John Allen Muhammad , representing himself, began questioning witnesses Friday in his second trial involving the three-week shooting spree in the Washington, DC area in 2002. Jury selection in the trial began on Monday . In his opening statement, Muhammad portrayed himself as a distraught father who was in Maryland to search for his children, [...]

US Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards on Friday criticized new Bush administration rules that make it easier for law enforcement officials to wiretap Internet phone calls during arguments in front of the federal appeals court in Washington, DC. The Federal Communications Commission created the new rules last year, which mandate standards to allow wiretaps of [...]

UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke was dropped from Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet in a major cabinet shuffle Friday and was replaced by John Reid , who formerly served as Defence Secretary. The shuffle, which also saw UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw replaced by Margaret Beckett , followed poor local election results for the Labour [...]

A Russian jury on Friday acquitted two Chechens in the murder of American journalist Paul Klebnikov , who was the editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition when he was shot and killed in 2004. Kazbek Dukuzov and Musa Vakhayev, charged with shooting Klebnikov, were acquitted after eight jurors voted in favor of the verdict. Four [...]

AP is reporting that Porter Goss , director of the US Central Intelligence Agency has resigned. Goss, a former CIA and Army intelligence officer who chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence while a member of Congress, was nominated and approved by the Senate to head the CIA in 2004. During Goss' tenure as [...]

The Illinois Supreme Court said Friday that it would not reconsider its decision ruling invalid a $10.1 billion judgment against Philip Morris USA in a case where the tobacco company had been found liable for defrauding customers into believing that light cigarettes were safer than regular ones. In December, the state high court ordered the [...]

US Department of State legal adviser John Bellinger defended US policies on the treatment of detainees as the UN Committee against Torture began its review Friday of US compliance with the Convention against Torture . During the first of two days of hearings, the committee focused their questions on whether the US has established criminal [...]

A Russian court has ruled that officials at the Siberian prison holding former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky unfairly punished him in December by reprimanding him for leaving a prison workshop without receiving permission. The court has already annulled the reprimand once, but an appeals court overturned the decision on procedural grounds and ordered the East [...]

Leading Friday's international brief, the newly formed political cabinet in Nepal has agreed on the membership of a judicial commission that will investigate state police and security force actions during pro-democracy protests last month that led to the capitulation of King Gyanendra , allowing the formation of a new democratic government in Nepal. Former Nepal [...]

The US Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday added a provision to the 2007 defense spending bill which would require the Bush administration to provide "a US government coordinated legal opinion on whether certain specified interrogation techniques would constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005." The provision was inserted [...]