US and Australian officials met to reaffirm a peaceful alliance within the Indo-Pacific region as part of the thirty-fourth Australia-U.S. Ministerial (AUSMIN) Consultations on Tuesday in Annapolis, Maryland.  The Indo-Pacific region is comprised of twenty-three countries, including Australia, China, India, and Cambodia. The officials, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, [...]

A Pakistani national with ties to Iran was federally charged in New York for a murder-for-hire plan targeting US government officials, according to a Tuesday announcement from the US Department of Justice. The accused, Asif Merchant, contacted a confidential source under the pretense of selling clothing in the US, later paying the source $5,000 to [...]

US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer introduced on Thursday the No Kings Act, establishing that US presidents and vice presidents do not enjoy immunity for violating federal criminal law. The bill relies on several provisions of the US Constitution, including the Necessary and Proper Clause under Article 1, Section 8 which gives Congress the authority [...]

US President Joe Biden signed into law the Federal Prison Oversight Act Thursday which established an inspection process and ombudsman in the Department of Justice. The act warrants that inspections conducted may be announced or unannounced, where each facility is assigned a risk score. Higher-risk facilities will receive more frequent inspections than other facilities. After [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed Thursday that a section of the Mississippi Constitution that banned felons from voting for life did not violate the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution and was thereby constitutional. Dennis Hopkins, a disenfranchised voter, claimed that the Mississippi Constitution created a “cruel and [...]

Arrests following illegal crossings of the US-Mexican border are the lowest of President Joseph Biden’s administration—down 29 percent in June alone—following a Presidential proclamation effectively barring would-be asylum seekers from requesting protection after they have illegally crossed the southern border. The Department of Homeland Security stated that “the Border Patrol’s 7-day average has decreased to [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided Friday that Emilee Carpenter, a religious wedding photographer seeking an exemption to the New York Human Rights Law under the First Amendment, had enough factual basis for a claim and could proceed to the district court. Carpenter sought a preliminary injunction for the New York [...]

The Utah Supreme Court unanimously decided Thursday that Utah citizens have a constitutional right to reform their government in response to past redistricting efforts to divide Salt Lake City into four congressional districts, resulting in Republicans winning by a large margin. The Utah League of Women Voters alleged that the Republicans in the state legislature have [...]

The US Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear a case challenging a Texas law that requires age verification and imposes health warnings for pornography websites. Texas Bill 1181, which was passed in September 2023, requires age verification measures to be used by websites that host sexually explicit material if it comprises at least one-third of [...]

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the creation of a publicly-funded religious charter school, St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School violates the First Amendment and Oklahoma State Constitution. The court said the St. Isidore contract violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which says the government “shall make no [...]