Lead contractor Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff has agreed to a $458 million settlement to end an inquiry stemming from a July 10, 2006 ceiling panel collapse in Boston's $15 billion Big Dig tunnel project that killed one person, officials said Wednesday. In July 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the ceiling collapse was most likely [...]
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the state of Missouri cannot deny an anti-abortion group's application for a specialty license plate with an anti-abortion message, holding that the Missouri law that allowed the denial was unconstitutionally vague. Choose Life of Missouri had applied to get specialty license plates with the message "Choose Life," but its [...]
US President George W. Bush issued an executive order Wednesday "reforming how the United States reviews national security concerns that may arise from foreign investments." The executive order is designed to implement the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 , which expands the investigative scope of the Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment [...]
The Canadian government ceased transferring Afghan detainees from Canadian to Afghan custody in November after Canadian monitors in Afghanistan discovered evidence of torture, according to a Canadian Justice Department letter sent this week to two advocacy groups suing the government to halt further transfers. In the letter, made public Wednesday, a Justice Department official wrote: [...]
The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) on Wednesday called the European Union and United Nations' practice of blacklisting terror suspects from interstate travel "completely arbitrary" and urged member states of both organizations to amend their blacklisting practice to "preserve the credibility of the international fight against terrorism." Rapporteur Dick Marty reported that the lists [...]
Marciano Plata, et al., v. Arnold Schwarzenegger, et al., US District Court for the Northern District of California, January 23, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre will not go on trial this year for crimes against humanity, according to an EU official sent to Senegal to advise the court where Habre will be tried . Bruno Cathala, Registrar of the International Criminal Court (ICC) , said Wednesday that the length of time necessary to complete investigations [...]
Addressing a special session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said Wednesday that Israel's policy of collective punishment, disproportionate use of force and targeted killings, coupled with the Palestinian militant practice of indiscriminate firings of bombs and rockets, has led to the current crisis [...]
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the healthcare provided in California prisons does not meet constitutional standards even though medical services have improved significantly since the court assumed oversight of the system in 2005. US District Judge Thelton Henderson of the Northern District of California acknowledged the progress of the current supervisory team, led by [...]
The UK Identity and Passport Service will delay issuing ID cards to British nationals until 2010, according to documents leaked from the UK Home Office . Plans are still underway for foreign nationals living in the UK to be issued biometric visas later this year, while people in "positions of trust," such as security guards, [...]
