Former Khmer Rouge minister for social affairs Ieng Thirith made her first appearance in court Tuesday at a bail hearing before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) . Thirith was arrested in November 2007 along with her husband, former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary . The couple were subsequently charged with [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled Tuesday that a Virginia law banning certain types of late-term abortions is unconstitutional. In 2005, a panel of judges on the same court declared the law unconstitutional because it lacked an an exception to protect the mother's health, but the US Supreme Court ordered the [...]
Lee Stein and Elizabeth Kruschek : "Last week, the Arizona Court of Appeals held that two school voucher programs created by the Arizona Legislature in 2006 were unconstitutional. Those programs provided scholarships or grants of state money to the parents or guardians of foster children and students with disabilities to allow those children to attend [...]
The US has been unable to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay because it has been stymied by legal and practical questions about what to do with the center's detainees, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday. Gates said that the US has not found a way to [...]
A Guantanamo Bay detainee accused of involvement in the September 11 attacks attempted to commit suicide last month, his lawyer said Tuesday. Mohammad al-Qahtani , a Saudi Arabian citizen known as the "20th hijacker" for his alleged role in 9/11, was reportedly upset about charges brought by the US Department of Defense that could have [...]
The White House played a "significant role" in a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reject California's request for a waiver allowing the state to impose stricter greenhouse gas emissions standards on cars and light duty trucks, a Majority Staff report by the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform suggested Monday. [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Tuesday indicted a Kosovar journalist on contempt of court charges for allegedly revealing the identity of a witness in the war crimes trial of former Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj . Baton Haxhiu was promptly arrested on the charge . Haradinaj was acquitted in April, but [...]
The US House of Representatives Tuesday voted 324-84 to pass a bill which would subject members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to US antitrust law. The bill would authorize the US Department of Justice to file charges against OPEC countries for allegedly restricting oil supplies and colluding to set prices. The bill [...]
Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega Monday asked the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to block his extradition to France, arguing in court filings that extradition would violate his prisoner of war (POW) status. Noriega will remain in a US federal prison until all appeals relating to the extradition request have been exhausted. Ultimately, the [...]
Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Tuesday agreed to pay $58 million to settle lawsuits brought by 29 states and the District of Columbia regarding Merck's allegedly deceptive advertising for the painkiller Vioxx . Under the settlement, Merck agreed to submit all future TV commercials for its drugs to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for [...]
