Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales faced almost six hours of Senate grilling Thursday during his portion of a day-long confirmation hearing that was by turns effusive, gruff, and scathing. Democratic Senators challenged the nominee on his handling of a wide range of legal issues as White House Counsel and counsel to then-Texas governor George W. [...]

A US bankruptcy judge in Texas Thursday set February 16 as the start date for two days of oral arguments on the dismissal of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing made in December by Russian oil firm Yukos in a last-ditch bid to avoid Russian government auction of its assets to satisfy unpaid tax bills. Russian [...]

In a highly unusual move, ten former WorldCom (now MCI) directors have agreed to pay $18 million of a $54 million class-action settlement from their own pockets. The agreement is part of a settlement reached Wednesday with plaintiffs led by the New York State Common Retirement Fund who lost billions in the accounting fraud scandal [...]

UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland Thursday appealed to warring groups in the tsunami affected areas of South Asia to respect ceasefires, suspend their conflicts and stop reported acts of "banditry" that in a few instances he said have involved violence, attempted kidnapping and the hijacking of relief assets. Egeland observed that the [...]

Following up on a report this morning in JURIST's Paper Chase, Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate have halted Congress' formal certification of the electoral college results and have forced a two-hour debate on problems encountered in the Ohio presidential vote after a challenge. This is only the second time since 1877 that such [...]

Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi announced Thursday that he has extended for a further 30 days the country's emergency law approved in July but only implemented in November. The extension carries the National Safety Law – authorizing the imposition of curfews, the closing of borders and airports and the detention of suspected insurgents without [...]

Peter Tillers, Cardozo Law School: "Dear Senator Brownback: The department that the U.S. Attorney General heads is called the 'Department of Justice,' and not the 'Department of Security.'… Senator Brownback said that the first priority of the Attorney General is protection of the security of the United States. The Attorney General is in part a [...]

Lawyers for suspected "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla have asked a South Carolina federal judge to hear their claim for a writ of habeas corpus or release Padilla, currently being held in the US Naval Weapons Station brig in Charleston. A brief filed Wednesday said that the claims made against Padilla, who has been held for [...]

AP is reporting that the Ukrainian Supreme Court has rejected losing presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych's appeal of last month's presidential revote. 12:45 PM ET – BBC News now has a full story here.

Anthony D'Amato, Northwestern University Law School: "Although the N.Y. Times and Washington Post have been admirably accurate in reporting the standard legal issues, they have overlooked the single most telling point in the debate about Gonzales, perhaps because of its subtlety. We start by observing that whenever the Department of Justice gives any legal advice [...]