The US Senate Wednesday morning voted 49-48 against holding an up-or-down vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment , rejecting a motion to invoke cloture . Though the Senate voted to continue...

Over 250 Afghans were arrested, 141 are still in custody, and 52 have confessed to crimes committed during anti-American riots in Kabul last week in response to an incident where a US military vehicle collided with 12...

Iraqi officials on Wednesday released nearly 600 detainees who had been in Iraqi and US custody – the first of 2,500 detainees slated to be released under the order of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki ....

A French trial court has ordered the French government and the state-controlled railway SNCF to pay 60,000 euros, or about $80,000 US, in compensation to a Jewish family for complicity in crimes against humanity. The case [Haaretz...

Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his Cabinet have announced that the federal government will set aside legislation allowing same-sex civil unions in the Australian Capital Territory , the federal district that includes...

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, has said that he has abandoned his plan to subpoena executives of three top phone companies after Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that national security concerns would...

UK Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith will call for prosecutors to study whether the British court-martial system is adequate for prosecuting soldiers accused of misconduct in Iraq , the Times of London reported Wednesday. The...

The US Department of Defense has issued comprehensive guidelines for the treatment of detainees that direct doctors to force-feed detainees who endanger their own lives as a result of a hunger strike. The guidelines , aimed...

A Vatican panel Tuesday condemned same-sex marriage as a major threat to the family, along with abortion , contraception and in vitro fertilization. The Pontifical Council for the Family , founded...

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called the May FBI raid of the congressional office of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) an "unusual" but necessary step on Tuesday, comparing the office search to past searches...