Execution by elephant was a method of capital punishment in South and Southeast Asia, particularly in India, where Asian elephants were used to crush, dismember or torture captives in public executions. The animals were trained to kill victims immediately or to torture them slowly over a prolonged period. Most commonly employed by royalty, the elephants were used to signify both the ruler's power of life and death over his subjects and his ability to control wild animals.

The sight of elephants executing captives was recorded in contemporary journals and accounts of life in Asia by European travellers. The practice was eventually suppressed by the European colonial powers that colonised the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. While primarily confined to Asia, the practice was occasionally used by Western and African powers, such as Ancient Rome and Carthage, particularly to deal with mutinous soldiers. ( Full article...)

William Mark Felt Sr. (August 17, 1913 – December 18, 2008) was an American law enforcement officer who worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1942 to 1973 and was known for his role in the Watergate scandal. Felt was an FBI special agent who eventually rose to the position of Associate Director, the Bureau's second-highest-ranking post. Felt worked in several FBI field offices prior to his promotion to the Bureau's headquarters. In 1980, he was convicted of having violated the civil rights of people thought to be associated with members of the Weather Underground, by ordering FBI agents to break into their homes and search the premises as part of an attempt to prevent bombings. He was ordered to pay a fine, but was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan during his appeal.

In 2005, at age 91, Felt revealed to Vanity Fair magazine that during his tenure as associate director of the FBI he had been the notorious anonymous source known as " Deep Throat", who provided The Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein with critical information about the Watergate scandal, which ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974. Though Felt's identity as Deep Throat was suspected, including by Nixon himself, it had generally remained a secret for 30 years. Felt finally acknowledged that he was Deep Throat after being persuaded by his daughter to reveal his identity before his death. ( Full article...)

A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by legislative bodies; they are distinguished from case law or precedent, which is decided by courts, and regulations issued by government agencies. ( Full article...)

The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 (Single Convention, 1961 Convention, or C61) is an international treaty that controls activities (cultivation, production, supply, trade, transport) of specific narcotic drugs and lays down a system of regulations (licenses, measures for treatment, research, etc.) for their medical and scientific uses; it also establishes the International Narcotics Control Board.

The Single Convention was adopted in 1961 and amended in 1972. As of 2022, the Single Convention as amended has been ratified by 186 countries. The convention has since been supplemented by the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which controls LSD, MDMA, and other psychoactive pharmaceuticals, and the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. ( Full article...)

• ... that the non-payment of debts is the archetype for the seventeen other Hindu titles of law, including that of sexual crimes against women?

• ... that the case Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co established the precedents for UK contract law?

• ... that Swarup Rani Nehru (pictured)appealed to women to make salt in defiance of the salt laws in British India?

• ... that although the Chancery Amendment Act 1858 was repealed in the United Kingdom, it is still valid in the Republic of Ireland and parts of Canada?

• ... that freedom of religion in Singapore, which is guaranteed by Article 15 of the Constitution of Singapore, may be restricted by a general law relating to public order, public health or morality?

• ... that Peter Rosted served as chief judge at Norway's Inderøy District Court for 46 years, from 1733 to 1776?

• ... that the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act extinguished all aboriginal title in Alaska?

Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of a legal case that have been resolved by courts or similar tribunals. These past decisions are called "case law", or precedent. Stare decisis—a Latin phrase meaning "let the decision stand"—is the principle by which judges are bound to such past decisions, drawing on established judicial authority to formulate their positions. ( Full article...)

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that most sanctions of criminal punishment for consensual, adult non- procreative sexual activity (commonly referred to as sodomy laws) are unconstitutional. The Court reaffirmed the concept of a " right to privacy" that earlier cases had found the U.S. Constitution provides, even though it is not explicitly enumerated. It based its ruling on the notions of personal autonomy to define one's own relationships and of American traditions of non-interference with private sexual decisions between consenting adults.

In 1998, John Geddes Lawrence Jr., an older white man, was arrested along with Tyron Garner, a younger black man, at Lawrence's apartment in Harris County, Texas. Garner's former boyfriend had called the police, claiming that there was a man with a weapon in the apartment. Sheriff's deputies said they found the men engaging in sexual intercourse. Lawrence and Garner were charged with a misdemeanor under Texas' anti-sodomy law; both pleaded no contest and received a fine. Assisted by the American civil rights organization Lambda Legal, Lawrence and Garner appealed their sentences to the Texas Courts of Appeals, which ruled in 2000 that the sodomy law was unconstitutional. Texas appealed to have the court rehear the case en banc, and in 2001 it overturned its prior judgment and upheld the law. Lawrence appealed this decision to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which denied his request for appeal. Lawrence then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear his case.

The Supreme Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas in a 6–3 decision, and by extension invalidated sodomy laws in 13 other states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every U.S. state and territory. The Court, with a five-justice majority, overturned its previous ruling on the same issue in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute and did not find a constitutional protection of sexual privacy. It explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that it had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The Court held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Lawrence invalidated similar laws throughout the United States that criminalized sodomy between consenting adults acting in private, whatever the sex of the participants. ( Full article...)

• ... that in 2009, residents of Maine voted to repeal a law that would have legalized same-sex marriage?
• ... that Jenna Ellis was a stern critic of Donald Trump before she became his legal adviser?
• ... that Brazilian computer science researcher and internet pioneer Tadao Takahashi negotiated with drug lords to install internet equipment in his country?
• ... that US civil-rights leader John Warren Davis was the longest-serving president of West Virginia State University and helped to establish the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund?
• ... that a U.S. Supreme Court case involving the French vessel Euryale considered whether Napoleon III, as a foreign emperor, could bring cases in American courts?
• ... that the LGBT Centre Mongolia was legally registered in 2009 after being told more than ten times that its name did not suit "Mongolian traditions and customs"?

• August 8: Ten injured, suspect arrested in Tokyo knife attack
• August 1: Australia: Victorian lockdown lifted
• July 25: Australia: Wikinews interviews Reg Kidd, mayor of the City of Orange, about COVID-19 lockdown and local government
• July 23: South Australia enters week-long lockdown to contain COVID-19 Delta variant spread
• July 22: Bomb techs erred in South Los Angeles explosion, says city police department chief
• July 21: Three rural councils in New South Wales, Australia enter 7-day lockdown
• July 21: Australia: Victoria lockdown extended by a week with 85 active cases recorded
• July 20: Baseball game suspended after three injured in shooting outside Washington Nationals–San Diego Padres game
• July 15: Australian state of Victoria to enter five-day lockdown following more than a dozen active COVID-19 cases
• July 4: 130 OECD countries agree to back global corporate tax rate