A referendum to liberalize Italy's assisted-fertility laws has failed due to low voter turnout. The two-day referendum needed over 50 percent turnout for its results to count, but only 18.7 percent voted Sunday and early figures reported by the Italian Interior Ministry after the polls closed at 3 PM Rome time Monday suggested a final [...]

In a 6-3 decision Monday the US Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a black inmate on death row who claimed that Texas prosecutors purposely eliminated black jurors to fill the jury with whites. Justice Souter, writing for the majority, rejected the state's claim that the strikes were not intended to discriminate against the jurors. [...]

The US Supreme Court in a unanimous decision has ruled that drug companies can do "pre-clinical studies" under FDA rules on an existing patented drug in the process of developing a generic alternative to market in the future. Read a summary of Merck KGaA v. Integra Lifesciences . AP has more. 11:35 PM ET – [...]

Some 8,000 refugees from Rwanda face deportation Tuesday after neighboring Burundi declared them illegal immigrants over the weekend. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has urged Burundi to reconsider and warned it might be violating international law if the refugees are involuntarily returned . Burundi has been fighting since late April to return the [...]

EU lawmakers now appear set to extend the ratification period for the European Constitution after rejection of the charter by voters in France and the Netherlands threw its status into doubt. On Sunday Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose country formally approved the constitution in May, recommended an extension to European Union foreign [...]

Citing ongoing disagreements over process, the head of the International Crisis Group conflict-monitoring organization called the initial August 15 deadline for the drafting of the permanent Iraqi constitution "unrealistic" in a Monday editorial in the Financial Times and suggested that the deadline be put off for the single six month period permitted in the country's [...]

A member of Saddam Hussein's defense team said Sunday that any trial of the former Iraqi dictator should take place not in Iraq, but in Europe. Giovanni di Stefano told a Swedish television interviewer that he would prefer to see Saddam tried in Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, or the Hague, Netherlands where a "fair trial" is [...]

Microsoft has agreed to block Chinese users of its new MSN Spaces blogging portal from using certain words and phrases including "democracy", "freedom", "human rights", and "Taiwan independence". A blogger entering those terms gets a message along the lines of "This item should not contain forbidden speech such as profanity. Please enter a different word [...]

US senators Chuck Hagel and Dianne Feinstein have responded to a newly released log of a Guantanamo interrogation with anger and bewilderment. Hagel, a Vietnam Veteran, said the practices reflected in the record telling of prisoner Mohammed al-Khatani being stripped naked and forced to bark like a dog and do other things was "not only [...]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that he will sue the US in an international court if the US does not comply with a request to extradite Cuban exile and naturalized Venezuelan Luis Posada Carriles . Posada, accused of blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976, was arrested in May 2005 in Miami on charges [...]