasonably denied his right to challenge a prosecutor’s race-neutral justifications for removing black jurors.  Terry Pitchford was 18 years old in 2004 when he robbed a grocery store in Mississippi with an accomplice, a crime that ended with [...]

Amnesty International on Wednesday released a report alleging that tea workers on private estates in Sri Lanka are being subjected to conditions that “may amount to forced labour,” calling on the government to launch immediate criminal investigations and targeted inspections. The report, “Abandoned by the State, Trapped in Private Estates,” is based on interviews with [...]

Nine minor students and a coalition of community groups on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Massachusetts education officials, alleging the state’s school districting illegally segregates Black and Latino children into an inferior, “two-tiered” education system. The complaint names the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education as [...]

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger on Tuesday vetoed a pair of bills that would have created a retail marketplace for legal marijuana in the state, saying the proposed legislation was premature and could not be “successfully implemented” without “unintended consequences that harm Virginians.” Virginia became the first southern state to legalize recreational marijuana in 2021, but [...]

Amnesty International on Tuesday released a research briefing asserting that the US government is violating international human rights law by approving lithium mining projects across Nevada without securing the approval of impacted Indigenous peoples. The research briefing focuses on three Nevada lithium mining projects: The Thacker Pass Lithium Mine, the Nevada North Lithium Project, and [...]

US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro on Friday announced that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is closing its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, referring the matter to the Federal Reserve’s Inspector General. The DOJ criminal probe focused on whether or not Powell made false statements to Congress about cost [...]

Voting rights advocates on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in an attempt to block the government from collecting and centralizing voter registration data. Tuesday’s complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, names voting advocacy group Common Cause and four individual voters under the [...]

The US Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules (ACAR) on Thursday voted to remove a proposed membership-disclosure requirement from the rules governing amicus briefs in federal appellate courts. The now scrapped changes would have required amicus filers to name any donor who contributed more than $100 toward a brief if that person had been a member [...]

The company xAI on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block Colorado’s enforcement of the state’s new artificial intelligence (AI) law before it takes effect. The lawsuit names Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser and aims to block the Consumer Protections for Artificial Intelligence (CPAI) law, which will require developers of “high-risk” AI systems to [...]

A federal judge on Tuesday paused Louisiana’s bid to reinstate stricter dispensing rules for the abortion pill mifepristone, staying the case while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducts an ongoing review of the drug’s safety. Writing for the District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Judge David C. Joseph declined to block the [...]