[JURIST] New laws took effect in many US states Sunday with the start of the fiscal year on July 1, including a law in Virginia [JURIST news archive] that requires convicted sex offenders to register e-mail addresses with the state, a law in California [JURIST news archive] that bans the sales of soda in schools, and a law in Colorado [JURIST news archive] that will ban abstinence-only sex education in all schools, except for one district.

Mobile home owners in Indiana [JURIST news archive] will now be required to have weather radio after a 2005 tornado in the southwest corner of the state killed dozens of people in a mobile home park. A new law taking effect in Kansas [JURIST news archive] declares English as the state's official language [AP report]. Laws in Nevada and Minnesota will encourage alternative energy and laws in Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania will bring higher minimum wages [JURIST news archives]. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] UK police arrested a fifth suspect [press release] near Glasgow International Airport [official website] Sunday in connection with three terror incidents over the weekend. On Saturday, a flaming Jeep crashed [Sky News report] into the front entrance of the Glasgow air terminal. On Friday, police foiled two car bomb plots [press statement and recorded video] in central London. Scotland Yard [official website] arrested two people early Sunday on a major highway in northern England. Another person was captured overnight in Liverpool. The other two men were arrested in Scotland following the airport crash.

Four suspects are in police custody. The fifth was badly burned in the crash and is now under guard in a hospital. Officials believe the attacks were linked. Lord John Stevens [official profile], former chief of the London Metropolitan Police and now new Prime Minister Gordon Brown's [official profile] terrorism adviser, said the two attacks in Britain indicate that "al Qaida has imported the tactics of Baghdad and Bali to the streets of the UK." Britain raised its terror alert level [MI5 press release] Saturday to critical, the highest level possible. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Israeli Supreme Court [official website] put President Moshe Katsav's plea agreement on hold for 24 hours Sunday to entertain a legal challenge by a Israeli civil rights group Movement for Quality Government in Israel [advocacy website]. Katsav [official website; JURIST news archive] signed the plea agreement [JURIST report] with prosecutors last week, under which he will admit to charges of indecent assault, sexual harassment, and obstruction of justice, and will resign from the presidency, in exchange for a suspended sentence and the dropping of rape charges [JURIST report] brought by a former employee.

In October 2006 Israeli police recommended [JURIST report] that the Israeli attorney general indict Katsav following a three-month investigation of at least 10 complaints against him brought by former employees. The plea agreement, announced by Attorney General Menahem Mazuz [official profile] last week, was criticized by women's right activists as special treatment, but Mazuz defended the agreement as necessary to protect the office of the presidency from further injury and spare the country from embarrassment. AP has more.