The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in Giles v. California , 07-6053, where the Court considered whether a criminal defendant can block the testimony of the person he allegedly killed if he did not kill her with the specific intent of preventing the witness from testifying. Dwayne Giles was convicted of first-degree murder [...]

US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings Tuesday unveiled new proposed regulations to implement the federal No Child Left Behind Act . At a meeting of the Detroit Economic Club, Spelling said : Today, more than 50 years after Brown v. the Board of Education, 40 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, and [...]

Asim Qureshi : "After years of being held in detention without charge, the British men released from Guantanamo Bay who are pursuing legal action against the intelligence services are sending a very clear message to both governments and security services: there is no room for arbitrary detention and torture. The released men – who were [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Tuesday that Christine Todd Whitman , former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) , cannot be sued for making allegedly misleading reassurances about the air quality in New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In 2004, residents and workers in lower Manhattan and [...]

The Iraqi government on Monday released 122 detainees from a prison in Sulaimaniyah under an amnesty law passed in February as part of the national reconciliation effort. The release was part of an effort to ease crowding in Iraqi prisons and reintegrate people convicted of minor crimes back into society; most of the released detainees [...]

At least two dozen former and current detainees have alleged that they were either forcibly administered drugs or witnessed the forceful administration of drugs on other detainees while in US custody, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. The detainees, held at Guantanamo Bay and other sites, said in interviews and court documents that they did not [...]

Convicted former top Chinese Communist Party official Chen Liangyu has decided not to appeal his corruption conviction , Chinese media reported Tuesday. Chen was found guilty earlier this month of accepting bribes and abuse of power, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. His lawyer had previously indicated Chen would appeal the conviction and [...]

A federal judge on Monday dismissed claims of fraud against State Farm Insurance by a Mississippi couple who claimed that the company denied their insurance claim for damage from Hurricane Katrina based on bad faith and fraud. US District Judge L.T. Senter, Jr. rejected the claim, writing: Plaintiffs allege that State Farm committed actionable fraud [...]

Pakistan's coalition government has not yet reached a specific agreement on restoring judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf last year after he declared emergency rule , former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Tuesday. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) wrapped up a fresh round of discussions with the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Tuesday, and though Sharif [...]

Twenty-eight anti-government activists were indicted in Zimbabwe on Monday on public disorder charges related to a strike organized by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) last week to protest the nondisclosure of the results in the March 29 presidential election . All the defendants pleaded not guilty during a court hearing Monday, during which [...]