British Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith Tuesday announced a government plan to abolish jury trials in complicated fraud cases. The move follows the collapse of a fraud trial earlier this year, partly because of jury problems. Goldsmith estimates about 15 to 20 trials each year would be affected by the proposal, and denied that the [...]

According to documents obtained by the Associated Press Monday, the Transportation Security Administration collected private information about commercial airline passengers who flew in June 2004, despite Congressional instructions not to do so. The documents indicate the information was gathered to test Secure Flight , a passenger pre-screening program which, along with its predecessor CAPPS II [...]

A Turkish court sentenced Metin Kaplan Monday to life imprisonment for plotting to kill members of the country's ruling elite by flying a plane into the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic. Kaplan's lawyer did not agree with the ruling, stating "we believe such a decision was reached beforehand" and [...]

The Cambodian government announced Tuesday that it will accept Japan's offer of $11 million to fund a shortfall in the estimated budget for trying former leaders of the communist Khmer Rouge regime, considered responsible for the genocide of the "killing fields" in Cambodia after taking power in the 1970s. Opposition groups in Cambodia had initially [...]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for democratic reforms by US allies across the Middle East in a major foreign policy address in Cairo Monday, and publicly called on Saudi Arabia to release "three individuals…imprisoned for peacefully petitioning the government." Rice was referring to Ali al-Demaini, Abdullah al-Hamed and Matruk al-Faleh , activists sentenced [...]

The California Supreme Court upheld state sentencing guidelines on Monday, ruling that allowing judges to impose a discretionary range of sentences for various crimes did not give them too much power. The ruling follows the recent US Supreme Court holding in US v. Booker , which invalidated federal sentencing rules insofar as those had allowed [...]

The International Whaling Commission voted 29-23 against lifting its ban on commercial whaling Tuesday at its 2005 annual meeting . Japan had recently threatened to leave the organization if it didn't allow for some sort of sanctioned whaling. The ban has been in place since 1986. Only Norway continues to practice commercial whaling in spite [...]

Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi , acquitted by a Hamburg court in February on charges of helping the September 11 hijackers, flew home Tuesday to avoid deportation. Hamburg city officials had given Mzoudi two weeks to leave the country, or face arrest or deportation after the June 9 confirmation of the acquittal on appeal . Hamburg authorities [...]

Michael Schiavo buried the cremated remains of his late wife Terri Schiavo Monday at Sylvan Abbey Memorial Park in Clearwater, Florida. He had previously said he would bury her remains in his family plot in Pennsylvania . Schiavo's parents were not notified of the interment. Michael inscribed the words "I Kept my Promise" at the [...]

American Bankers Association, et al. v. Gould, et al., United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, June 20, 2005 . Excerpt: We therefore hold that the affiliate-sharing preemption clause preempts SB1 insofar as it attempts to regulate the communication between affiliates of "information," as that term is used in § 1681a(d)(1). That is, [...]