Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, violated the constitutional rights of Latinos who were stopped and detained as part of a crackdown on illegal immigrants, a federal judge said. U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow issued a decision today after a trial without a jury. Read more here.
Last month, an eighth grade student in New Jersey was on trial for allegedly calling another student “fat,” “horse” and “fat ass.” The boy claims he just called her “horse” and nothing more and that such name-calling does not violate New Jersey’s anti-bullying law. Therefore, he and his parents decided to take the bullying case [...]
Under Egypt’s new Islamist-led government, blasphemy (insulting Islam) cases against Egypt’s Coptic Christian community have been on the rise. The trial of Dimyana Abdel-Nour, a Coptic Christian teacher in Luxor, has gained media attention. Three of her students, aged 10, said that Abdel-Nour said former Coptic Christian Pope Shenouda was better than the Prophet Mohammed. [...]
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the U.S. government had properly classified top secret more than 50 images of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden taken after his death, and that the government did not need to release them. Read more here.
The Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea is reversing international trends by reinstating the death penalty after a hiatus on the practice dating back to the mid-1950’s. Earlier this year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a worldwide moratorium on the practice, and developments in the country serve as a regrettable, if minor, setback for that [...]
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that challenges offering a prayer at governmental meetings. Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens brought this lawsuit against the Town of Greece, which is located in upstate New York, just outside of Rochester. Since 1999, Greece has begun its town meetings with a short prayer. Galloway and [...]
A Florida high school student was expelled and arrested after she continued to carry on a same-sex relationship with a minor student after she turned 18. Kaitlyn Hunt was arrested at the behest of her 15-year-old girlfriend’s parents and charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery of a child 12 to 16 [...]
An Alabama high school student was was placed in in school suspension and told to read Huckleberry Finn claims she was beaten by a school police officer and carted off to jail for falling asleep in the classroom. The girl, whose lawyers claim suffers from a sleep disorder and other medical conditions that contributed to [...]
By JUDGE TOM JACOBS The Food and Drug Administration has lowered the age for girls as young as 15 to buy emergency contraception including the morning-after pill. Studies revealed that women 15 years of age and older were able to understand how the Plan B One-Step and other generic brands work, how to use it properly, [...]
By LOIS BECKETT ProPublica As we detailed yesterday, dozens of states are considering bills that attempt to nullify federal gun laws. One such bill became a lawlast month in Kansas. It exempts “Made in Kansas” guns from federal regulation and makes it a crime for federal agents to enforce federal law. Attorney General Eric Holder recently wroteto Kansas [...]