[JURIST] Engineering firm URS Corporation [corporate website] agreed Monday to a $54.2 million settlement [RKMC press release; URS press release] stemming from the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse [MPR backgrounder] that killed 13 people. Victims sued URS for negligence, claiming that the company, which has a contract to inspect Minnesota's bridges, [read more]

[JURIST] The administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) [official website] announced Monday that the GCCF is in service and will begin processing claims [press release] from the $20 billion fund established by British Petroleum (BP) [corporate website] to aid victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill [BBC backgrounder; [read more]

[JURIST] A proposed amendment to China's criminal law that would reduce the number of crimes punishable by death [Xinhua report] was presented Monday to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) [official website, in Chinese]. The current criminal code in China outlines 68 criminal offenses that carry the [read more]

[JURIST] A military court in Iran has ordered the suspension of three top judiciary officials in connection with last year's torture deaths of three detained protesters, the Mehr News Agency [official website, in Persian] reported Monday. The three victims, Mohammad Kamrani, Amir Javadi-far and Mohsen Ruholamini, were tortured and beaten [read more]