SoCal Jihadist Wife Pledged Allegiance to ISIS:  The mysterious Pakistani woman who gunned down 14 people at a San Bernardino holiday party with her husband pledged allegiance to the Islamic State on social media before the attack "in what appears to be concrete evidence that the rampage was at least inspired, if not directed, by the terrorist group."  Fox News reports that Tashfeen Malik, wife of partner-in-crime Syed Rizwan Farook, posted a pledge on Facebook to ISIS leader and self-proclaimed "caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi under a different name and then deleted it, and authorities are now beginning to suspect that she radicalized her new husband, transforming him from "an aloof county restaurant inspector into her cohort in carnage."  Through few details have emerged about Malik, including her picture, what is known is that she and Farook, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, met online and became engaged in September 2013 when Farook traveled to Saudi Arabia.  Malik then applied for a K-1 (fiancée) visa in May 2014 and was brought to the U.S. two months later.  Following their marriage and the passage of background checks, she was issued a conditional green card in July 2015, two months after the birth of the couple's daughter.  The couple stormed a holiday party hosted by Farook's employer at a social services office Wednesday morning, shooting 14 people fatally and injuring 21 others, and both died hours later during a shootout with police.  Investigators believe their deaths prevented a second attack.

Immigration Court Caseload Triples in Four Years:  The director of the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) told Congress Thursday that the number of pending cases before immigration courts has tripled between 2011 and 2015, while the number of immigration judges has declined.  Pete Kasperowicz of the Washington Examiner reports that Juan Osuna told the House Judiciary Committee that at the end of FY 2015, EOIR's immigration courts had 457,106 cases pending, an increase of more than 298,171 cases that were pending at the end of FY 2011; this amounts to an increase of nearly 300,000 from 2011's 158,000 pending cases.  He noted that last year's surge of illegal immigrants has put extra pressure on the courts, which are dealing with the overwhelming situation by prioritizing only the most dangerous immigrants.  Exacerbating the problem further, there were only 257 judges nationwide as of this month compared to the 273 in 2011, prior to a hiring freeze.  Fortunately, two dozen immigrant judge candidates are going through the final stages of the hiring process.

Order for AR to Release Execution Drug Source on Hold:  The Arkansas Supreme Court granted a request to temporarily put on hold a mandate to turn over information about the source of its execution drugs.  Claudia Lauer of the AP reports that the decision stems from a lawsuit filed by death row inmates challenging the constitutionality of the secrecy portion of the state's execution law.  Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Wendell Griffen sided with the inmates, ordering the release of the information on the grounds that "drug suppliers do not have the constitutional right to be free from criticism."  The inmates involved in the litigation further argue that the secrecy law violates a settlement in an earlier lawsuit that guaranteed inmates the information, though the state asserts that the agreement is "not a binding contract."  The Arkansas attorney general's office plans to appeal Griffen's ruling.