More than 15 years after the truck bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, a U.N.-backed tribunal in the Netherlands is announcing verdicts this week in the trial of four members of the militant group Hezbollah allegedly involved in the killing, which deeply divided the tiny country.

The verdicts on Tuesday at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, based in a village on the outskirts of the Dutch city of The Hague, are expected to further add to soaring tensions in Lebanon, two weeks after a catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port that killed nearly 180 people, injured more than 6,000 and destroyed thousands of homes in the Lebanese capital.

Unlike the blast that killed Hariri and 21 others on Feb. 14, 2005, the Aug. 4 explosion was believed to be a result of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate that accidentally ignited at Beirut’s port. While the cause of the fire that provided the trigger is still not clear, Hezbollah, which maintains huge influence over Lebanese politics, is being sucked into the public fury directed at the country’s ruling politicians.

Even before the devastating Beirut port blast, the country’s leaders were concerned about violence after the verdicts. Hariri was Lebanon’s most prominent Sunni politician at the time, while the Iran-backed Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim group.

Tensions between Sunni and Shiites in the Middle East have fueled deadly conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and to a smaller scale in Lebanon. Some Lebanese see the tribunal as an impartial way of uncovering the truth about Hariri’s slaying, while Hezbollah ? which denies involvement ? calls it an Israeli plot to tarnish the group.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday threw out California’s ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines, saying the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s protection of the right to bear firearms.

“Even well-intentioned laws must pass constitutional muster,” appellate Judge Kenneth Lee wrote for the panel’s majority. California’s ban on magazines holding more than 10 bullets “strikes at the core of the Second Amendment — the right to armed self-defense.”

He noted that California passed the law “in the wake of heart-wrenching and highly publicized mass shootings,” but said that isn’t enough to justify a ban whose scope “is so sweeping that half of all magazines in America are now unlawful to own in California.”

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office said it is reviewing the decision and he “remains committed to using every tool possible to defend California’s gun safety laws and keep our communities safe.”

Gun owners cannot immediately rush to buy high-capacity magazines because a stay issued by the lower court judge remains in place.

But Becerra did not say if the state would seek a further delay of Friday’s ruling to prevent an immediate buying spree if the lower court judge ends that restriction. Gun groups estimated that more than a million high-capacity ammunition magazines may have legally flooded into California during a one-week window before the judge stayed his ruling three years ago.

Becerra also did not say if he would ask a larger 11-judge appellate panel to reconsider the ruling by the three judges, or if he would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who championed the magazine ban when he was lieutenant governor, defended the law as a vital gun violence prevention measure.

“I think it was sound, I think it was right, and ... the overwhelming majority of Californians agreed when they supported a ballot initiative that we put forth,” he said Friday.

California Rifle & Pistol Association attorney Chuck Michel called Friday’s decision “a huge victory” for gun owners “and the right to choose to own a firearm to defend your family,” while a group that favors firearms restrictions called it ”dangerous” and expects it will be overturned.

The ruling has national implications because other states have similar restrictions, though it immediately applies only to Western states under the appeals court’s jurisdiction.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday left in place an agreement that allows Rhode Island residents to vote by mail through November's general election without getting signatures from two witnesses or a notary.

State officials had agreed to suspend the witness requirement because of the coronavirus pandemic. They have said that fulfilling the requirement, which has been in place since at least 1978, results in close contact between voters and others, which could expose people to the virus.

The high court rejected an effort by the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Rhode Island to put the agreement on hold, noting that “no state official has expressed opposition.”

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have granted the Republicans’ request.

Rhode Island allows voters to request to vote by mail for any reason, and the coronavirus has resulted in an enormous increase in mail-in voting. Nationwide, a surge in voting by mail is expected for the November general election because of the pandemic, and money to help the Postal Service process the anticipated increase has been a sticking point in talks for a virus relief package. President Donald Trump said Thursday he opposes additional funding.

Rhode Island is one of approximately a dozen states that require mail-in ballot envelopes to be signed by one or more witnesses or a notary. Republicans in Rhode Island argued that witness requirements deter voter fraud, though elections experts say voter fraud is rare. And they said the state is already allowing 20 days of early voting that will reduce the number of people who go to the polls on Election Day and has put in place other protections for voters and poll workers.

The case arose after Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, in April suspended the so-called two witness requirement for the state’s June 2 presidential primary.

In July, the American Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit on behalf of Common Cause Rhode Island, the League of Women Voters of Rhode Island and others in an effort to extend the suspension.

State officials ultimately agreed to keep the requirement suspended for the Sept. 8 primary and Nov. 3 general election. Republicans objected, but a judge approved the agreement.

A federal appeals court has ruled that a lower court was justified in blocking the suspension of a Maine high school student who posted a note in a bathroom to draw attention to sexual assault.

Cape Elizabeth schools suspended Aela Mansmann, then a 15-year-old sophomore at Cape Elizabeth High School, after she posted a note in a bathroom that said: “There’s a rapist in our school and you know who it is.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine then took on Aela's case, and a federal judge blocked the suspension while defending Aela's note as free speech.

United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston ruled on Thursday that the lower court was within its right to stop the suspension.

The court's ruling states that Aela's actions were “far from the best way” for the student “to express her concerns about student-on-student sexual assault and Cape Elizabeth H.S.’s handling of sexual assault claims.” However, the appeals court also found that the lower court did not abuse its own discretion in stopping the suspension.

The school district said the Cape Elizabeth School Board will meet in the future to determine its next steps. The district said it maintains that placing the note was an act of bullying against another student. It also said in a statement that it was “disappointed” in the appeals court ruling.

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously upheld the governor’s authority to fine businesses up to $5,000 a day for violating state emergency health orders aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19.

The court heard arguments from a group of business owners who claimed the administration of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham overstepped its authority in imposing fines higher than $100 citations.

The five-member court ruled without dissent against the business owners who sued. Chief Justice Michael Vigil said the “Legislature has clearly given the governor that authority.”

The court did not make a decision on another claim that the restrictions in response to the pandemic may require government compensation for businesses.

Carter Harrison, an attorney for several business owners, contended that the health order violations could be sanctioned with fines of up to $100 and up to six months in jail.

But Matthew Garcia, a lawyer for the administration, said Lujan Grisham has the authority to impose steep fines.

“What we’re trying to get here is immediate compliance because the only tool we currently have to stem the transmission of COVID-19 is social distancing,” Garcia told the justices.

State officials have issued the $5,000 daily fines to 16 businesses amid a backlash against the public health orders affecting restaurants and other establishments.

State Republican Party Chairman Steve Pearce condemned the court’s decision and promised to make it an issue in November elections as two appointed Democratic justices defend their seats.

Justice Shannon Bacon is confronting Republican Ned Fuller, a deputy district attorney in San Juan County, while Justice David Thomson is running against Republican former prosecutor Kerry Morris of Albuquerque.

Lujan Grisham was an early adopter of hard-line stay-at-home orders and business restrictions that still prohibit indoor restaurant service, require face masks in public, ban public gatherings of more than four people and suspend classroom attendance at public schools.

Major steps toward reopening the economy have been delayed until at least the end of August amid a July surge in cases in New Mexico and the neighboring states of Arizona and Texas.

An organization that successfully proved President Donald Trump violated the law when he blocked Twitter critics sued him anew on Friday, saying he continues to reject some accounts two years after losing in court.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sued Trump a second time in Manhattan federal court over use of his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account, saying the president and his staff continue to block some accounts.

Some individuals identified in a lawsuit filed in 2017, along with dozens of others who were blocked on the basis of viewpoint, have been unblocked, the lawsuit said.

But lawyers say the White House has refused to unblock those who can't identify which tweet led them to be blocked and others who were blocked before Trump was sworn in more than three years ago.

“It shouldn’t take another lawsuit to get the president to respect the rule of law and to stop blocking people simply because he doesn’t like what they’re posting,” said Katie Fallow, senior staff attorney at the Knight Institute, in a release.

The lawsuit identified as plaintiffs five individuals who remain blocked, including a digital specialist with the American Federation of Teachers, a freelance writer and researcher, a former teacher, an actor and Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University.

Moynihan could not point to a specific tweet that caused him to be blocked because he periodically deletes tweets, the lawsuit said. It added that when the institute pressed the White House to unblock Moynihan, the request was rejected.