Tens of thousands of LGBTQ+ supporters took to the streets of Romania and Bulgaria's capitals Saturday for Pride parades against a backdrop of rising opposition from conservative groups in the Orthodox Christian countries. Marchers waved colorful flags, blew whistles, and called for equality...

The U.N. human rights office has launched a Global Alliance for Human Rights, a broad international coalition aimed at placing the issue at the heart of decision-making, when conflict levels have reached a record high amid deepening inequality and accelerating climate change. U.N. High Commissioner...

Gender equality agency U.N. Women is "gravely concerned" by the arrest of at least 30 women in Afghanistan last weekend for violating dress requirements imposed by Taliban authorities. The women allegedly violated decrees that include a requirement to wear a burka or chador with a face mask and a...

Psychological differences between men and women generally tend to be tiny, but a new study found that combining multiple small psychological differences can accurately predict a person's sex roughly 80% of the time. The findings, published in Scientific Reports, suggest that combined differences in...

Antisemitism involves prejudice, discrimination, and hostility aimed at Jewish people, and a new psychological model suggests that a belief in excessive Jewish power fuels antisemitism across opposite ends of the political and ideological spectrum. The findings, published in The American...

A divided federal appeals court ruled Monday that the Trump administration's policy banning transgender individuals from serving in the military likely violates the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. A panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that the...

Ghana's parliament passed a bill Friday imposing prison terms of up to 10 years for individuals who promote, sponsor, or advocate LGBTQ acts and banning the funding of LGBTQ groups and activities. The human sexual rights and family values bill is expected to be signed into law by President John...

For nearly two centuries after France abolished slavery, the colonial-era law that classified humans as property has remained quietly on the books. On Thursday, the lower house of parliament voted 254-0 to adopt a bill repealing Code Noir, or Black Code—the 1685 decree King Louis XIV signed to...

A new investigation has found that at least 10 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees have died by suicide since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025—a pace that far exceeds the growth in the detainee population. Since October, seven suicides have occurred, the most for...

Alabama Republicans asked the Supreme Court Wednesday to let them use a map that favors their party in this year's elections, despite a lower court's ruling that the map intentionally discriminates against Black people. Republican leaders filed an emergency appeal with the justices a day after the...

Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology Monday for the Vatican's role in legitimizing slavery and for having failed to condemn it for centuries, calling the papal record a "wound in Christian memory." Past popes have apologized for Christians' involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but no pope...

The severe humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where nearly half of the population requires assistance, has pushed many families into survival mode. Hunger, joblessness, and collapsing services have taken a toll while wide-ranging restrictions imposed by the Taliban since its return to power in...

Being a carnivore is often seen as an expression of manhood, but eating too much meat risks chronic disease. Eating meat has also been linked to certain cancers, and meat production contributes about an eighth of all human-made climate pollution. Moreover, a French study last year found a 26...

In 2013, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Arizona police had violated the rights of Latino drivers, so the court required reforms such as documenting traffic stops to detect racial bias, employing investigators to probe reports of deputy misconduct, and appointing a monitor to oversee the...

The Colorado Supreme Court has ordered Colorado's largest provider of gender-affirming care for young people to resume medical treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapy despite risking the loss of federal funding. The parents of four transgender girls sued the hospital, alleging that the...

The United Nations has urged Israel to prevent "acts of genocide" in Gaza and raised concerns over "ethnic cleansing" across the Palestinian territory and occupied West Bank. A new report investigating Israeli military conduct in Gaza up until May 2025 and published by the UN Human Rights Office on...

Violence and discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people are widespread, including at school, where 45% of LGBT youth report being bullied. That's the message from UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, who on Saturday said that more than 1 in 3 countries still criminalize same-sex conduct and several...

Usually, it tends to be Muslim men who go to pray on Fridays in the mosques of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As is customary in Islam, women are not required to go to the mosque to pray on the holiest day of the week. However, more and more, devout Muslim women in the Western Balkan country want to...

Spain has overtaken Malta at the top of Europe's annual LGBTQ+ rights rainbow map. The 2026 ranking, compiled by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, compares laws and policies affecting LGBTQ+ people in 49 countries across Europe and Central Asia. Spain's rise...

Many politicians paint immigrants as dangerous criminals, but new research reveals the opposite. A comprehensive study shows that immigrants booked into jail possess far fewer behavioral risk factors for crime and shorter criminal histories than native-born citizens. This suggests that policies...