North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple on Tuesday signed SB 2368 , a measure banning abortions after 20 weeks gestation based on the controversial premise that a fetus can feel pain at that point. The North Dakota House of Representatives passed the bill last Friday, and it was approved by the North Dakota Senate in February. [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled on three cases related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks Tuesday, upholding the dismissal of almost all of the claims against the defendants. In In Re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 (Asat Trust Reg., et al) the court upheld dismissals for a lack of personal [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl on who should have rightful custody of Baby Veronica in light of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) . A non-Indian woman put her baby, who was fathered by an American Indian, up for adoption. A South Carolina couple attempted to [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a 5-4 decision in US Airways, Inc v. McCutchen that the terms of a contract in a health benefit plan should not be overturned through the application of equitable principles. The decision vacated and remanded the decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit , [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi on Monday extended an injunction blocking Mississippi from revoking the license of the state’s only abortion clinic. In seeking to close down the clinic, Mississippi is attempting to enforce House Bill 1390 , a 2012 state law requiring all OB-GYNs to have [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday in Genesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk that the claim was moot because respondent “had no personal interest in representing putative, unnamed claimants, nor any other continuing interest that would preserve her suit from mootness.” The original question presented concerned whether an issue at the center of a lawsuit [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Elizabeth Ann Kronk of the University of Kansas School of Law evaluates the recent approval of a measure to permit same-sex marriages in the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians…

UK-based rights group Privacy International said Tuesday that it is suing the British government for refusing to divulge information concerning surveillance equipment sold by Gamma International . Gamma International is a software company whose FinFinisher software has been used in 25 countries including Bahrain. FinFisher is a Trojan horse program that evades anti-virus utilities and [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Felipe Alberto Herrera, Northwestern Law School Class of 2013, discusses the effects of the recent educational reforms in Mexico…

US authorities have engaged in the torture of detainees, and the nation’s “highest officials” bear some of the responsibility, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Constitution Project , a bi-partisan legal advocacy and watchdog group. The Task Force on Detainee Treatment was established after US President Barack Obama announced in 2009 that [...]