The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday announced a settlement with the federal government to provide full separation payment to service members discharged under the controversial Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy. The complaint , filed by the ACLU and the ACLU of New Mexico in 2010, did not seek to challenge DADT, but [...]

Amnesty International (AI) called Monday for Egypt to release an Egyptian journalist facing a military trial in the country. Mohamed Sabry, a journalist and blogger, was arrested Friday by the country’s military in the city of Rafah near the Egyptian-Gaza border. Sabry has been charged with trespassing and filming in a prohibited military zone. Under [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Kansas ruled Monday that a challenge to a 2011 Kansas law prohibiting insurance companies from covering abortions will go to trial. The law in question prohibits comprehensive insurance plans from covering any abortion other than to save a woman’s life but allows companies to [...]

The US Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases on Monday. The first, Descamps v. United States , concerned whether Matthew Descamps’ burglary conviction under California law can allow a conviction under federal burglary law, which had slightly different requirements than California’s statute. Federal judges used the “modified categorical approach” and looked at a limited [...]

The US Supreme Court denied certiorari Monday in Sherley v. Sebelius , which appealed a dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. The petition questioned President Barack Obama’s executive order in 2009 that removed the previous administration’s eight-year restriction on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research. [...]

A Scottish court on Monday granted a request to extradite an alleged member of the Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) to France. Benat Atorrasagasti Ordonez, who had relocated to Scotland in 2001, was sentenced in absentia by a French court in 2008 to five years imprisonment on charges of criminal conspiracy, carrying out [...]

The highest Bahraini appellate court on Monday upheld the convictions of 13 prominent pro-democracy protestors convicted by military tribunal in 2011 on charges of plotting to overthrow the monarchy. Bahrain’s Court of Cassation rejected the appeals of the 13 activists, all part of a group of 20 convicted by the military National Safety Courts after [...]

China’s Communist Party Politics and Law Committee head Meng Jianzhu on Monday notified Chinese media sources of the nation’s plan to end its 56 year-old “re-education through labor” program , which authorizes government entities to legally detain citizens for as long as four years without trial. The proposed legislation is pending approval from China’s National [...]

North Carolina on Friday announced plans to appeal a ruling finding “Choose Life” license plates unconstitutional. Judge James Fox of the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina ruled in December that “he State’s offering a ‘Choose Life’ license plate in the absence of a pro-choice alternative constitutes viewpoint discrimination in violation [...]

Bank of America (BOA) on Monday reached a $10.3 billion settlement with Fannie Mae to settle claims that Countrywide Financial Corporation , now a BOA subsidiary, employed faulty lending practices on $1.4 trillion in mortgages that were sold to Fannie Mae as investment products from 2000 to 2008. BOA has agreed to pay Fannie Mae [...]