US mega-retailer Wal-Mart announced Friday that it will stock the emergency contraceptive pill known as Plan B in all of its pharmacies nationwide beginning March 20. Previously the chain had only stocked the pills in its pharmacies in Illinois, as required by law, and in Massachusetts following an order by the Massachusetts Pharmacy Board in [...]

In response to a February injunction imposed by US Distict Judge Jeremy Fogel , California prosecutors Friday proposed altering the combination of sedatives and life-ending drugs used in executions in order to ensure that prisoners do not become conscious or experience "wanton or unnecessary pain" during the process. The proposal stems from an appeal by [...]

The US Justice Department has launched an investigation into possible price-fixing of music downloads by major label record companies, according to Department sources. The Department has already issued subpoeanas to four major record labels: EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner Music. Federal officials are attempting to discern whether the labels are conspiring to keep the [...]

An Ecuadorian judge Friday ordered the release from prison of former president Lucio Gutierrez , ruling that he was not a threat to national security. Ecuador's Attorney General's office has already said it will appeal. Gutierrez was arrested in October and later jailed after calling his ouster by Congress in April of last year illegal. [...]

Reprocessed Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) and Administrative Review Board (ARB) Documents, US Department of Defense, released March 3, 2006 . Review the full text of the documents (60 PDF files amounting to over 5000 printed pages). Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Former California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham has been sentenced to eight years and four months in prison for corruption. Cunningham pleaded guilty last November to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion and promptly resigned from office. He admitted to taking $2.4 million in bribes in a case that [...]

The US Department of Defense late Friday released the names of Guantanamo Bay detainees pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Associated Press and later pressed in a lawsuit . The names appear in transcripts of Combatant Status Review Tribunal proceedings in which military panels reviewed whether detainees were properly classed [...]

CNN is reporting that Research in Motion , maker of the BlackBerry wireless device, has reached a $612.5 million settlement in its patent dispute with NTP Inc. In 2003, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that RIM violated a patent held by NTP, Inc. and that decision was upheld on [...]

After nearly five days of round-the-clock negotiations in New York City, bankrupt Northwest Airlines (NWA) has reached a tentative agreement with its pilots union, NWA officials announced Friday. The pilots' union, the Northwest Airlines Air Line Pilots Association (NAALPA) , is the second union to settle with the reorganizing airline this week, following the flight [...]

A coalition of 12 states, three cities and several environmental groups appealed to the US Supreme Court Friday in a bid to force the federal government and Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) "greenhouse gas" emissions from personal automobiles, citing the link to global warming. Read a National Environmental Trust press release announcing [...]