US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales late Monday concluded a day of testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee on the Bush administration's controversial domestic surveillance program . Although Gonzales maintained that the wiretapping program was a vital "early warning system" for terrorists, several Republicans and Democrats continued to challenge the president's authority to initiate the [...]

The US Senate Monday began debate of controversial legislation that would create a privately-funded trust to compensate victims of asbestos exposure and shield companies from further liability. Under the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act , $140 billion would be set aside by asbestos manufacturers and insurance companies in exchange for immunity from civil suits [...]

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Monday that the resolution by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Directors to refer Iran to the UN Security Council was a "hasty and unjustified decision without any legal and technical basis." Interviewed on BBC Radio 4, Soltanieh also asserted that the Board's vote [...]

British judge Rosalyn Higgins , a highly-respected legal scholar and international lawyer, was elected president of International Court of Justice (ICJ) Monday, becoming the first woman to serve in that role. Higgins, the only woman ever to sit on the ICJ, was elected by her 15 fellow judges to serve a three-year term as president. [...]

The retrial of the first federal lawsuit against the manufacturers of Vioxx began Monday in New Orleans with jury selection. The case first went to trial last year, but was declared a mistrial in December when jurors could not agree on a verdict. Evelyn Irvin Plunkett is suing Merck , alleging that her husband died [...]

The defense team in the Saddam Hussein trial said Monday that the proceedings against the deposed Iraqi dictator in the Iraqi High Criminal Court – formerly the Iraqi Special Tribunal – have been fixed by United States and Iraq's Shiite leaders and called for court-appointed defense lawyers to quit their positions . Hussein and his [...]

At least five people protesting the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish and other European papers were killed in Afghanistan Monday when security forces and police opened fire on demonstrators as the cartoons furor setting blasphemy against free speech reached global proportions. Two Afghans were killed outside the US airbase at Bagram [...]

A Pennsylvania appeals court ruled Monday that the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority violated the constitutional separation of church and state when it seized a woman's home to help Hope Partnership for Education , a religious group, build a private school. In a 4-3 decision , judges of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled that the seizure [...]

Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor on Monday told the Federation Council , the upper house of parliament, that approximately 6,000 people were abused by Russian military personnel last year and 2,600 soldiers were convicted of abusing other soldiers . Alexander Savenkov said that "beating has become a typical method of dealing with subordinates in the military," [...]

Zacarias Moussaoui was escorted from a Virginia courtroom Monday after an argument with US District Judge Leonie Brinkema during the first few minutes of jury selection in his sentencing trial . Moussaoui declared "I am al Qaeda" upon his entrance to the courtroom and informed the judge that his lawyers "do not represent" him. Judge [...]