Law

Politics & Government

Biden may fulfill a campaign promise to Black voters with his Supreme Court nominee

8:01am January 30, 2022

by Juana Summers

With President Biden set to nominate the first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, Juana Summers discusses his commitments to Black voters with voting rights experts Arisha Hatch and Nse Ufot.

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National

San Jose mayor: gun liability insurance law will alleviate tax payers, promote safety

5:20pm January 29, 2022

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo about the city's plan to require liability insurance for gun owners.

A judge in Oklahoma City took a year off the 22-year prison sentence of Joe Exotic, seen here in 2013, who was convicted in a murder-for-hire plot against his rival Carole Baskin.

National

'Tiger King' Joe Exotic gets one year knocked off his 22-year prison sentence

9:31pm January 28, 2022

by The Associated Press

Carole Baskin, the target of the murder-for-hire plot Joe Exotic was convicted of, said he poses a bigger threat to her now that he has a larger group of supporters because of the Netflix series.

President Biden has said he plans to make his mind up about who to nominate to the Supreme Court by the end of February.

Politics & Government

These are the people believed to be frontrunners for Biden's Supreme Court pick

9:18pm January 28, 2022

by Scott Detrow

President Biden has pledged to choose a Black woman to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court — and the White House is looking at a broad list of potential candidates.

Text messages obtained by The Associated Press show Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, seen here at a new conference in June 2021, was informed within hours of the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene.

National

Governor knew the circumstances around a deadly arrest, but kept quiet, records show

8:29pm January 28, 2022

by The Associated Press

What Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards knew, when he knew it and what he did are questions in a civil rights investigation into a deadly arrest and whether police brass obstructed justice.

Kenneth Polite, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, speaks during a news conference at the department in October.

Politics & Government

His brother was killed in 2004. Now he fights violent crime as a top Justice official

7:57pm January 28, 2022

by Carrie Johnson

Kenneth Polite, head of the Criminal Division since July, wants to take the most dangerous people off the streets and spend more on preventing violence.

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Karla Chavez, of the social activist group Chiactivists, puts up a sign at a memorial for 8-year-old Melissa Ortega in Chicago on Jan, 24. Ortega was walking with her mother in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood on Jan. 22 when she was struck by stray

National

Gun violence is killing more children. The pandemic may be playing a role

4:41pm January 28, 2022

by Martin Kaste

Chicago was shaken by the shooting death of 8-year-old Melissa Ortega last Saturday. Nationally, the number of children shot has jumped during the pandemic.

A man fishes near docked oil drilling platforms in 2020 in Port Aransas, Texas. A federal judge has revoked oil and gas leases sold in the Gulf of Mexico in November, saying the Interior Department did not take into account its impact on climate change.

A federal judge canceled major oil and gas leases over climate change

9:58am January 28, 2022

by Nathan Rott

The ruling revokes leases sold in the Gulf of Mexico in the largest oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history. It says the Interior Department failed to consider the greenhouse gases it would produce.

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Kyle Rittenhouse looks back as attorneys discuss items in the motion for mistrial presented by his defense at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021.

National

Kyle Rittenhouse is going to court to get his gun back

4:51am January 28, 2022

by The Associated Press

Rittenhouse's spokesman said he wants to destroy the rifle and throw the rest of the items away so nothing can be used as a political symbol celebrating the shootings.

The sun sets behind Holman Prison in Atmore, Ala., on Thursday as the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution of Matthew Reeves, convicted of killing a man during a robbery in 1996.

National

Supreme Court clears the way for the execution of an Alabama inmate

10:08pm January 27, 2022

by The Associated Press

A poor reader, Matthew Reeves is intellectually disabled and wasn't capable of making a decision on the method of execution without assistance, his lawyers arg93ued.