Sri Lanka announced on Thursday that it is lifting a 43-year moratorium on capital punishment and will start executing prisoners with drug trafficking convictions who are on death row. The Justice and Prison Reforms Ministry has issued a timeline on the process it has adopted to implement the death penalty. In July the country’s cabinet [...]

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Inspector General Daniel Levinson proposed a rule on Thursday to eliminate safe harbor for companies engaging in kickbacks associated with prescription drug rebates. Such discounts are currently protected from liability under section 1128B(b) of the Social Security Act, commonly called the “Federal anti-kickback statute.” Instead of permitting pharmaceutical [...]

New York Attorney General Letitia James, and a coalition of five other states and New York City, on Wednesday, filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency for failure to comply with certain provisions of the Clean Air Act. According to a press release from James’ office, the EPA is obligated to provide Federal Implementation [...]

The US Court Of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a San Francisco law requiring health warnings on advertisements for soda and other sweetened drinks is an violation of the First Amendment. The suit, which was led by the American Beverage Association (ABA), was first filed in 2015 to contest the “burdensome disclosure requirement” [...]

The Arkansas Supreme Court issued two opinions on Wednesday striking down a city ordinance that banned discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Both decisions involved challenges to an ordinance, passed by the Fayetteville City Council and approved by the city in a referendum, to extend the protections of the federal Civil Rights Act and the Arkansas [...]

The Higher Administrative Court of the Rhineland-Palatinate ruled Wednesday that a church in Herxheim am Berg may continue to use a steeple bell dating back to the German Nationalist Socialist era. The bell featured a Nazi-era “swastika” along with the words, “Everything for the Fatherland – Adolf Hitler.” The bell hangs out of sight from most [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California on Wednesday filed a complaint against the Sacramento County Sheriff for blocking Black Lives Matter (BLM) leaders from his Facebook page. Tanya Faison and Sonia Lewis brought this complaint against Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, alleging violations of their freedom of speech rights under the First [...]

Dictators use fear as a tool to stay in power. Politicians use various techniques to govern as well. In liberal democracies governance is based on incentives, good governance, rule of law, and service. Strongmen use other techniques to govern, such as fear, outside threats, coercion, and incentives. Another technique to govern seen largely in totalitarian [...]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Friday that the US will withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a nuclear arms control pact between the US and Russia established during the Cold War. The INF treaty “bans ground-launched missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.” Pompeo cited Russian noncompliance with the [...]

A Florida appeals court on Wednesday held that unregulated Bitcoin sales can be prosecuted. This decisions comes three years after a Miami-Dade circuit judge threw out the felony charges brought against Michell Espinoza, a web designer accused of selling $1,500 worth of bitcoins to undercover detectives. Circuit Judge Teresa Mary Pooler ruled that Espinoza could [...]