Gsbt

The Washington Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a florist who refused to provide services for a same-sex wedding broke the state's antidiscrimination law. Barronelle Stutzman, a florist in Richland, Washington, had been fined by a lower court for denying service to a gay couple in 2013. Stutzman said she was exercising her First Amendment rights, and her lawyers immediately said they would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Thursday's decision. She had previously sold the couple flowers and knew they were gay. However, Stutzman told them that she couldn't provide flowers for their wedding because same-sex marriage was incompatible with her Christian beliefs. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson and the couple sued her, saying she broke state anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws, and the lower court agreed. The state's nine high court justices upheld that verdict. The case thrust the great-grandmother into the national spotlight and she te...

By Pap Saine and Lamin Jahate By Pap Saine and Lamin Jahateh BANJUL (Reuters) - Gambia's new government has told the United Nations it will remain in the International Criminal Court (ICC), state media reported on Monday, reversing the previous administration's plan to withdraw from the tribunal. Former president Yahya Jammeh announced in October that he would pull Gambia out of the ICC, accusing the world body of ignoring alleged war crimes of Western nations and seeking only to prosecute Africans. But President Adama Barrow, who defeated Jammeh in a December election, pledged during the campaign to undo Jammeh's decision, restore human rights and repair the country's badly-damaged foreign relations. "As a new government that has committed itself to the promotion of human rights ... we reaffirm The Gambia's commitment to the principles enshrined in the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court," said a statement read on state television and r...

Mark Abadi President Donald Trump.Drew Angerer/Getty Images A federal appeals court unanimously ruled against President Donald Trump on Thursday, refusing to reinstate his travel ban affecting people from seven Muslim-majority countries. The ruling, issued by a three-judge panel on the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, means that refugees and citizens of the countries in question can continue entering the US - striking a blow to Trump's ability to deliver on one of his key campaign promises. "We hold that the Government has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, nor has it shown that failure to enter a stay would cause irreparable injury, and we therefore deny its emergency motion for a stay,"  the panel said  in its ruling. Shortly after the ruling was announced, Trump posted a defiant message to Twitter: "SEE YOU IN COURT," Trump tweeted, foreshadowing a legal challenge that could play out in the Supreme Court. Th...

 The Trump administration's immigration order barring citizens from seven mainly Muslim countries and temporarily blocking refugees was in legal limbo on Sunday after an appeals court denied the Department of Justice's request to restore the ban. The overnight ruling dealt a further setback to Trump, who has denounced the judge in Seattle who blocked his executive order on Friday. In tweets and comments to reporters, the president has insisted he will get the ban reinstated. In a brief order, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government's request for an immediate administrative stay of the judge's ruling had been denied. It was awaiting further submissions from the states of Washington and Minnesota on Sunday, and from the government on Monday. Trump says the 90-day travel ban on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and a 120-day bar on all refugees, are necessary to protect the United States from Islamist...