A US federal court judge has released the Chicago Public Schools from federal budgetary reporting oversight in respect of its desegregation efforts more than 25 years after a 1980 agreement that required the schools to spend almost $100 million annually on desegregation, including after-school programs, summer school and bilingual projects. US District Judge Charles Kocoras [...]

Some 24,000 illegal immigrants with school-age children are waiting to learn whether they will be deported from France after the expiration of a Monday deadline set by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy for residency applications. Sarkozy has spearheaded a drive to return the immigrants to their home countries, and the French government has even offered [...]

Three men were sentenced to death and five men to life in prison in Bangladesh Tuesday for their involvement in a series of bombings on police, court and government buildings last year. All eight men are members of the Islamist militant group Jamaat-ul Mujahideen , which wants to turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state governed [...]

Ching Cheong , chief China correspondent for Singapore's Straits Times , went on trial Tuesday in China on charges of selling state secrets and spying for Taiwan . Though media in Hong Kong reported that the trial began at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court, court officials denied knowledge of the trial. Chinese espionage [...]

President Bush on Monday signed a bill into law that transfers ownership of a 29-foot cross on Mount Soledad in San Diego to the federal government. The cross, which was erected as a Korean War veterans memorial, has been the center of a religious dispute for 17 years because Philip Paulson, a Vietnam veteran and [...]

An Egyptian appeals court ruled Monday that 11 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood jailed since May after participating in pro-judicial independence protests earlier this year should be released from detention . Detainees ordered released include top Brotherhood members Issam al-Arian and Mohamed Morsi. Over 500 protesters were arrested during demonstrations in May and 80 [...]

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday directed the US Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy and Office of Legal Counsel to conduct a comparative review of American and British anti-terrorism laws . Gonzales' order comes just one day after US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested that US lawmakers consider revising US [...]

Allegations of recruiting violations by the US military increased from 4,400 cases in 2004 to 6,600 cases in 2005 according to a report released by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Monday, with actual criminal violations rising by more than 200 percent, from 30 in 2004 to 70 in 2005. The report noted that [...]

US Chief Justice John Roberts named Jeffrey P. Minear , former senior litigation counsel in the Office of the Solicitor General , as his top aide on Monday. Minear and Roberts worked together for four years at the solicitor general's office and also on the Microsoft antitrust suit. Commenting on his time working alongside Minear, [...]

Legal Services Corp. , a government-funded non-profit corporation that provides legal assistance to indigent Americans, has been using funds to provide luxuries for its board members and executives, AP reported Monday. The corporation turns away about half of all applicants due to lack of monetary resources, yet agency documents obtained by AP show that federal [...]