The Oregon Supreme Court Thursday upheld an award of $79.5 million in punitive damages that a jury in 1999 directed Philip Morris USA to pay to relatives of an Oregon man who died of lung cancer...

In a close vote Thursday, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) beat out stand-in GOP chief Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) to win election as GOP House Majority Leader , vowing to move the party away from...

EU Justice Commissioner and European Commission Vice-President Franco Frattini intervened in the growing Islamic cartoons controversy Thursday, calling newspaper publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad "somewhat imprudent," while acknowledging that freedom of expression was a "'founding...

The War Crimes Chamber of Bosnia's State Court on Thursday ordered suspected Bosnian Serb war criminal Dragomir Abazovic released from police custody due to a problem with his arrest warrant. Abazovic was arrested earlier this...

Four advocacy groups on Thursday filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on behalf of Haitian citizens, alleging that the US violated Haitian sovereignty by illegally preventing the flow of financial...

The UK government said Thursday that it will hold a full public consultation on whether prisoners should be granted the right to vote. The decision comes in response to a European Court of Human Rights ...

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked a federal judge considering a shutdown of the BlackBerry wireless email network to exempt government workers who rely on the technology. The DOJ submitted a list of...

Efforts to amend the Florida constitution to ban same-sex marriage have faltered as supporters of an amendment failed to meet a Wednesday deadline to secure enough signatures to put the issue on the November ballot....

The European Commission has told Germany and Luxembourg that the Commission is preparing to take legal action against the countries if they fail to bring national tobacco advertising laws into compliance with an EU directive...

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has denied allegations from Amnesty International that the government has unlawfully detained thousands of protestors as part of the latest anti-government crackdown. Amnesty has said that thousands of students from...