The Iowa Senate on Tuesday passed SF427 , extending the state's civil rights protections to gay and lesbians. The controversial legislation would officially add gender identity and sexual orientation to the list of groups protected from discrimination in Iowa. The bill now moves to the Iowa House of Representatives, where if passed, it would complement [...]

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCR) Tuesday criticized the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) for its terrorist watchlist containing more than 6,000 names. A new LCCR report entitled "The OFAC List: How a Treasury Department Terrorist Watchlist Ensnares Everyday Consumers," said the Treasury Department's [...]

The late former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is under investigation for possibly ordering the murder of former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva in 1982. Although Pinochet died of a heart attack in December, an investigation is underway to determine whether he directed state officials to poison Montalva with mustard gas. Montalva, who served as president [...]

The US District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit against former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for authorizing torture and abuse of detainees by US personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The suit asserted that Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for detainee abuse and that his actions violated the US Constitution, federal [...]

Kosovan Prime Minister Agim Ceku Tuesday urged Serbs to accept a UN plan to have Kosovo govern itself as an autonomous, multi-ethnic society. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica responded that Kosovo "could never be independent" and calling the plan "an act of legal violence." The plan was narrowly rejected by the Serbian Parliament last month [...]

Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Italy launched simultaneous raids on Tuesday in a massive anti-corruption investigation involving European public servants. Over 150 police officers took part in over 30 raids of homes, businesses and banking offices, as well as the European Commission and the European Parliament in Brussels. The investigation is focused on whether European civil [...]

The US Supreme Court handed down decisions in two cases Tuesday, including Rockwell International v. US ex rel. Stone where the Court held that individuals must be able to show that they are the "original source" of information concerning the fraudulent use of federal funds in order bring suit against an organization on behalf of [...]

A French appeals court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of French state railway company SNCF for the deportation of two Jewish men during World War II. An administrative court in Toulouse convicted SNCF last June. The lawsuit was brought by the family of European Parliament MEP Alain Lipietz , whose father and uncle were taken [...]

FBI Director Robert Mueller asserted Tuesday that the agency is able to properly use the surveillance powers granted it under the Patriot Act , telling senators at a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that a compliance program has been implemented to police the use of National Security Letters (NSL) . Mueller insisted that the Patriot [...]

An Illinois jury sided with Merck & Co. Tuesday in the latest Vioxx litigation, holding that the painkiller was not the cause of the 2003 death of 52-year-old Patty Schwaller. Schwaller's husband claimed that Vioxx contributed to his wife's fatal heart attack and that Merck failed to adequately warn doctors and consumers about the increased [...]