Royal Dutch Shell PLC will wait for a Nigerian appeals court ruling rather than pay a $1.5 billion judgment to compensate ethnic communities in Nigeria for pollution from its operations. A company spokesman said paying the judgment, which was due at noon Monday, would be inappropriate because of its appeal . Shell was ordered to [...]

A federal grand jury in Ohio on Monday indicted seven former executives of National Century Financial Enterprises on charges of conspiracy, fraud, and promotion of money laundering. The seven former executives of the health care financing company are accused of conspiring to defraud investors of $3 billion by lying to investors about how their funds [...]

US oil companies did not illegally manipulate gasoline prices or restrain supply last year in the wake of Hurricane Katrina , according to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report released Monday. US antitrust authorities performed an investigation of the oil industry, and, like several past investigations, found no evidence of price manipulation by refiners or [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has denied prosecutors' request to transfer the trial of Rwandan genocide suspect Michel Bagaragaza to Norway because Norway does not have a specific law against genocide. In its decision , the UN-backed court said: In this case, it is apparent that the Kingdom of Norway does not have jurisdiction [...]

UK Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith is to meet with senior Israeli officials Thursday to discuss whether Israeli soldiers should be charged with war crimes for shooting two Britons in 2003. The families of James Miller, an award-winning cameraman, and Tom Hurndall, a peace activist, have asked Goldsmith to prosecute the Israeli soldiers under the [...]

Court-martial proceedings against US Army Sgt. Santos A. Cardona began Monday on charges of maltreatment of prisoners, dereliction of duty and assault connected to Cardona's alleged use of unmuzzled dogs when questioning detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison . A second dog handler, Sgt. Michael Smith, was convicted earlier this year and sentenced to six [...]

Election officials in Montenegro said Monday that over 55 percent of voters in Sunday's referendum endorsed seceding from Serbia and forming an independent nation. Montenegro's State Electoral Commission said that 55.4 percent of voters supported independence in a majority vote that required 55 percent to win. Some Montenegrin leaders had criticized the 55 percent threshold, [...]

Chief Justice John Roberts wants greater consensus between justices on the US Supreme Court and hopes to decide issues on very narrow grounds in order to avoid unnecessary controversy. In a commencement address to Georgetown Law Center graduates on Sunday, Roberts said: If it is not necessary to decide more to a case, then in [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that police can enter a home without a warrant when they have not knocked or announced their presence if they have an objectively reasonable basis to believe that someone inside the home has been seriously injured or there is an imminent threat of injury. In Brigham County v. [...]

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday that the US does not need to make English the "national language" and that a Senate move to add English language amendments to an immigration reform proposal was symbolic. In an interview on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, Gonzales said that the Senate's amended version of the immigration bill [...]