The US Supreme Court tossed out a Massachusetts court ruling which argued that stun guns were not covered under the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. The top court's Monday decision throws the case back to Massachusetts, giving the lower court another chance to rule, according to the Associated Press.

The justices, with no apparent dissent, issued an unsigned opinion in favor of Jamie Caetano, who was convicted for violating an anti-stun gun law. Caetano was arrested for possession of a stun gun, which she said she kept in her purse for self-defense because of an abusive former boyfriend.

Massachusetts is one of a handful of states prohibiting the possession of stun guns. The state Supreme Court's ruling in Caetano's case in March of 2015 stated that the US Congress would not have envisioned a weapon like a stun gun in 1789, when it passed the Constitution's Second Amendment protecting the right to bear arms, according to Reuters. Caetano's lawyers had argued in court that stun guns should be considered "arms" under the Second Amendment and that the Massachusetts law banning them went too far.

In their own opinion, the Supreme Court justices said "the explanation the Massachusetts court offered for upholding the law contradicts this court's precedent," according to AP. The justices were referring to a 2008 Supreme Court ruling in the District of Columbia v. Heller case, which struck down Washington, DC's handgun ban and affirmed the Constitution's recognition of an individual's right to own a gun, at least for self-defense at home.

An Israeli tribunal condemned seven Palestinian underage kids to spend sentences between a year and 39 months in prison after accusing them of throwing stones against Israeli objectives.

The announcement was made by the Palestinian human rights NGO Adamir, whose lawyer, Muhamad Mahmud added that the kids were sentenced after throwing stones to Israeli vehicles in the venues of Bet Hanina neighborhood, in East Jerusalem, zone occupied by Israel since 1967.

Three Palestinian kids of 14 years old, two aged 16, one, 17 and a seventh whose age has not been determined are being prosecuted by the Israeli judicial system. According to the Palestinian news agency Ma'an, all of the kids have already spent eight months in home arrest.

Israel toughened the sanctions against Palestinian citizens who throw stones against trains and vehicles by the time the violence escalation began six months ago, after the first Israeli fatal victim was product of an accident caused by stones throwed against a vehicle in a highway of East Jerusalem.

According to Adamir, the number of kids under arrest of Israeli Forces has tripled since last summer, with 450 detainees in Israeli prisons till last February.

The wave of violence that's been striking the region since October 1st has left above 180 Palestinian citizens dead, more than two thirds of them executed in the moment they intended to attack (or actually attacked) Israeli objectives. Until now, there are 28 fatalities among Israelis, product of Palestinian attacks.

A suicide bomber has detonated a hand grenade inside a bakery in Belgrade, Serbia, the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs has confirmed. Ambulance crews and police are at the scene.

"An unknown man was killed today at around 12:38 p.m. (11:38 GMT) on Ilije Garasanina Street after he activated an explosive device in a cake shop," a police statement said. "Interior ministry officials are probing all the facts and circumstances of the event," the statement continued.

The man reportedly entered the pastry shop, chased everyone out, and then detonated the device, RTS reports. The suicide bomber was killed and one other person was injured, according to Serbia's Ministry of Internal Affairs. The bomber apparently laid down on the explosive before detonation. As a result, little damage was caused to the shop.

17 people have reportedly been killed and dozens wounded after two blasts rocked Brussels' Zaventem airport.

Brussels police have told Sputnik that Zaventem's great hall was targeted in the blast, but they couldn't confirm the number of the victims in the attack.

"There was an explosion, but we cannot say more," a police spokesperson said.

Reports also suggest that first there was a shot fired in the departure hall, then something was called out in Arabic, and only afterward, two explosions rocked the facility.

Reports are coming in that one of the explosions took place near the American Airlines check-in desk. A government source confirmed to VRT broadcaster that it was an attack, while Anke Fransen, spokeswoman for Brussels Airport, said there were multiple injuries. "We can confirm that there have been two explosions in the departure hall. We called the emergency services on the ground - they [are] now provid[ing] first aid to the injured."

Almost a month after 13 birds died in nearby Maryland, four dying bald eagles could not be saved in rural Delaware. Authorities are puzzled as to what is killing the birds, the national symbol of the US. At the same time, two eaglets hatched in DC.

Workers with the Tri-State Bird Rescue, a private nonprofit based in the area, found one dead eagle on the road near Dagsboro in Delaware's Sussex County on Sunday. Three more birds were found in a nearby field and could not be revived. A group of eight eagles was found alive in the area, but three flew away before they could be taken in for examination. Of the remaining five, two are receiving medical care at Tri-State.

A man in North Carolina has detailed the wringer through which both he and wife were subjected when trying to vote in the state's recent primary, as people with South Asian names in a state with a strict voter ID law. And this happened not once, but twice.

Rudy Ravindra, a resident of Wilmington, penned an op-ed piece in the Raleigh News & Observer about his experience when he went to cast his ballot during the early voting period.

"I gave my driver's license to a poll worker, HW. He kept it face down and ordered me to spell my name," Ravindra explained. "Although I go by Rudy, my legal name is Rudravajhala. In order to save time, I requested HW look at my ID. He barked, 'You gotta spell it!' So I took a deep breath and began. 'R-U-D-'"

During the encounter itself, there followed a scene reminiscent of an old literacy test — administered by somebody who might've had their own problems at passing it. Ravindra described it as a "spelling test."

A former top Scientologist says she was forced to spend three years performing hard labor after she was caught kissing another woman.

Nora Crest worked as a life counselor at the Los Angeles Celebrity Center, where she mentored the children of celebrity Scientologists John Travolta and Tom Cruise before she was banished for her same-sex attraction, reported the Daily Mail.

Crest was a member of the hardcore Sea Org group of dedicated members who sign "billion year" contracts tying them to the church — to which she was introduced as a young child by her active Scientologist parents, Kathy Thomas and Constantine Panfilous Sova.

Crest, now 39 and married to another ex-Scientologist, said she never went further than kissing — but church founder L. Ron Hubbard classified homosexuality as an illness and sexual perversion that must be cured.

So she was placed into the Rehabilitation Project Force in March 2000 and required to perform hard labor 80 hours a week at a West Los Angeles facility operated by the Church of Scientology.

Federal student loan defaults have hit an astounding $121 billion, with about 40 percent of all borrowers not currently making any payments, according to a government report.

"This is a slow-moving disaster," Jason Delisle, director of the Federal Education Budget Project at New America, told the Detroit Free Press. "Why no hearings on Capitol Hill? Why isn't the administration talking about it more?"

The U.S. Department of Education highlighted the report in a self-congratulatory news release about an increase in the number of students who are enrolling in income-based repayment programs. In December 2015, there were 4.6 million borrowers using income-based repayment plans, which represents a 48 percent increase from the year prior, and a 140 percent increase from two years ago, according to the news site.

"Today's analysis suggests that the administration's efforts to help struggling borrowers are having a positive impact," U.S. Education Secretary John King Jr. said. "While we see promising signs of progress, we know we have to work to do to ensure that every borrower in distress has a clear path to avoid default. And I will continue to fight to ensure that students have access to an affordable education that helps them get ahead, rather than drowning in debt."

Many folks, however, simply don't have the money to make their payments, the Free Press reports.

Detroit 26-year-old Gail Menesko told the news site a divorce forced her to quit cosmetology school to care for her two children, and it's been nearly a year since she made a payment on her student loans. "I want to pay, but other things are a priority now," she said. Menesko is now in default, a category reserved for borrowers who don't make a payment in more than 270 days.

Since 1980, the number of Americans who believe in God has decreased by half and the number who pray has declined five-fold. Has America lost its faith?

The United States formally separates Church and State, but it's hard to deny that America is inundated with religious innuendo, from its controversial pledge of allegiance all the way down to its Judeo-Christian courthouse displays and faith-espousing legal tender. Yet fewer Americans pray or believe in God than ever before, according to a new study in the journal Sage Open.

Researchers found that the percentage of Americans who claim they never pray reached an all-time high in 2014, up five-fold since the 1980s. Over the same time period, belief in God and interest in spirituality appears to have similarly declined, especially among young adults.

The findings suggest that, "millennials are the least religious generation in memory, and possibly in American history," says Jean M. Twenge, psychology professor at San Diego State University and coauthor on the study, in a press statement. "Most previous studies concluded that fewer Americans were publicly affiliating with a religion, but that Americans were just as religious in private ways. That's no longer the case, especially in the last few years."

Nearly 700 convicted sex offenders in the UK have been removed from a national register over the past four years, including 170 rapists and 157 child abusers.

Some 27 offenders who raped children under 16 years of age and three who committed incest with children under the age of 13 were among those who no longer have to register with police, the BBC reports.

A freedom of information (FoI) request made by the BBC has revealed that more than half of all applications made by offenders to be taken off the register since 2012 were approved by police.

However, request approval rates vary across the country. North Wales Police, for example, approved 90 percent of requests, while North Yorkshire Police granted just 7 percent of requests. Of the 44 police forces that can grant these requests, 40 responded to the BBC's FoI request.

The removals follow a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that allowed sex offenders to appeal against being held on the register for life after two sex offenders argued that lifetime registration without a right to review was a violation of privacy rights.

But Peter Saunders, founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said that victims and survivors are "extremely concerned" about the removal of offenders from the register.

"Where somebody has become an adult offender, and has committed these kind of vile and serious crimes against children, then our view is that there isn't really a case for removing them from a register even though the law says that that can happen."