The State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, approved on Wednesday a bill prioritizing national law in cases in which international treaties or rulings by international bodies conflict with the constitution. The bill still needs to pass the upper house of parliament, but is expected to do so unchallenged. President Vladimir Putin proposed the bill, [...]

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced Thursday that “the State Department will allow US citizens born in Jerusalem to request either ‘Jerusalem’ or ‘Israel’ as their place of birth on consular documents,” including passports. The announcement is the latest in US pro-Israel policy shifts that began with President Donald Trump’s December 2017 presidential proclamation [...]

A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday ordered that a former New York City accountant who admitted to scoping out the New York Stock Exchange for al Qaeda be released early from his 18-year prison sentence. Sabirhan Hasanoff, who goes by the name Tareq, originally pled guilty in June 2012 to “one count of providing and [...]

Nigeria Federal High Court Justice Rilwan Aikawa has struck out a case against 47 men accused of violating Nigeria’s law against homosexual relationships, including gay marriage, due to “the lack of diligent prosecution.”   The men faced charges relating to public displays of affection with the same sex, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.  [...]

The Journal of Epimideology and Public Health published a research study Wednesday declaring police shootings of unarmed Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) a “public health emergency.” The study was conducted by members of the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, and Yale University using a longitudinal study of Washington Post data to draw their [...]

The European Court of Human rights ruled Tuesday that Belgium violated the rights of a Sudanese refugee when it deported him in spite of a court order which suspended the deportation and without first assessing the risk of human rights violations he could face if he returned to Sudan. The 25-year-old Sudanese refugee, identified only as [...]

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney issued a citywide curfew on Wednesday night after multiple nights of protests following the fatal police shooting of 27-year-old Black man Walter Wallace Jr. Wallace was killed in Philadelphia by two officers on Monday when they responded to a report of a person with a knife. Shaka Johnson, an attorney for Wallace’s [...]

The US Supreme Court late Wednesday refused to block North Carolina’s mail-in ballot receipt extension, denying state House Speaker Tim Moore’s request for an injunction. As a result, ballots received up to nine days after the election will be counted as long as they are postmarked by November 3. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented [...]

The US Supreme Court Wednesday denied a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to review a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision allowing the counting of ballots received up to three days after the election, even with no legible postmark. The Pennsylvania branch of the Republican Party filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, hoping the Supreme Court, [...]

Pope Francis on Sunday named 13 new cardinals, including Washington DC Archbishop Wilton Gregory, an outspoken civil rights advocate who will become the first Black American to be appointed to the office in the Roman Catholic Church. The timing of Gregory’s appointment is noteworthy. Not only is it on the heels of Pope Francis’ recent [...]