A new poll released by the Pew Research Center shows a reduction in favorable views of the the US Supreme Court on both sides of the political spectrum. According to the poll released Wednesday, 57 percent of Americans now have a favorable opinion of the Court; in January 2001, shortly after the ruling in Bush [...]

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney Thursday announced his support of a drive to put before state voters a proposed constitutional amendment to ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions. Massachusetts is the only US state where same-sex marriages are legal; Vermont, Hawaii, and California have granted same-sex couples limited legal rights. The Massachusetts legislature is already [...]

The New York State Court of Appeals upheld on Thursday a lower court ruling that the state's ban on cameras in trial courtrooms is constitutional. The appeals court ruled that the legislature has the final say on allowing cameras or not, and that banning them does not violate the constitutional guarantee of access to trials. [...]

Lodi (CA) father and son indictment for making false statements to the FBI in connection with terrorist matters, US Department of Justice, June 16, 2005 [indicting a father and son for allegedly lying to the FBI about the son attending a terrorist camp in Pakistan with connections to al-Qaida. Read the full text of the [...]

Orbanski v. the Queen, Supreme Court of Canada, June 16, 2005 . Excerpt: Screening drivers necessarily requires interaction with motorists at the roadside. The scope of justifiable police conduct will not always be defined by express words found in a statute but will sometimes depend on the purpose of the police power in question and [...]

Supreme Court's Image Declines as Nomination Battle Looms, Pew Research Center, June 16, 2005 . Excerpt: With an aging Supreme Court possibly facing major changes, the court's public image has eroded significantly. Currently, 57% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Supreme Court, with 30% expressing an unfavorable view. In the past, favorable views [...]

American Interests and UN Reform, US Task Force on the United Nations, June 16, 2005 . Excerpt: Just as the United States today is restructuring its domestic institutions to deal with the realities of the post-9/11 world, so too must the United Nations transform itself. As it approaches its sixtieth anniversary, the United Nations needs [...]

Burundi on Wednesday approved a United Nations plan to establish a truth and reconciliation commission with a special war crimes chamber to investigate decades of bloody conflict between local Hutus and Tutsis going back to the country's independence in 1962. Under the plan, Burundi and the UN would work together to establish a five-member commission [...]

A senior Chinese government official said Thursday that China is drafting a new anti-terrorism law . Zhao Yongchen, deputy director of the counterterrorism bureau of the Ministry of Public Security , said the top terrorist threat facing China was from the East Turkistan Islamic Movement , a separatist group considered terroristic by both China and [...]

AFP is reporting that Sunni leaders have announced a compromise with their Shiite and Krd colleagues on Sunni representation on the parliamentary committee charged with drafting Iraq's new permanent constitution. Under the compromise, the Sunnis will get 15 new seats on the committee with full voting rights, and 10 new seats as consultants. They originally [...]