The Bank of New York has agreed to pay $38 million in fines in order to avoid prosecution on fraud and money laundering charges, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday. The federal investigation into the bank, the oldest in the US, began after the financial institution took part in a scheme involving $7 billion in illicit transfers [...]

Nageh Ibrahim and Fouad el-Dawalibi, founding members of militant Egyptian Islamic movement al-Gamma al-Islamiyya , have been released after more than two decades in prison in connection with the killing of President Anwar Sadat during a military parade in Cairo on Oct. 6, 1981. The men were convicted for their connections to Sadat's assassination and [...]

In a victory for intelligent design advocates, the Kansas Board of Education on Tuesday approved by a vote of 6-4 revised science standards that require students to understand not only evolution , but also recent challenges to the theory, such as that suggesting that life is too complex to have evolved without help from a [...]

The US Department of Justice is considering a request from the Central Intelligence Agency to open a criminal investigation into the leak of possibly classified information on the existence of secret CIA detention centers for suspected terrorists to the Washington Post. There have also been calls for a congressional investigation into the leaked information. Senate [...]

California voters Tuesday rejected a hotly-contested initiative that would have prevented lawmakers from drawing political voting districts . The initiative was allowed on the ballot after an appeal to the California Supreme Court ; a lower court had said the measure could not be part of the November election because petitions circulated to collect the [...]

Proposition 2 marriage amendment to the Texas Constitution, adopted by the Texas Legislature by Senate approval on May 21, 2005, and approved by Texas voters November 8, 2005. Read the full text of Proposition 2 here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Defense Directive 3115.09, US Department of Defense, November 8, 2005.. Read the full text of the directive here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Texas media are reporting that by a wide margin state voters have approved Proposition 2 , a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. The ban was strongly supported by Texas Republican governor Rick Perry; some opponents actually rejected the ban as not being explicit enough against gays. With 472,553 votes counted, 74 percent favored the [...]

Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori was denied release from jail in Chile Tuesday pending a hearing on his extradition to face 21 Peruvian charges of corruption and human rights abuses during his presidency. Peru has 60 days to petition for Fujimori's extradition and current Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo has sent a high-level delegation to Chile [...]

The US Supreme Court Tuesday heard oral arguments in Georgia v. Randolph on whether police may search a home when one resident gives permission but the other does not. The case involves an estranged Georgia couple in which the wife had returned to the home to collect her belongings. The wife granted permission for the [...]