Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed a bill Monday which effectively bans smoking in almost all public places in the tobacco-growing state. The Georgia Smokefree Air Act of 2005 would still allow smoking in bars that exclude children under 18, certain workspace areas with independent air systems, and designated smoking hotel/motel rooms. Violators of the new [...]

In a statement issued Monday while visiting Europe for World War II commemorations, President Bush once again urged the Senate to put his judicial nominees to an up-or-down vote . Two of the nominees highlighted in the Monday statement, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and North Carolina US District Judge Terry Boyle , were [...]

Mississippi state Attorney General Jim Hood announced Monday that under the terms of a settlement agreement with the state telecommunications giant MCI will hand over $100M cash to cover back taxes owed by its predecessor, WorldCom, as well as turn over WorldCom's former headquarters in downtown Jackson. WorldCom was charged for accounting fraud in the [...]

William Higgins, holder of a seat on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) , filed suit in New York state court Monday in a bid to block the NYSE merging with electronic stock market Archipelago Holdings. The merger announced last month would transform the NYSE into a public, for-profit organization . Higgins alleges that NYSE [...]

Iran's Guardian Council , the legislative watchdog panel composed of six lawyers and six Islamic clerics, Monday rejected a bill that would have allowed abortion during the first four months of pregnancy when the mother's life was endangered or a child would be born with a severe handicap which would financially burden the family. The [...]

The Spanish government has announced that it is granting some 700,000 work permits to previously-illegal immigrants who could prove that they had lived and worked in Spain for at least six months. As of Saturday, the final day immigrants could apply for amnesty in the latest drive launched in February , 672,347 workers in underground [...]

An Israeli newspaper reported Monday that senior officers in the Israel Defense Forces want to pre-emptively detain a number of Israeli extremists before the planned Gaza Strip pullout and evacuation of settlements this summer. On Sunday, authorities acting on orders of the Israeli Defense Minister arrested Jewish settler Neria Ofan, who will be held without [...]

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced Sunday that he will postpone the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners, alleging that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is not upholding his promise to pressure Palestinian militants into a ceasefire. Abbas responded that Sharon was acting in bad faith and was harming the agreements made at February 8 summit [...]

New legal documents filed by convicted spy Jonathan Pollard include allegations that Pollard has been tortured during his US imprisonment. Pollard was arrested in 1985 and was convicted of spying for Israel while he was a civilian intelligence analyst for the Navy. In a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, Pollard alleges that he was [...]

The trial of two Rwandan men accused of war crimes during the 1994 Rwandan genocide begins Monday in Brussels. Half-brothers Etienne Nzabonimana and Samuel Ndashyikirwa are accused of helping the Hutu militia and are charged under Belgium's universal jurisdiction law, which allows the prosecution of war crimes suspects even if the suspects are not Belgian [...]