The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Thursday blocked President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal employees. The decision came from an en banc rehearing of the appeal, which was previously decided in favor of the government by a three-judge panel of the same court. The case turned on the central issue [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Thursday upheld the funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as constitutional. The court found the CFPB is funded by Title X of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The court’s finding rejected the argument of the plaintiff in the case, [...]

The brutal rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in India’s Uttar Pradesh (UP) region in September 2020 and the road leading to a subsequent verdict, raise questions about sex, caste, and class-based discrimination in India. The Hathras rape case, as it is colloquially known, clearly depicts the double discrimination faced by Dalit women. [...]

The Iraqi government’s decision to pour enormous funding into an ambitious railroad project that will connect Asia and Europe indicates that Iran may be inching ever closer to geopolitical obsolescence. Reports emerged last year that the governments of Iraq, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had reached a transport agreement that would enable the [...]

UK charity organisation Refugee Action Thursday reported that the UK’s asylum housing system is “cruel by design,” and outlined the poor conditions and systems of racialised segregation towards the asylum seekers. The report chronicles one hundred interviews with asylum seekers situated in hotels in London, Manchester, West Midlands and Bradford. According to the report, asylum [...]

The Canadian Supreme Court Thursday ruled to reinstate a conviction for impaired driving, despite the fact that the sobriety stop that produced crucial evidence was deemed illegal. Ultimately, the court determined that “Admission of the evidence would better serve the truth‑seeking function of the criminal trial process and would not damage the long‑term repute of [...]

The Arizona Supreme Court Wednesday declined to force Governor Katie Hobbs to carry out the death row sentence of Aaron Gunches. The decision marks a victory for Hobbs, whose office is currently reviewing the state’s death penalty protocols. Gunches was convicted of two counts of attempted second-degree murder in late 2002 and early 2003. He [...]

A Belarus court Thursday sentenced Gennady Mozheyko, a reporter working for the pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi, to three years prison. The court found that Mozheyko violated Part 1 of Article 368 of Belarusian law by insulting Belarusian authorities. The court also convicted Mozheyko under Part 1 of Article 130 for inciting social [...]

TikTok CEO Shou Chew Thursday testified before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Lawmakers questioned Chew on TikTok’s consumer privacy and data security practices amid growing national security concerns from lawmakers and the Biden administration. Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) opened the hearing by stating, “Mr. Chew, you are here because the [...]

The Israeli Parliament (Knesset) Thursday passed the first of many controversial judicial reform laws. The law amends Israel’s Basic Law, raising the threshold at which the government can declare the prime minister incapacitated. The ability to declare the prime minister incapacitated has now been bestowed solely on the prime minister himself, or from a supermajority [...]