A Pennsylvania man was arrested Thursday on charges alleging that he tortured a victim in the Kurdistan region of Iraq in 2015, after a superseding indictment was returned on Tuesday in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The grand jury charged Ross Roggio, 53, of Stroudsburg with directing and participating in the systematic torture of an [...]

Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews on Thursday announced that the Australian government intends to list the entirety of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas as a terrorist organization under the Australian criminal code.  Founded in 1987, Hamas was originally a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar Hassan al-Bannain in 1928. [...]

The New York Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that former US President Donald Trump and his children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. will be required to attend depositions regarding an investigation launched last year into their family business practices. The judge also rejected an attempt by the Trumps to freeze the New York Attorney General’s [...]

The Spain Attorney General’s Office announced Wednesday that it is investigating 68 cases of alleged sexual abuse of minors by Catholic church staff members. This is the first release of such official data. The Spanish Catholic Church has been under heavy scrutiny since allegations of sexual abuse of minors within the church surfaced in December [...]

The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) submitted a request to the International Criminal Court (ICC) Wednesday for the opening of a preliminary examination into the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran) and the armed groups in Syria it controls in crimes committed during the conflict in Syria. In the request, the IHRDC [...]

Italy’s Constitutional Court rejected a request Wednesday to hold a referendum on legalizing the cultivation of both marijuana and other psychoactive plants and fungi. In December, activists were able to compile more than 630,000 signatures for the measure, validated by a separate court last month. Although there were more than enough valid signatures for the [...]

The UK Supreme Court held Wednesday that a person under criminal investigation has a “reasonable expectation of privacy” with regard to information about that investigation prior to being charged. This judgment is anticipated to have a great impact on journalism. The respondent and the company he worked for (identified anonymously as “ZXC” and “X Ltd.” [...]

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken released a statement Wednesday condemning the Russia Duma’s resolution to recognize the independence of “so-called” Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republics (LPR) as “independent.” The statement follows a Tuesday vote by the Russia Duma asking President Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the two quasi-states in [...]

The United States Supreme Court Wednesday agreed to hear a request from New York City teachers to block a vaccine mandate over religious objections, despite Justice Sonia Sotomayor initially denying the request.  In October 2021, Sotomayor denied a request from a group of New York City teachers challenging the city and state’s vaccine mandate for [...]

A bipartisan group of senators submitted a resolution Tuesday calling on the US Senate to support Ukraine “against any further Russian military aggression.” These calls follow Russia’s deployment of over 100,000 troops to the Ukrainian border in the last few days. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional [...]