The US Senate on Thursday voted 60-36 against an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Bill which would have incorporated several changes to the legislation that were previously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill is designed to revise and extend the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) so as to – among other [...]

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not overturn its rejection of California's request for a waiver that would have allowed it to impose stricter greenhouse gas emissions standards on cars and light trucks, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson testified Thursday in front of the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works . Johnson [...]

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party and the key opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) agreed Thursday to lift a ban on women wearing headscarves in universities and public offices. The agreement is in response to recent calls from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the government to lift the ban immediately and not wait [...]

The Japanese National Police Agency (NPA) on Thursday issued guidelines for police behavior during suspect interrogations. The Japanese police have frequently been accused of forcing confessions from suspects using questionable or overly aggressive tactics; in one case, police pressured an innocent man into admitting to committing a rape, a confession that ultimately earned him two [...]

The UN Human Rights Council Thursday adopted a resolution criticizing Israel for recent military attacks and a week-long blockade against the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip that the Council says amount to human rights violations. The resolution, passed by a 30-1 vote with 15 Western states abstaining, calls the military attacks on Palestinian areas "grave violations of [...]

UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on Thursday unveiled the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008 , which among other proposals to strengthen the country's terrorism laws includes a provision increasing the number of days a terror suspect can be detained without charge to 42 days, up from the current limit of 28. The Home Office described the bill [...]

US Marine 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson will face court-martial in May on charges of making false official statements and obstruction of justice in connection to the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha in November 2005. During Grayson's Wednesday arraignment at Camp Pendleton, a military judge set a trial date of May 28. Grayson did [...]

Lead contractor Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff has agreed to a $458 million settlement to end an inquiry stemming from a July 10, 2006 ceiling panel collapse in Boston's $15 billion Big Dig tunnel project that killed one person, officials said Wednesday. In July 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the ceiling collapse was most likely [...]

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the state of Missouri cannot deny an anti-abortion group's application for a specialty license plate with an anti-abortion message, holding that the Missouri law that allowed the denial was unconstitutionally vague. Choose Life of Missouri had applied to get specialty license plates with the message "Choose Life," but its [...]

US President George W. Bush issued an executive order Wednesday "reforming how the United States reviews national security concerns that may arise from foreign investments." The executive order is designed to implement the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 , which expands the investigative scope of the Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment [...]