Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed a bill into law on Wednesday that will allow religious adoption agencies to refuse to place children with same-sex couples if such relationships violate the religious beliefs of the organization. Alabama House Bill 24 , now the Alabama Child Placing Agency Inclusion Act, reads “This bill would prohibit the state [...]

The National Security Agency (NSA) published a report Tuesday saying that the agency had collected and stored more than 1.5 million civilian phone records in 2016. This report is the first that has been issued since the implementation of the USA Freedom Act in 2015, which was designed to reduce the number of phone records [...]

The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico on Wednesday filed for bankruptcy protection for the territory following the expiration of provisions that had shielded it from litigation. The filing comes under Article 3 of PROMESA , a special law passed last year to allow Puerto Rico to manage its significant debt. The territory [...]

European Commission Brexit Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier on Wednesday published the European Union’s proposed directives for the UK’s departure from the EU, saying the highest priorities were citizens’ rights, financial settlement and border regulation. EU Treaty Article 50 governs the departure of a member state from the union, and Barnier emphasized the importance of both [...]

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday that it has found new evidence that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons in at least four recent attacks targeting civilians. The groups said that local residents and activist in Khan Sheikhoun identified at least 92 people who likely died from chemical exposure. It also named [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said on Monday that it will not reconsider its ruling to uphold the government’s “net neutrality” rules that require internet providers to treat all online traffic equally. This means that the rules put in place by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under former President [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal challenging California’s 2012 ban on “gay conversion” therapy. The law , signed by California Governor Jerry Brown , became the first of its kind, barring the so-called therapy that aims to change the sexual orientation of patients under 18. Plaintiff Donald Welch had argued [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-3 Monday in Bank of America Corp. v. City of Miami that cities can use the Fair Housing Act (FHA) to sue banks for predatory lending practices. At issue were the questions of whether Miami qualified as the kind of party that could bring claims under the FHA and whether [...]

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said Monday that Egypt’s recent security measures have been encouraging the very radicalization they were trying to control. In a press conference in Geneva, al-Hussein criticized the increased security measures Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has instituted since the bombings of Christian churches last month. [...]

The US Supreme Court granted certiorari in Patchak v. Zinke and Merit Management v. FTI Consulting on Monday. In Patchak, the court will decide if Section 2(b) of the Gun Lake Trust Land Reaffirmation Act violates the separation of powers created in the US Constitution by calling on federal courts to drop cases related to [...]