An Act Reinstating Capital Punishment in the Commonwealth, filed with the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives, April 29, 2005 . Read the full text of the bill and accompanying letter of transmission. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The US Trade Representative on Friday said the office had placed China on a "priority watch list" due to what the US considers rampant copyright infringement in the country. China was at the center of the US trade office's annual report on intellectual property rights, with the report concluding that infringement in China remained "unacceptably [...]

House Republicans on Friday said they planned to finish drafting social security reform legislation by June, a day after President Bush in a prime-time press conference challenged legislators to move forward on the issue. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas said Republicans would expand on simply social security and offer more comprehensive retirement [...]

AP is reporting that the US and Italy have issued a joint statement that they have failed to agree on the circumstances surrounding the shooting of an Italian agent by US soldiers in Iraq. Italy had indicated earlier that it might not agree with the US over the results of the investigation. 1:45 PM ET [...]

Taiwan opposition leader Lien Chan and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed on Friday to end decades of hostility and to work to avoid dangerous tensions in the Taiwan Strait during a historic meeting in Beijing. The impact of the meeting remains in doubt, after Taiwan's government criticized the meeting and said it would do little [...]

Following up on a story reported Thursday on JURIST, prominent Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi was named deputy prime minister and acting oil ministry chief in the Cabinet approved Wednesday by the interim national assembly in Iraq . At one point the US favorite to lead Iraq following Saddam Hussein's ouster, Chalabi appeared to fall from [...]

MA Gov. Mitt Romney filed a bill Thursday to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts for deadly acts of terrorism, killing sprees, murders involving torture, and the killing of law enforcement authorities. Romney's bill uses ten recommendations set out by a special commission last year as the basis for the capital punishment legislation. The panel [...]

Wiretaps increased by 19 percent last year, with federal and state judges approving 1,710 applications while denying none, the Administrative Office of the US Courts reported Thursday. New York, California, New Jersey and Florida accounted for three of every four surveillance orders. The number of court-authorized wiretaps jumped last year as investigators pursued drug and [...]

The Florida Supreme Court , in a 4-3 decision, on Thursday rejected Rush Limbaugh's appeal to review a lower court's decision that the state could seize his medical records. The court will not consider a motion for rehearing. Florida's 4th District Court of Appeal had ruled the state did not violate Limbaugh's privacy rights when [...]

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Thursday sentenced Mika Muhimana, who was a councilor in the western Rwandan province of Kibuyea, to prison for the rest of his life for his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide . Judge Khalida Rashid Khan said the tribunal had found beyond any reasonable doubt that [...]