A judge for the US District Court for the District of Arizona held a hearing on Friday at the request of Planned Parenthood Arizona (PPA) to determine whether, under an Arizona law prohibiting state funding to facilities that perform abortions, such facilities will still be paid for low-income residents’ gynecological exams and other services not [...]

A registered sex offender filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of California last week challenging ordinances in four Orange County cities that ban registered sex offenders from city-owned parks, campgrounds and other recreational areas where children may gather. The city ordinances were all modeled after a 2011 Orange County ordinance [...]

A three-judge panel in Vatican City on Saturday sentenced the former butler of Pope Benedict XVI to eighteen months in prison for leaking confidential papal documents. Paolo Gabriele was convicted on charges of theft for stealing confidential papers from the Vatican , photocopying them and passing them on to a journalist who wrote a book [...]

The US District Court for the Western District of Texas on Friday sentenced the ex-superintendent of the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) to three and a half years in prison for manipulating state standardized test scores by removing low-performing students from classrooms. Judge David Briones sentenced former EPISD superintendent Lorenzo Garcia to 42 months [...]

The Mannheim Regional Court in Germany ruled for Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of Google, against Microsoft on Friday. This was the fourth decision in a suit between Motorola and Microsoft to be issued this year, all of which were countersuits by Microsoft against claims by Motorola. All of the prior decisions had come down in [...]

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday condemned a draft law that would ban pro-gay “propaganda” in Ukraine. The OHCHR said that the bill would be open to abuse and that it violates human rights and Ukraine’s commitments to anti-discrimination and the protection of minority rights. In its current [...]

The Queen’s Bench Division on the High Court of England and Wales ruled Friday that three elderly Kenyans can sue the British government for torture they suffered while in detention under the British Colonial Administration in the 1950s. Judge Richard McCombe ruled that the three Kenyans could claim damages against the British government for the [...]

The High Court of England and Wales on Friday approved the extradition of five terror suspects to the US. The court’s decision comes a week after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) gave its final approval of the extradition, which it had initially approved in April. Egyptian-born Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri and four [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Thursday ruled that the state may move forward with its efforts to remove approximately 180 suspected non-citizens from its voter rolls. Several rights groups had filed suit to stop the purging process in Florida, arguing that it violated regulations in the [...]

The High Court of Australia on Friday published its reasons for dismissing a lawsuit brought by several large international tobacco companies challenging the labeling requirements of the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011 (TPP Act) . The court originally dismissed the challenge in August but provided its reasons only this week. The TPP Act sets criminal [...]