Massachusetts lawmakers on Wednesday decided to postpone a vote on a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage until after the November election, just days after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the same-sex marriage ban can be placed on the ballot for voter approval , if the legislature approves the amendment. Massachusetts [...]
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday signed a law that shortens the conscription term and wipes out five accepted reasons for military draft deferments. The law, passed by both houses of parliament in June, reduces required military service from two years to one and a half starting in 2007, and then to one year in [...]
Indian authorities have detained approximately 350 people for questioning in connection with Tuesday's Mumbai train bombings , which killed over 200 people and wounded 700. Police Inspector S. Goshal said Thursday that none of the detainees have been formally arrested or charged, but that authorities brought the detainees in to help investigate the Tuesday bombing. [...]
US Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and other leading Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday pushed for legislation authorizing military commissions for terror suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay during a committee hearing on how the government should proceed in bringing terror suspects to justice following the Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. [...]
The US military revealed Wednesday that Saddam Hussein and three of his co-defendants are five days into a hunger strike in protest of trial court procedures and the killings of three of their defense lawyers, which they believe occurred because of inadequate security provided by US forces. Defense lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi, who claims the hunger [...]
Bosnian immigrant Marko Boskic was convicted Wednesday when a US federal jury found that he had failed to reveal his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre while trying to enter the US as a refugee. Boskic was charged in August 2004 with five counts of making false declarations on US immigration applications and in an [...]
US Reps. Christopher Shays (R-CT) and Martin Meehan (D-MA) have filed a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) challenging new rules regarding campaign communications that can be narrow FEC standard of what constitutes "coordination" would permit groups or individuals with economic or political clout to have too strong a voice in elections. Such groups [...]
US District Judge Harold Murphy on Wednesday issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Georgia's voter ID law until a full trial can be held in a challenge brought by civil rights groups . Murphy, the same federal judge who struck down a previous version of the law last year, said that the current law [...]
House Republicans have agreed to hold a vote Thursday on extending provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act for another 25 years, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) announced Wednesday. In June Southern lawmakers unexpectedly balked at two key provisions – one requiring nine mostly Southern states with a history of race-based voter discrimination to seek [...]
British Members of Parliament voted to adjourn the House of Commons early Wednesday in protest against the pending extradition of three British NatWest bankers to the US to face charges in the Enron fraud scandal . During a three-hour debate before the vote, Liberal Democrat shadow Home Secretary MP Nick Clegg criticized Prime Minister Tony [...]
