Oral arguments began Monday in South Carolina v. US , as South Carolina defended its new voter identification law from a Department of Justice (DOJ) ruling that blocked its implementation. The law, which would require photo ID in order to vote, was rejected as being in violation of the Voting Rights Act . The state [...]

The Parliament of Romania on Monday recognized the return to office of suspended President Traian Basescu after accepting a recent Constitutional Court decision that invalidated a national referendum to remove the leader. Parliament’s acceptance of the ruling comes only after the Social Liberal Union, the country’s leftist party that commands the government’s lower house and [...]

The lawyer for three members of the Russian feminist activist group Pussy Riot on Monday appealed the two-year sentences imposed on the women last week. Defense lawyer Nikolai Polozov conceded that the decision of the Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow has little chance of being reversed due to the Russian government’s interest in the case, [...]

Opponents of Proposition 8 , California’s statewide ban on same-sex marriage urged the US Supreme Court on Friday not to grant the petition for a writ of certiorari submitted by Proposition 8 supporters. The petition was filed last month after a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in February [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Washington on Friday tentatively approved a settlement agreement between the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the City of Seattle relating to a DOJ investigation of the Seattle Police Department (SPD) . Judge James Robart gave provisional approval for the agreement , which [...]

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Monday granted Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf three additional weeks to urge Switzerland to reopen an old corruption case against President Asif Ali Zardari . Ashraf appeared in court on Monday to explain why the court should not charge him with contempt for failure to initiate the corruption investigation. [...]

A court in Myanmar on Friday sentenced two local UN staff members to imprisonment for their alleged involvement in sectarian violence that gripped the western Rakhine state this past spring. One of the staff members worked for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the other worked for the World Food Program. An employee [...]

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Saturday that he will introduce a bill in October to the National Assembly and Senate that would allow same-sex couples to get married and adopt children. Ayrault made this statement in a speech at an annual gathering of the French Socialist Party (PS) in La Rochelle. His announcement [...]

Amnesty International (AI) on Friday announced it received credible reports that nine prisoners in Gambia , which has gone more than 25 years without an execution, were executed on Thursday. The reported executions come less than a week after Gambian President Yahya Jammeh vowed to execute all death row inmates. Jammeh claims it is Gambia’s [...]

The UN envoy to Somalia on Saturday expressed growing concern over the continuing delays in selecting the new parliamentarians who are scheduled to elect a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker on Tuesday as part of the “Roadmap for the End of Transition.” The members of the new parliament will be selected by a group of [...]