The US Senate on Tuesday approved a measure to seize land on Mount Soledad in San Diego, thus permitting the First Amendment , rather than the California constitution, to control the issue of whether a cross , erected on the land as a tribute to Vietnam War veterans, is an impermissible government endorsement of religion. [...]

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) has completed its probe into the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November, and a Pentagon official indicated Wednesday that evidence supports accusations that US Marines from the Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment murdered the unarmed Iraqis. NCIS may be called on again to further investigate the [...]

Members of the 9/11 Commission considered asking the US Justice Department to investigate suspected deception by government officials intended to hide mistakes in the Pentagon's response to the Sept. 11 attacks , the Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The commissioners contemplated possible criminal charges under 18 U.S.C. 1001 , which prohibits making false statements before [...]

Mexican Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal criticized presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and supporters staging protests in Mexico City, saying Tuesday that the protestors have set up an "illegal blockade" by effectively bringing Reforma Avenue and the nearby Zocalo square to a standstill. The protest are causing traffic jams and business delays at the headquarters [...]

US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters on Tuesday that the White House has changed its position on military commissions , and now favors an approach that would try suspected terrorist detainees under a system modeled more on the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) . Graham, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, [...]

Ten permanent resident immigrants sued the federal government on Tuesday, arguing that their naturalization applications have been unnecessarily delayed by "the bureaucratic failings and callous inaction" of the FBI and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in delaying "name checks" required before applications can be granted. The lawsuit , filed by the Council for American-Islamic [...]

The US military has banned the media and public from observing witness testimony of Iraqis in upcoming Article 32 hearings for five US Army soldiers charged in connection with the rape of an Iraqi teenager and the murder of her and her family in Mahmudiya . The trial counsel moved for the media ban Monday [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Daniel Joyner of the University of Warwick School of Law in the United Kingdom says that the timing of the UN Security Council's passage of a Chapter VII resolution on Iran in the midst of an escalating Middle East conflict and in the face of an existing Iranian commitment to respond to [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday reversed the convictions of four former Merrill Lynch executives found guilty in connection with an Enron Nigerian barge scam. The Fifth Circuit overturned conspiracy and wire fraud convictions for James Brown, William Fuhs, Daniel Bayly and Robert Furst "on the legal ground that the [...]

The US Senate voted 71-25 Tuesday to approve the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 , which would allow oil and gas drilling in about 8.3 million acres of federal waters in the central Gulf. The bill garnered broad support in the wake of soaring gas prices, but its critics asserted that the [...]