The Texas Senate approved a proposed constitutional amendment Saturday that would ban same-sex marriages . The measure will be presented to voters in the state's November elections, and, if passed, will amend the state constitution to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Read the Texas Senate press release on the [...]

US District Court Judge Martin Jenkins ruled Friday that there was not enough evidence to sustain many of the counts against former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko . In a complex trial that ended nearly one year ago, Lazarenko was convicted on 29 counts of extortion and laundering money through California banks. Fifteen of the [...]

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced Friday, while acknowledging National Missing Children's Day , that a new federal website would provide state-by-state information on known sex offenders within two months. The website, with voluntary participation by states, will allow someone to do a national search online to determine if a convicted sex criminal has moved from [...]

Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich vetoed a bill Friday that would have allowed rights for gay partners who registered with the state, denouncing it as a threat to traditional marriage. Among the rights the bill would have granted to gay partners were the right to be treated as immediate family in a hospital setting, power to [...]

A senior Sudanese official said Saturday that a tribunal to try people accused of war crimes in Darfur could be announced in 2-3 months. Sudan rejected the UN Security Council's recommendation earlier this year to refer the trials to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The Khartoum government is accused of arming militias and [...]

Afghan president Hamid Karzai said Saturday that he wants custody of all Afghan prisoners after being "shocked" by US newspaper reports of prisoner abuse released Friday. The US has over 500 Taliban and other prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and several hundred Afghans are currently believed to be held by the US in Afghanistan. Karzai has [...]

British tabloid The Sun published additional photos of an incarcerated Saddam Hussein in a white robe Saturday, one day after it showed a semi-clad Saddam on its front page. The International Committee of the Red Cross has said the pictures violate Saddam's right to privacy while the US military has condemned their publication and ordered [...]

Senate Republicans filed a motion Friday which starts the countdown towards the "nuclear option" – a procedure to wipe out the Democrats' power to block President Bush's judicial nominees. The motion would end the Senate debate for federal court nominee Priscilla Owen who was renominated by Bush after Democrats blocked her nomination in the last [...]

Leading Friday's international brief, two recently released polls indicate that popular sentiment is heavily against the proposed EU constitution in the Netherlands . Polls by RTL Television and Centerdata both put the likely "no" vote on the EU constitution at 51%-54%, with only 27%-29% likely to vote "yes". The Netherlands referendum on the EU charter [...]

A US military spokesman, responding to a New York Times article detailing the deaths of two detainees and other abuses, said Friday that mistreatment of detainees in Afghanistan by US personnel will not be tolerated. A White House spokesman said that President Bush was alarmed by the report and wanted the allegations thoroughly investigated. The [...]