Judge mulls arguments in Mississippi death penalty protocol

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The new Republican majority on North Carolina’s Supreme Court has agreed to rehear redistricting and voter identification cases less than two months after the court’s previous edition controlled by Democrats blocked a voter ID mandate and a district map. The court granted the requests of Republican legislative leaders on Friday and set hearings for mid-March. The decisions are extraordinary and come mere weeks after a new edition of the court took their seats. Five of the seven justices are now Republicans. It was a 4-3 Democratic majority when the court previously ruled in those cases. The remaining Democratic justices criticized Friday’s order as based merely on the court’s political composition.

A federal law that prohibits people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms is unconstitutional, a conservative-leaning appeals court ruled Thursday. The ruling is the latest significant decision dismantling a gun restriction in the wake of the Supreme Court’s expansion of Second Amendment rights last year in the...

NEW YORK (AP) — The ongoing trial of a U.S. citizen charged with serving as a sniper and weapons trainer for the Islamic State group is a reminder of the enduring and far-reaching fallout of a war that drew tens of thousands of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq. Jurors are expected to start deliberating as soon as Monday in Ruslan Maratovich Asainov’s trial in a federal court in New York. In videos shown at trial, he gives his occupation as “a sniper” to FBI agents and tells them that he taught his students everything from rifle maintenance to ballistics. His lawyers have said he went to Syria in 2013 because he wanted to live under Islamic law.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Friday subpoenaed the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Education for documents as part of its investigation into whether a Justice Department strategy to address threats against teachers and school officials was abused to target conservative parents. The flurry of subpoenas...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A former University of Mississippi chancellor says Republican Gov. Tate Reeves spoke privately with him years ago about the benefits of expanding Medicaid to people in low-wage jobs. Dr. Dan Jones spoke Thursday at a news conference organized by Democratic state lawmakers. Jones says Reeves acknowledged in 2013 or 2014 that expanding Medicaid would benefit Mississippi’s economy and provide health care to more residents in a state with poor health outcomes. Jones says Reeves told him he wouldn’t support the policy for political reasons. Reeves responded that Jones’ remarks were an “obvious lie.” Reeves has publicly opposed Medicaid expansion for years.

The US has transferred a Guantanamo Bay detainee who was convicted of terrorism offenses in 2012 to Belize, the Pentagon announced on Thursday. Majid Khan, a Pakistani citizen and US resident, who went to high school in Baltimore, was captured in 2003 and was held for more than three years at secret CIA prisons known as “black sites.” He was transferred to the US military prison in Cuba in 2006.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A onetime al-Qaida courier has been released after serving more than 16 years at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and enduring torture at clandestine overseas CIA sites. The Pentagon has announced the release of Pakistan citizen Majid Khan, who grew up in Baltimore. Khan is now in Belize after that Central American nation reached agreement with the Biden administration to take him. Khan admitted serving as a courier and helping plan plots that were never carried out. In a statement through his legal team, Khan expressed his deep regret. Khan’s lawyers said he should have been freed last February under a pretrial agreement.

The FBI is expected to search former Vice President Mike Pence’s house in Indiana and office in Washington for additional classified materials soon, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. Pence’s representatives have been in talks with the Justice Department over the searches and have expressed that they want...

An apparent cyberattack has forced a network of Florida health care organizations to send some emergency patients to other facilities and to cancel some non-emergency surgeries, the health care network said Friday. Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, which operates a 772-bed hospital and multiple specialty care centers, said an “IT security issue”...