the Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would review the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was sentenced to death for his role in the 2013 bombings.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit threw out his death sentences last year, ruling that the district court should have asked potential jurors what media coverage they had seen about Tsarnaev’s case

Federal law gives district courts the discretion to order someone who is in that district to give testimony or produce documents “for use in a foreign or international tribunal.” In Servotronics, the justices will decide whether that discretion extends to discovery for use in a private foreign arbitration.

Zayn Husayn, also known as Abu Zubaydah, is a former associate of Osama bin Laden who was detained abroad after his capture in Pakistan and who is now being held at the U.S. government’s Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

it determined that certain categories of information — including the identities of its foreign intelligence partners and the location of former CIA detention facilities in their countries — could not be declassified without risking undue harm to national security, and thus invoked the “state secrets” privilege.

A district court struck down the law, relying on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, a 2016 decision involving Texas abortion regulations. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit affirmed this decision, the secretary decided not to pursue any further appeals.

Almost every city in the world has to deal with street crime, and some with dog packs. But few, if any, have to navigate such an underworld while also confronting unrelenting war.

Civilians in Afghanistan’s capital live in constant fear of being killed in a targeted attack as the war with the Taliban and other extremist groups drags on. But at night, a different war is being fought — against criminals, and packs of stray dogs stalking the streets.

The stray dogs roam throughout the city and are a strange and sad fixture of Kabul, known for snapping, snarling and attacking people passing by, mostly those just trying to eke out a living. By day, the animals rest, conserving their energy until twilight, when they, along with the criminals, command the streets.

Pyongyang’s recent ballistic missiles test indicated that the country is once again resorting to a show of force, raising tensions to gain leverage with Washington.

It swore that the Biden administration would pay a “price,” accused it of raising “a stink” on the Korean Peninsula and called Washington’s effort to open a channel of communication a “trick,” vowing to deal with the United States “power for power.”

On Thursday it delivered its latest warning by launching two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast — the first such test by the country in a year and its first significant provocation against the United States under President Biden.

Another mass shooting. Another round of recriminations. Another push for more gun control. Another pushback from Republicans in Congress doing the bidding of the gun lobby. Another reminder of the unlikelihood of any real federal legislative change.

Yes, there are common-sense gun safety advocates who are making some headway, particularly on the state and local levels. But comprehensive federal gun legislation remains elusive, if not impossible.

They have adopted the gun lobby’s “slippery slope” positioning: That any new restrictions on gun ownership and usage open the door to more, inevitably leading to gun banning, gun registries and gun confiscations.

Now, Mr. Johnson’s allies hope the stark disparity between Britain’s performance and the European Union’s will do something perhaps even more challenging: vindicate their larger Brexit project.

Pro-Brexit politicians and commentators are casting Britain’s vaccine deployment, which ranks among the fastest in the world, as an example of risk-taking and entrepreneurial pluck that comes from not being shackled to the collective decision-making of the 27 member states of the European Union.

“It is the first serious test that the U.K. state has faced since Brexit,” said Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics at the University of Kent who studies the British right. “Boris Johnson is going to have a vaccine dividend, and that will give him a who

The case that the Supreme Court heard this week about a California law granting union organizers access to private farms has been described as a labor case, which it marginally is. It has also been described as a case about property rights, which it definitely is.

the political right may finally be able to take the Supreme Court for granted.

Describing a 1956 Supreme Court decision, N.L.R.B. v. Babcock & Wilcox, Justice Kavanaugh said that “we decided unanimously in 1956 how to balance property rights against union organizing rights in the Babcock case.” The California law at issue now, he pointed out, tilted the balance in favor of the union further than that precedent authorized.

A debate over Senate procedure seems likely to come to a head, with a divided Democratic Party pushing to expand voting rights and Republicans standing firmly in the way.

When they passed a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill this month, Democrats in Congress sped past their Republican opposition, using the budgetary reconciliation process to present a case study of what happens when they don’t bend over backward for G.O.P. buy-in.

The bill isn’t eligible for reconciliation and is almost certain to meet gridlock in the Senate, given the threat of a filibuster from Republicans.

There’s current discussions and analysis internally of what steps can be taken — that has been ongoing for several weeks, even before these two recent tragedies that, you know, he looks forward to getting an update on and seeing what can be moved forward on that front as well. No one is talking about overturning or changing the Second Amendment. What our focus is on is putting in place common-sense measures that will make our communities safer, make families safer, make kids safer. The majority of the American public supports background checks. The majority of the American public does not believe that anyone needs to have an assault weapon.

One would classify as firearms so-called ghost guns — kits that allow a gun to be assembled from pieces. Another would fund community violence intervention programs, and the third would strengthen the background checks system, according to congressional aides familiar with the conversations.

“This isn’t about next week, it’s not about next month, it has to be about today. It has to be immediate.”

“could metaphorically be heard at the grave sites of those five crime victims,” Mr. Bell said during the hearing. “We have five dead Virginians that are not, that this bill will make sure that their killers do not receive justice.”

“Ending the death penalty comes down to one fundamental question, one question: Is it fair?” said Gov. Ralph Northam, who signed the bill on Wednesday.

The bill’s signing comes as President Biden faces pressure from members of his own party to commute the sentences of the remaining inmates on federal death row.

Senate Democrats plan to employ an obscure legislative tool to reinstate an Obama-era climate change rule.

1996 Congressional Review Act with the goal of undoing a Trump rule finalized in September that lifted controls on the release of methane, a powerful planet-warming gas that is emitted from leaks and flares in oil and gas wells.

“The Trump rule to remove limits on emissions of methane from oil and gas was an illogical and a devastating blow to one of the most important tools to curbing greenhouse gas emissions,”

Gerrymandering is the age-old practice of trying to fix the boundaries of electoral districts to make sure your side gets as much advantage as possible.

The bill now headed toward Senator McConnell’s dustheap would require states to establish independent redistricting commissions when they prepare new maps for their legislatures and congressional districts based on the 2020 census.

Check out its website for an index that will tell you, for instance, that in the fast-growing state of Texas, only 9 percent of the 2018 state legislative races featured a real contest. A large chunk didn’t have even a second contender.

Burke foresaw, more accurately than most of his great contemporaries, what the revolution would bring: the executions of Louis and Marie Antoinette; the ineffectuality of moderate revolutionary leaders

Burke’s objection to the French revolutionaries is that they paid so little attention to this complexity: They were men of theory, not experience.

a champion of Catholic emancipation — the civil rights movement of his day — and other reformist (and usually unpopular) causes.

The horrifying murder of a beautiful white family in Chino Hills, Calif., created enormous public pressure on the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office to solve the crime. Although Josh had indicated that the attack was committed by several white men, the sheriff announced just four days after the bodies were found that the sole suspect was Kevin Cooper, a young Black man with a long criminal record who had recently walked away from a minimum-security prison and then hid in an empty house near the Ryens’.

It’s up to Newsom, who has imposed a moratorium on executions, to resolve what appears to be a horrendous injustice.

The DNA degraded over the decades while California authorities blocked the testing that Cooper had pleaded for, letting officials run out the clock. Likewise, hairs found clutched in the victims’ hands weren’t Cooper’s (no hairs from an African-American were found at the crime scene) but didn’t lead to a match with a suspect, either.

Though the government has declassified some information about Zubaydah’s treatment in CIA custody, it has protected other information as privileged state secrets. Rejecting the government’s argument, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit allowed discovery in the case to proceed.

The district court dismissed the claims on the basis of the state-secrets privilege. The 9th Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings, instructing the district court, with restrictions, to review the material over which the privilege was claimed to determine whether the surveillance was authorized and conducted lawfully.

: (1) Whether probable cause or arguable probable cause exists to seek a search warrant when an officer relies upon an informant who turns himself in, admits commission of multiple including unreported/ unsolved crimes, and whose information is partially corroborated; (2)

When the Senate’s impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump begins next month, one familiar face from Trump’s first impeachment won’t be there: Chief Justice John Roberts.

the Constitution requires the chief justice to preside over an impeachment trial for the president. But Trump, who was impeached on Jan. 13 for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead, including a Capitol police officer, is no longer the president.

president pro tempore “has historically presided over Senate impeachment trials of non-presidents.” Leahy pledged to adhere to his “constitutional and sworn obligations to administer the trial with fairness.”

Joe Biden promised, if elected, to create a bipartisan commission to study court reform proposals

But who would sit on the commission? And would it have any teeth?

With Democrats now in control, some liberals are clamoring for quick action on Supreme Court reform, and some Republicans are proposing a constitutional amendment that would lock in the number of justices at nine.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House lawmakers may have been exposed to someone testing positive for COVID-19 while they sheltered at an undisclosed location during the Capitol siege by a violent mob loyal to President Donald Trump.

Some lawmakers and staff were furious after video surfaced of Republican lawmakers not wearing their masks in the room during lockdown.

Dr. Brian Moynihan wrote that “many members of the House community were in protective isolation in the large room — some for several hours” on Wednesday. He said “individuals may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection.”

A Georgia man texted people his intentions to shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “on live TV” while making his way to the nation’s capital with an assault rifle for Wednesday’s pro-Trump rally, authorities said.

Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr. was arrested at a Washington, D.C., hotel on Thursday after his disturbing plans were discovered in text messages that he had sent to friends, The New York Times reported, citing federal documents.

“I predict that within 12 days, many in our country will die,” he said in one text.

The PGA has stripped President Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey of its role as host of the 2022 championship tournament after last week’s violent attack on the U.S. Capitol carried out by the president’s supporters. 

“Our feeling was given the tragic events of Wednesday that we could no longer hold it at Bedminster,” PGA CEO Seth Waugh told the Associated Press. “The damage could have been irreparable. The only real course of action was to leave.”

Trump has held multiple campaign events at the Bedminster course over the years, including his appearance at a largely mask-free fundraiser in October held just hours before he announced his coronavirus diagnosis, which required his hospitalization as well as treatment with experimental medication.