A federal jury on Wednesday convicted Birmingham, Alabama, Mayor Larry Langford on multiple bribery charges. Langford was accused of directing $7.1 million in bond business to a friend in exchange for money and luxury goods while serving as president of the Jefferson County Commission . Following six days of testimony, the jury deliberated for less [...]
The Paris Court of Appeals on Thursday refused to hear an embezzlement case brought by the anti-corruption group Transparency International (TI) against the late president of Gabon, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the president of Equatorial Guinea. The complaint accused the late Omar Bongo of Gabon, Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the [...]
US President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2010 into law, which allows for Guantanamo Bay detainees to be transferred to the US for prosecution. The bill allocates $42.78 billion for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and, among other provisions, requires certain information about each transferred detainee [...]
The Swiss Federal Counsel on Wednesday announced proposals to restrict the country's assisted suicide laws. The new guidelines will seek to prevent assisted suicide becoming a profit-driven business and to ensure that it is only available to the terminally ill. One of the proposals imposes criminal liability on those who assist unless certain stipulations are [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Christian Henderson of Oxford Brookes University (UK) says that although President Obama has made reforms in a number of areas since taking office last November, he has yet to distinguish his administration's policies on the international use of force from those of the former administration…. There was little doubt that when President [...]
Ten residents of New Haven, Connecticut, filed a lawsuit Wednesday against several US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, alleging violations of the Fourth, Fifth, and Tenth Amendments in planning and carrying out raids in 2007. The suit maintains that the raids, conducted only 36 hours after the city passed a measure that provided ID [...]
US President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law a defense appropriations bill that contains a measure extending the definition of federal hate crimes to include crimes motivated by gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The president hailed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (NDAA) as a law containing long sought [...]
The Hawaii Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the last claim seeking a permanent ban on the sale of lands ceded by the former monarchy. Claims were originally filed by four members of the Native Hawaiians and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) in order to prevent the sale of 1.2 million acres of land. Three [...]
The US House Financial Services Committee voted 49-14 Wednesday to approve new regulations governing investment rating agencies. The Accountability and Transparency in Rating Agencies Act , sponsored by Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) , modifies the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 , giving the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the authority to monitor and punish ratings agencies. [...]
The Kuwaiti Constitutional Court ruled Wednesday that female lawmakers are not required to wear the hijab , or traditional Muslim headscarf. The ruling was in response to a petition brought by four voters seeking to invalidate the election of two of the four women who became the first female members of the Kuwaiti National Assembly [...]
