Spain's conservative Popular Party Friday filed a constitutional challenge against a law passed earlier this year which legalizes gay marriage and allows homosexual couples to adopt children. The party filed the case in Spain's Constitutional Court , saying that the new law "denaturalizes the fundamental institution of marriage." Since it was passed, dozens of gay [...]

Attorneys for former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers have filed a brief urging the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn fraud and conspiracy convictions against Ebbers saying his trial earlier this year was "fundamentally flawed," and arguing that his 25-year prison sentence is "unreasonable and legally erroneous." The 96-page brief said the lower court [...]

Amnesty International and Russia's Memorial Human Rights Center Friday accused Russian authorities of arbitrary and prolonged detentions of civilians, torture, and forced confessions . Amnesty International has released a new report claiming that Russia is utilizing its own "war on terror" to commit the human rights abuses, alleging that between 3,000 and 5,000 kidnappings have [...]

Joseph Serugendo, the former technical director of a Rwandan radio station that promoted the 1994 Rwandan genocide , pleaded not guilty Friday to five counts of genocide and crimes against humanity at the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda . ICTR prosecutors allege that Serugendo "planned, instigated, ordered, committed or aided and abetted in the [...]

US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has announced that No Child Left Behind yearly academic accountability standards will be eased for schools affected by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. Spellings said that schools in the five "major disaster" states – Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama – could delay compliance under the education act without [...]

A US music industry trade group has filed another 750 lawsuits against individuals who allegedly used on-line file sharing networks to trade copyrighted songs illegally. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) , representing labels such as Vivendi Universal and Sony/BMG , is suing 64 individuals at universities who allegedly swapped music using the high [...]

The Hong Kong government Friday appealed a high court ruling last month that said a criminal law preventing consenting males under the age of 21 from having sex was a violation of human rights . The criminal law allowed lesbians and heterosexuals to engage in sex from the age of 16, but prohibited sex between [...]

Jack Kevorkian has said that he would not assist people in committing suicide if released on parole, but said that he would campaign to legalize assisted suicide. The former doctor is serving 10-25 years in prison on a second-degree murder conviction for giving a patient with Lou Gehrig's disease an injection of drugs that killed [...]

Leading Friday's states brief, as Connecticut becomes the second state to offer same-sex couples civil unions October 1, town clerks are saying they are ready, but some employers may not be prepared. While only a few town clerks offices plan to be open tomorrow and there is no way of knowing how many of the [...]

The Osaka High Court ruled on Friday that visits by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a Shinto shrine for war dead violate Japan's constitutional provisions for separation of church and state. The visits are also controversial because China and South Korea consider the shrine a monument to Japanese militarism during the early 20th century. [...]