A federal jury in Louisiana found Merck not liable Tuesday for the heart attack of plaintiff Robert Garry Smith after he took the company's painkiller Vioxx for about four months in late 2002 and early 2003. Merck argued that it acted reasonably in voluntarily added a warning of increased risk of heart attack and stoke [...]

Israeli human rights group B'Tselem issued a report Wednesday concluding that the June 28 bombing by Israeli forces of a power plant in the Gaza Strip during the early stages of the 34-day Middle East conflict precipitated by the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers amounts to a war crime under international humanitarian law as an act [...]

An EU panel comprised of European data security officials has decided to delay the release of a final report on a Bush administration program that keeps track of international financial transactions until further investigations into whether the program violates EU privacy law are complete. On Monday, Peter Schaar, head of the European Commission's Article 29 [...]

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Wednesday released Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Naser al-Shaer, detained in August for his membership in Hamas after Hamas members in Gaza seized an Israeli soldier. Thirty-one Hamas lawmakers are still in detention, and on Monday an IDF military court ordered the continued detention of most of them , reversing [...]

The US House of Representatives approved a bill Tuesday that would prohibit federal courts from awarding attorney's fees to plaintiffs challenging the use of "religious words or imagery" in a public building, a veteran's memorial, or on the official seals of the United States. The 244-173 vote approving the Public Expression of Religion Act is [...]

The chairman of the US Legal Services Corp. told a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Tuesday that the LSC board never discussed firing the inspector general now investigating allegations of fraud and waste in the federally-funded program, whose mission is to provide legal services to the poor. Board chairman Frank Strickland said that while the board [...]

A spokesperson for Patrick Fitzgerald's Office of Special Counsel told AP Tuesday that the investigation of the CIA leak case has cost taxpayers $1.44 million through August 31, and the Government Accountability Office is scheduled to release an official spending report on Friday. By comparison, the investigation of President Clinton's Whitewater and Lewinsky scandals cost [...]

A California senior assistant attorney general testified Tuesday that the state of California failed to use a backup IV line during the execution of Crips gang co-founder and convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams which unnecessarily complicated his execution. The testimony was gathered during a four-day federal court hearing on whether lethal injection in California constitutes [...]

A Russia military court on Tuesday found a Russian army sergeant guilty of abuse of power and sentenced him to four years in jail for beating and torturing a conscript soldier this past New Year's Eve. Russian prosecutors had sought six years in prison for Alexander Sivyakov, who denied beating Private Andrei Sychev but has [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond School of Law says although leading Republican senators are to be praised for advancing legislation to protect detainees and give them a fair trial before military commissions, there are still so many open questions about the fundamental issues involved and so little time to resolve [...]