The Virginia General Assembly passed an unanimous resolution Saturday apologizing for the state's involvement in slavery and the "exploitation of Native Americans". Virginia is the first state to pass such a measure but Missouri legislators are also considering a similar bill. The Virginia measure was introduced in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, the [...]

Seven more high-profile persons suspected of corruption were arrested in Bangladesh Sunday as government officials announced that trials will begin in March as part of the nation's move to curb the problem. Last week Bangladeshi authorities published a list of several hundred people suspected of graft; the top 50 suspects, many of whom are prominent [...]

The US military lawyer for Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks said Saturday that Hicks would spend years in court and could not get a fair trial before a US military commission. In remarks at a rally in Adelaide, US Marine Corps Maj. Michael Mori noted that the revised military commissions system could not be [...]

The US government has refiled charges against US Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada , a US Army officer who failed to deploy to Iraq in June, after the military judge overseeing his court-martial declared a mistrial two weeks ago. The judge declared a mistrial after throwing out a pretrial agreement in which Watada admitted that [...]

The Washington State Human Rights Commission determined Friday that a heterosexual woman could not use the state's gay civil rights law to secure health care benefits for her male partner because a federal law on the topic trumps the state law. Sandi Scott-Moore filed a claim in August arguing that her employer discriminated against her [...]

The Democratic-controlled Montana Senate voted 27-21 Friday to give second-reading approval to a bill that would eliminate the death penalty in Montana. Third reading is slated for February 24 before the measure goes to the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives . Eleven US states have recently suspended the death penalty pending review of the manner [...]

US District Judge Mark Wolf dismissed a lawsuit Friday against a Massachusetts town that allows its public school system to teach children about same-sex marriage . Two families of elementary school students filed the suit last year to stop the school from reading homosexual-themed books to their children without first notifying parents, arguing that the [...]

The United States Friday rejected an international call to ban the use of cluster munitions by 2008. State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack told reporters at a daily press briefing that the United States "takes the position that munitions do have a place and a use in military inventories, given the right technology as well as [...]

Judge William R. Wilson Jr. of the US District Court of Eastern Arkansas ruled Friday that the Little Rock School District was "substantially complying" with its Revised Desegregation and Education Plan ("Revised Plan") and released the school district from court supervision . The Little Rock School District voluntarily entered into the Revised Plan in 1998 [...]

An independent report by UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories John Dugard to be presented to the 4th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next month criticizes Israel's continued military occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), and characterizes "elements of the occupation constituting forms of colonialism and… [...]