Florida became the first state in the nation to fully privatize its child welfare program after signing a $75 million contract Friday, transferring management of the last 2 remaining counties under governmental oversight. The agreement with Our Kids allows the private organization to manage all foster care, adoption and child welfare licensing operations in Miami-Dade [...]

Japanese Trade Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said Sunday that a lawsuit in an international court is "one option" for dealing with a Japan-China dispute over natural gas drilling rights in the East China Sea. China has three projects in an area Japan claims as its own. Nakagawa said Japan wants these projects stopped if Japan is [...]

Governor Joe Manchin vetoed a bill on Saturday that would have made English the official language of West Virginia. Gov. Manchin, who has supported such legislation in the past, objected to the bill on the grounds that the state constitution limits legislation to one topic. The original bill was about increasing the size of local [...]

New York City agreed on Friday to pay $150 each plus legal fees totaling about $215,000 to 108 protestors arrested during the Republican National Convention and held after a judge ordered their release. Lawyers for the protestors claimed that the city intentionally violated an order issued for their release on September 2, 2004. While this [...]

A spokesman for Argentinian cardinal Jorge Bergoglio , deemed by observers to be one of the leading contenders to succeed Pope John Paul II in the Vatican conclave that begins April 18, said Saturday that allegations of Bergoglio's involvement in the 1976 kidnapping of two Jesuit priests by the military government then in power were [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Saturday granted ex-Kosovo prime minister Ramush Haradinaj provisional release for a short time to enable him to attend his brother’s funeral and post-funeral ceremonies. Enver Haradinaj, a student as Pristina University, was killed in an ambush in western Kosovo Friday in what may have been a drug-related [...]

In an effort to bolster support for UN ambassador nominee John Bolton , the State Department Friday released endorsements and letters of support for Bolton from former secretaries of state, ambassadors and senior government officials. The endorsements come two days after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee decided to delay its vote on his nomination after [...]

Foreign ministers from European Union countries expressed alarm Saturday about growing resistance in France to the proposed European constitution . A new poll released Saturday that was conducted after Thursday's TV pitch by French President Jacques Chirac shows that 56% of French voters plan to vote "No" in a referendum May 29th to decide whether [...]

President Lucio Gutierrez of Ecuador declared a state of emergency in the capital Quito late Friday and dissolved the Ecuador Supreme Court . The drastic measures announced in a surprise national television address came after three days of protests in the streets of Quito, which Gutierrez blames on unpopular Supreme Court judges. Rather than quell [...]

American and British officials have rejected assertions made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the US and UK governments share blame with the UN for oil scandals involving Saddam Hussein's regime. Speaking in New York late this week Annan said that most of the money illegally pocketed by Hussein came from smuggling operations outside [...]