In an emergency session Thursday night, the US Senate passed a bill to provide $10.5 billion in emergency relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina . The measure was approved by voice vote with only four Senators present on the floor. Read Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's floor statement . An identical bill is expected [...]

The Iraqi Special Tribunal will put Saddam Hussein on trial in mid-October, a government official said Thursday. Hussein will face charges related to the 1982 killing of 150 Shiites in the village of Dujail "between Oct. 16 and at the latest Oct. 20," just days after Iraq will hold a referendum to approve the draft [...]

Press conference with federal officials from the US Justice Department, National Guard Bureau, Defense Department, Department of Homeland Security, US Coast Guard and FEMA. September 1, 2005. Excerpts: …the Department of Justice, working with state and local officials, will do everything that we can do to assure law and order in the affected areas. We [...]

Leading Thursday's corporations and securities law news, US Department of Justice lawyers have accused Bayou Management of fabricating wildly inaccurate financial results for the past seven years. Filing civil charges to freeze the hedge fund's assets, US Attorney David Kelly said that the company's auditing firm, Richmond-Fairfield Associates, was phony and that the fund had [...]

The Chief of the US Army National Guard Bureau said Thursday in Washington that the National Guard was deploying over 4000 military police to support civilian law enforcement officers around New Orleans and elsewhere in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "This is not martial law," said Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum , referring to some [...]

Leading Thursday's states brief, the California Senate by a 21-15 vote approved legislation today that would legalize same-sex marriages. Bill sponsor Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, plans to bring the bill up in the state Assembly on Tuesday. Last June the Assembly narrowly rejected a same-sex marriage bill . Commenting on the bill's passage, Senator [...]

Speaking at a press conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has said she has asked for "no less than 40,000 troops" from the federal government to help restore order and assist civil authorities in the New Orleans area and elsewhere in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and will ask for more if needed. [...]

Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the July 7 London bombings , according to a video broadcast Thursday afternoon on Arab television channel Al-Jazeera. The video included statements from al Qaeda second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the suicide bombers in the attack. Khan said that the attacks were in response to [...]

The UK government put forth a proposal Thursday that would give relatives of homicide victims the opportunity to have their voices heard at murder and manslaughter trials. Much like the current system in the US, family members of a victim will be able to speak out directly or through a lawyer prior to the sentencing [...]

The EU on Thursday pushed Tehran to resume negotiations on the country's nuclear activities and threatened to bring Iran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions if it did not. The threat comes as a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) , set to be released Saturday, is expected to confirm Iran's [...]