Clinic for Women, Inc. v. Carl J. Brizzi, Indiana Supreme Court, November 23, 2005 . Excerpt: The Indiana Legislature has passed a law that requires a woman seeking an abortion to give her informed consent prior to the procedure and, except in the case of a medical emergency, specifies that a physician (or other medical [...]

Army prosecutors Wednesday dropped charges against a US soldier accused of abusing a mentally retarded detainee in Afghanistan . Spec. Nathan A. Jones was accused of kneeing or kicking the detainee in the thigh at the Bagram detention center in 2002 and then lying about it. Officials at Fort Bliss said, however, that although Jones [...]

A law requiring women seeking an abortion in Indiana to undergo counseling about medical risks and abortion-alternatives and wait at least 18 hours after the session before obtaining an abortion has been upheld against facial challenges by the Indiana Supreme Court . The court ruled Wednesday that because the Indiana statute does not "impose a [...]

An unassuming law office outside of Memphis, Tennessee has been implicated in a Spanish investigation into whether the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has secretly flown terror suspects to other countries for intense questioning and perhaps torture. The law office of Douglas R. Beaty is listed in Tennessee state records as having the same business [...]

English Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has told British newspapers that ran a story on a leaked UK government document purportedly describing conversations in April 2004 between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President Bush over the Iraq war that they could be subject to prosecution under Section 5 of the UK Official Secrets Act [...]

Michael Rigas, the former executive vice president of Adelphia Communications Corp. and son of founder John Rigas pleaded guilty in Manhattan Wednesday to falsifying a financial record. His plea negates the need for retrial on other charges of securities and bank fraud. Rigas entered into a plea agreement under which he will receive between six [...]

Leading Wednesday's international brief, the Nepal Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday suspending the new Code of Conduct law that governs the behavior of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Nepal. Justice Parmananda Jha issued the stay in light of a petition filed Monday by nine Nepalese NGOs. The NGOs, as well as other international NGOs , [...]

Canada's federal government announced Wednesday that it is offering more than $2 billion in compensation to more than 80,000 surviving former First Nations students who may have suffered abuse in native residential schools where they were displaced from their tribes and families and educated by religious orders for assimilation into white society. Canadian Deputy Prime [...]

The Russian Duma , the lower house of parliament, has approved a bill that would greatly increase state control over non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by requiring them to register with a state commission. The law, passed Wednesday by 370 deputies, demands that all informal and foreign groups must register as independent Russian legal entities. NGOs must [...]

The National Assembly , the lower house of the French parliament, began debate Wednesday on a new anti-terror law said to have been partly prompted by the July 7 London bombings and the apparent spread of Islamist terrorism to Western Europe. The new law, introduced last month by Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy and approved by [...]