The PA Superior Court has dismissed clergy abuse lawsuits filed by 17 adults in the state because the statute of limitations had run on the claims. The alleged abuse dated between 1957 to 1983, but the plaintiffs argued that it could not be known that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was negligent in overlooking the abuses [...]

The Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday issued new mercury regulations for power plants that are designed to reduce emissions to 70 percent of 1999 levels once fully implemented. The Clean Air Mercury Rule uses a market-based cap-and-trade program similar to that in the recently announced Clean Air Interstate Rule to cut emissions of coal-fired power plants. [...]

The number of federal appeals cases filed in 2004 was a new all-time high, according to a report released Tuesday by the Administrative Office of the US Courts . There were 62,762 appeals filed last year in federal Courts of Appeals, up 3 percent from the previous year. 2004 was the ninth year in a [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) issued its final indictment on Tuesday, after over a decade of bringing war criminals to justice. A spokeswoman for the court said that the indictments against former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski and a former senior police officer would be the last from the tribunal, established [...]

AP is reporting that former WorldCom chief Bernard Ebbers has been convicted on all counts at his fraud trial. 12:51 PM – Reuters now has a story here. The Manhattan jury found Ebbers guilty of fraud, conspiracy, and filing false documents with regulators. When sentenced June 13 he could face up to 85 years in [...]

The court-martial of Army 1st Lt. Jack Saville began Tuesday at Fort Hood over charges that he ordered an Iraqi man to be thrown into the Tigris River, where he drowned, after the man was detained during a December 2003 raid. Saville faces a reduced assault charge after agreeing to plead guilty Monday to charges [...]

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a $4 million verdict against a former Chilean Army officer for the killing of a political prisoner during the 1973 coup in Chile . The 2003 jury verdict was the first for a charge of crimes against humanity. Winston Cabello's family had sued Armanda Fernandez Larios, who [...]

Former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume has announced that he will run for US Senate in 2006, entering the race for the MD seat that Sen. Paul Sarbanes said Friday he would vacate after his current term. Mfume, 56, announced his candidacy Monday during a news conference. He is a former five-term US Congressman and led [...]

Former chess champion Bobby Fischer must be deported to the US under Japanese law, Japanese Immigration Bureau chief Masaharu Miura said Tuesday. Fischer has been fighting deportation to his home country, but Miura said that Japanese law requires that any deportation be to the country of a person's citizenship. Fischer and some supporters have requested [...]

Leading the international brief, the International Criminal Court held its first-ever hearing Tuesday, a status conference focusing on the need for witness protection and evidence preservation in the investigation of Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo into alleged war crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . The investigation into possible crimes in the [...]