After being signed into law by President Bush last April, an overhauled US bankruptcy law goes into effect Monday making it more difficult for consumers to prove that they should be allowed to clear their debts and make a "fresh start." The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was prompted by concerns [...]

Iranian officials have approved the basic outlines of a "single-urgency" bill providing for the suspension of Iran's voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) . Mahmoud Mohammadi, a member of the Iranian commission that approved the changes, said the government would suspend the Additional Protocol "if the International Atomic Energy [...]

Republican and Democratic sources said Monday that Senate Republicans have proposed the week of November 7th to begin confirmation hearings for beleaguered US Supreme Court candidate Harriet Miers . Though Republicans are seeking a vote by the full Senate prior to Thanksgiving, it was not immediately clear whether Democrats would attempt to push back the [...]

Lawyers representing 10 terror suspects and 13 human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch , appeared before Britain's House of Lords Monday arguing against a 2004 appeals court ruling allowing Special Immigration Appeals Commission tribunals hearing cases involving foreign terror suspects to consider evidence obtained by torture. Such evidence would not be [...]

An FBI report on US crime released Monday found that while murders in the US fell for the first time in five years, 2004 saw an increase in the number of rapes. Overall the number of violent crimes fell by 1.2 percent and property crimes dropped 1.1 percent. The 350 fewer murders in 2004 compared [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that death row inmates do not have an automatic right to a jury trial to determine whether or not an inmate is mentally retarded and therefore ineligible for execution. The unsigned opinion comes three years after the Court barred executions of the mentally retarded because they violated the constitutional [...]

AP is reporting that the Iraqi electoral commission says it will recheck "unusually high numbers" in constitutional referendum results from certain areas of the country to make sure the poll meets international standards. A Sunni leader Sunday claimed that Sunnis in four provinces had voted against the draft Iraqi constitution, and delivered a letter to [...]

The British government on Monday proposed allowing non-lawyers to partner with lawyers to run combined firms and the creation of an independent body to handle complaints against legal professionals. The proposed reforms to the legal profession in England and Wales were outlined by the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) in a white paper, The Future [...]

The US Supreme Court Monday lifted a temporary stay issued late Friday that blocked a lower court order allowing prison officials in Missouri to transport a pregnant inmate to a medical facility for an abortion. Justice Clarence Thomas had issued the stay pending a decision by the full Court, which unanimously refused Missouri's request to [...]

The Dutch Equal Opportunities Commission will hear the nation's first case brought by a Muslim woman who was refused a job because she would not wear a headscarf . The Islamic College in Amsterdam refused to hire Samira Haddad for an Arabic teaching job because she refused to wear a burka. Dutch law requires religious [...]