The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear challenges to former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s withdrawal from plea agreements that would have spared three men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks from the death penalty. The justices denied petitions from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Mustafa al Hawsawi, and a separate petition from [...]

When I was in the third grade, my teacher told us that, before she had formally begun her career as a teacher, she was sitting on a bus when she saw Iraqi fighter jets flying overhead. The Iran-Iraq War had begun, and the image of aircraft above an ordinary road became, for her, the threshold [...]

Amnesty International reported on Monday that authorities in Kenya committed human rights violations against protesters between 2023 and 2025, using restrictive measures to suppress youth-led demonstrations in response to a deteriorating economic situation in the country. In a report documenting events and popular protests in Kenya between 2023 and 2025, Amnesty International revealed that Kenyan [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear Department of Justice v. McNutt, a challenge to federal restrictions on home distilling that tests the scope of the constitutional authority of Congress to protect tax revenue. The case asks whether prohibiting the production of distilled spirits in homes and adjoining sheds or yards is a [...]

Amnesty International said Friday in a statement that Azerbaijan authorities must reverse school clothing rules that bar pupils and teachers wearing hijabs in classrooms, and must release people detained solely for peaceful protest. Commenting on the clothing restrictions and detention of protesters, Marie Struthers, Amnesty’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia director, stated: Denying girls access [...]

On Tuesday, October 6, Kenya’s Ministry of Health confirmed the country’s first case of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus disease. This comes after a Kenyan citizen who had been living in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for the past seven years, jetted back to Kenya and died days later while receiving medical treatment in Nairobi. [...]

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday warned that the intensifying conflict in Yemen has cut off life-saving aid to approximately 800,000 people due to severely restricted access to the city of Taizz and other conflict zones. As frontlines shift, roads are blocked, and conflict intensifies, El-Khidir Daloum, WFP representative in Yemen, commented on [...]

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) urged governments Thursday to expand social protection, skills training, and digital and energy access so that artificial intelligence and energy transitions do not widen inequality, according to its World Social Report 2026. UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in the foreword: “The transformations reshaping our world are [...]

In this five-part series, data analyst David Stasior argues that AI has made it possible to turn court and disciplinary records into data at scale, allowing the rule of law to be measured rather than just assumed. Part 1 made the case, and Part 2 put it to work on 24 years of Massachusetts attorney [...]

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday reported that at least 31 people have been executed in Libya after unjust military trials since late August 2026. Bassam Khawaja, HRW’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director, decried the executions, saying: The Libyan Arab Armed Forces are putting people to death after secret trials built on confessions allegedly [...]