A Chilean court indicted five navy officers and a navy doctor Friday for their role in the kidnapping, torture, and killings of British-Chilean priest Micheal Woodward and other political dissidents. Retired admirals Sergio Barros, Guillermo Aldoney and Adolfo Walbaum and retired navy captains Sergio Barra and Ricardo Riesgo, were all indicted on kidnapping and torture [...]

US prison officials said Friday that convicted terrorism conspirator Jose Padilla will serve his approximately 17-year term at a "supermax" federal prison in Colorado. The maximum-security facility located in Florence also holds "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski, Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, and September 11 attacks conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui . Padilla's co-defendants remain in Miami's downtown [...]

The Constitutional Court of Colombia has held that same-sex couples should be given the same pension and health benefits as those held by opposite-sex couples. The Constitutional Court reached its decision Thursday after considering arguments presented by domestic and foreign human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch . In its decision , the Court said [...]

Sarah Tofte : "On April 16, in Baze v. Rees, the US Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated ruling on the constitutionality of Kentucky's use of lethal injection as a method of execution. Although on the surface the Court's decision, by a vote of 7-2, to uphold Kentucky's lethal injection protocol looks like a clear [...]

Former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines has agreed to pay $24.7 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) , OFHEO said Friday. In 2006, OFHEO filed the lawsuit against Raines, former Vice Chairman and CFO J. Timothy Howard, and former Senior VP and Controller Leanne G. [...]

Laura Porter : "The Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Baze v Rees this week, upholding the constitutionality of Kentucky's lethal injection protocols. Texas has already taken the Court's ruling as a green light to set an execution date – the first of dozens of cases that have been on hold in [...]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is currently investigating 2,500 cases of public corruption, a 50 percent increase from five years ago, FBI Director Robert Mueller said in a Thursday speech to the American Bar Association. Mueller also said that corporate fraud cases had increased by more than 80 percent from five years ago, due [...]

Protecting human rights is vital to bridging inequalities between countries, Pope Benedict XVI said Friday in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on the third day of his visit to the United States . The Pope said: Experience shows that legality often prevails over justice when the insistence upon rights [...]

European Commission ministers Friday agreed on implementation of a new counter-terrorism package, including a proposal to amend the Framework Decision on combating terrorism to criminalize recruitment and training for terrorism, particularly when committed through the Internet. Despite recent criticism by Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Rapporteur Dick Marty , the Commission said that the [...]

Maine Gov. John Baldacci signed a bill into law late Thursday that would require an applicant to show proof of US residency before being issued a state driver's license or ID card . Forty-three other states already require proof of legal US residency to get a driver's license. The new law brings Maine closer to [...]