Federal law

Cyntoia Brown, who was given a life sentence for killing a man who picked her up for sex at 16, was released from prison Wednesday after several celebrities pushed for her release.

Cyntoia Brown, championed by celebrities as a symbol of unfair sentencing, was released early Wednesday from the Tennessee Prison for Women, where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a man who had picked her up for sex at 16. Kim Kardashian West, Rihanna, Snoop Dogg and LeBron James had lobbied for Brown’s release, calling her a sex...

Here’s what science has to say about a twice-yearly ritual affecting nearly 2 billion people worldwide.

Under federal law, companies are not allowed to use your genetic information against you for things like health insurance or a job. But that protection does not apply to things like life insurance or long-term care insurance, and the laws are constantly changing.

President Donald Trump has signed a bill that makes certain acts of animal cruelty a federal felony, saying it’s important for the nation to combat “heinous and sadistic acts of cruelty.” The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act prohibits extreme acts of cruelty when they occur in interstate commerce or on federal property. The legislation expands on a 2010 law...

The House of Representatives’ top lawyer told a federal appeals court Monday that the House is investigating whether President Donald Trump lied to special counsel Robert Mueller, and the attorney urged the judges to order the release of still-secret material from Mueller’s investigation. Two of the three judges who heard arguments at the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit...

A former California state prison inmate tells her story of sexual abuse by prison staff during her time incarcerated. A closer look at newly released records reveals a culture of sexual misconduct in California’s women’s prisons.

Imagine a credit card bill that takes a decade or longer to pay off. Now imagine that you can’t get rid of it in a bankruptcy if your personal finances go off-track. Finally, imagine there are millions just like you, enough to attract the attention of presidential candidates. This is the $1.6 trillion world of federal student loans, next to...

Attorney General William Barr announced a new initiative Wednesday that would better enforce the U.S. gun background check system, coordinate state and federal gun cases and ensure prosecutors quickly update databases to show when a defendant can’t possess a firearm because of mental health issues.

Sharply at odds with liberal justices, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed ready Tuesday to allow the Trump administration to abolish protections that permit 660,000 immigrants to work in the U.S., free from the threat of deportation. That outcome would “destroy lives,” declared Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one the court’s liberals who repeatedly suggested the administration has not adequately justified its...

Built for irrigation in 1884, Smith Reservoir in Colorado no longer can hold as much water as it once did.

Facebook says it is deleting the name of the person who has been identified in conservative circles as the whistleblower who triggered a congressional impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s actions. The company said Friday that mention of the potential whistleblower’s name violates Facebook’s “coordinating harm policy,” which prohibits material that could identify a “witness, informant, or...

Congress has passed a bill making certain types of animal cruelty a federal felony. The bill would expand a 2010 law that made creation or distribution of so-called “animal crushing” videos illegal. The new bill would make the underlying acts of cruelty a federal crime. The Senate unanimously passed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act on Tuesday, two weeks...

Here’s what science has to say about a twice-yearly ritual affecting nearly 2 billion people worldwide.

Post University in Waterbury has canceled its final football game of the season over the behavior of members of the team.

The Democrats who rule California took on homegrown tech giants Uber and Lyft over their workforces, convinced some of the world’s biggest automakers to buck the president on fuel emissions and passed a law that could change college sports nationwide.

It wasn’t too long ago that Donald Trump derided presidential executive orders as “power grabs” and a “basic disaster.” He’s switched sides in a big way: In each year of his presidency, he has issued more executive orders than did former President Barack Obama during the same time span. He surpassed Obama’s third-year total just recently. Back in 2012, Trump...

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont says he’s expecting a large turnout for his planned fundraiser for presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The Supreme Court is stepping into a yearslong, politically charged fight over the federal consumer finance watchdog agency that was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The justices agreed Friday to review an appeals court decision that upheld the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency has long been a target of conservative Republicans. The...

Civil rights groups Thursday blasted the Republican National Committee, claiming the group violated federal law and is trying to sow confusion after it mailed imitation census forms meant to mimic the real decennial to Montana voters to solicit money for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, NBC News reports. The RNC sent the forms — titled the 2019 Congressional District Census...