Taking on a deeply controversial question about the rights of abortion foes when they set up counseling and treatment centers for pregnant women, the Supreme Court agreed on Monday to review the constitutionality of a two-year-old California law setting rules on what those facilities tell patients. Specifically at issue is the centers’ claims that the… Read More

The Supreme Court Justices are working their way through potential drafts for a ruling on a major Wisconsin case testing the constitutionality of partisan gerrymanders, but there is another big controversy over that question now moving along quite rapidly in lower courts. That other dispute, unfolding in state and federal courts, tests the 2011 maps… Read More

The Pentagon official who oversees war crimes trials at Guantanamo Bay on Friday afternoon ordered a Marine Corps general released from confinement at the base in Cuba, awaiting a ruling on the general’s conviction for contempt of a military court. Harvey Rishikof, who has the title of “Convening Authority” for the Guantanamo military commissions, acted… Read More

The Trump Administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to restore officials’ power to block any abortion for pregnant teenagers now in government custody after entering the U.S. illegally.  It attempted to use that power last month to try to persuade an undocumented 17-year-old not to end her pregnancy, but that failed. In a high-profile… Read More

A Marine Corps general, being held prisoner in his own apartment at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay after being convicted of contempt of a military court, asked a civilian federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to order his immediate release. Brigadier General John D. Baker, who heads the team of military defense lawyers… Read More

The war crimes tribunal system at Guantanamo Bay, often troubled throughout its 15 years in operation, became embroiled Wednesday in a high-stakes confrontation between a colonel and a general, with the general getting punished for contempt of the colonel’s court. The jousting between the two military officers has gone on for days as Air Force… Read More

Ruling that transgender people probably have a constitutional right to be treated equally by the government, a federal judge in the nation’s capital temporarily blocked the Trump Administration on Monday from barring them from serving in the military. In a 76-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly gave transgender individuals now in the military a… Read More

Tentatively accepting the Trump Administration’s view that Congress has not put up any money to cover federal subsidies for health insurance companies, a federal judge in California on Wednesday refused – at least for now – to order a resumption of those payments. This year, those subsidies were running at about $600 million a month before… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ended its review of President Trump’s power to curb entry into the U.S. of foreign nationals and refugees, dismissing the remaining test case on its docket raising that question.  At least two new cases, however, are making their way to the Justices, renewing that basic controversy, perhaps in the current… Read More

In dueling documents filed in a federal court in San Francisco, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives took opposing positions on future financing of subsidies that have been a key part of the seven-year-old federal health insurance program. Separately, the two groups of leaders asked a federal trial judge to… Read More