In response to recent refusals by some pharmacists objecting on moral grounds to filling prescriptions for emergency contraceptives or birth control pills, federal legislators unveiled a draft bill on Thursday that would require pharmacies to fill all prescriptions, placing the impetus on the pharmacy and not on individual pharmacists. Sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) [...]

Fighting off a barrage of opposition to the agreement, French President Jacques Chirac embarked Thursday on a campaign to save the proposed European Union constitution from defeat in an upcoming national referendum. With the anti-treaty position slightly ahead in opinion polls, Chirac hosted a "town hall meeting" on the referendum with 83 young people on [...]

A provincial appeals court has issued what is reported to be China's first ruling that confessions obtained by coercion, torture, or trickery cannot be used in court, and while defense attorneys hailed the decision as an important step toward ending police torture in the country, they cautioned that further reforms are necessary to adequately protect [...]

United States v. Tongsun Park, United States District Court Southern District of New York, unsealed April 14, 2005 . Read the full text of the FBI complaint . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

United States v. David Chalmers at al., United States District Court Southern District of New York, April 14, 2005 . Read the full text of the indictment . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

A federal judge in Utah has struck down the Food and Drug Administration ban on the weight-loss supplement ephedra, pulled off the market by the FDA in April 2004 after it was found to be linked to some 155 deaths. In a Wednesday ruling made public Thursday, Judge Tena Campbell directed the FDA to conduct [...]

AP is reporting that the US House has approved the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 by a vote of 302-126 . The legislation, designed to make it harder for those in debt to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and already passed by the Senate , will now go to President Bush [...]

Russian prosecutors filed new murder charges Thursday against former Yukos security chief Alexei Pichugin . Last month, Pichugin was convicted of organizing a double murder and was sentenced to 20 years in jail . In the charges filed Thursday, Russian prosecutors accuse Pichugin of staging a murder in 1998 and plotting two attempts to murder [...]

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has dismissed three complaints from the 2004 presidential race involving Ralph Nader and the anti-John Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth . The three complaints include one alleging that interest group Citizen Works made illegal campaign contributions to Nader's presidential campaign for letting it use its office space for [...]

The Justice Department in conjunction with the US Marshals Office announced Thursday that more than 10,000 fugitives, many wanted for violent crimes, were arrested over the last week as part of a coordinated nationwide effort led by the marshals. Operation Falcon involved officers from 960 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies who took part [...]