The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) has filed two federal lawsuits challenging laws in Maryland and Suffolk County, New York designed to push large retail stores such as Wal-Mart to spend more money on employee health care. The Maryland law requires companies with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent on employee [...]

Lawyers for naturalized American citizen Shawqi Ahmad Omar, who has been detained in Iraq for over a year, have asked a federal judge to intervene in the case and prevent Omar's transfer to Iraqi custody. US Justice Department officials say that Omar, who they believe is a close associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , was [...]

British pharmaceutical company Chiron has announced that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ended its investigation of the company, which was related to Chiron's failure to supply sufficient flu vaccines in October 2004. The inability to deliver an adequate vaccine supply was due to UK regulators shutting down a Chiron-run vaccine manufacturing facility [...]

Leaders of the Ulama Council, Afghanistan's top Islamic authority, appealed Wednesday for an end to violent protests against the publication of Muhammad caricatures in European newspapers, but the call came too late to stop hundreds rioting outside a US forward operations base in the southern Afghan city of Qalat. Four protestors were killed when police [...]

More than 4,500 occupants of hotel rooms provided by the government to those affected by the Hurricane Katrina disaster were ordered to leave Tuesday as the Federal Emergency Management Agency began to end its hotel accommodation program . According to FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney, occupants of 20,000 other government-paid hotel rooms were given extensions by [...]

The appellate chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Wednesday upheld a trial chamber acquittal of two high-ranking government officials accused of genocide and massive crimes against humanity during the 1994 crisis. Former Transport Minister Andre Ntagerura and former provincial Governor Emmanuel Bagambiki had been tried by the ICTR trial chamber and [...]

The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (OPC) has issued a new report showing an increase in neo-Nazi violence, with nearly three attacks related to right-wing extremism occurring daily in Germany. Many of the radical groups hire new members at 'skinhead' concerts. To date, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior has [...]

The UN Security Council on Tuesday imposed 12-month sanctions on three Ivorian peace opponents. Ble Goude, Eugene Djue, and rebel commander Fofie Kouakou will have their assets frozen and restrictions placed on their travel. Goude and Djue are militant youth leaders who support Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo . They have participated in beatings, rapes [...]

Leading Wednesday's international brief, soldiers of the Royal Nepalese Army fired indiscriminately into a crowd of protesters who were urging citizens to boycott the municipal elections held throughout Nepal, the first elections in seven years. The weapons-fire killed one man and injured another, causing the crowd to scatter as more troops were brought out. The [...]

Lawyers for two detainees being held at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay say that over half of the terror suspects being held there are not alleged to have committed terrorist acts against the US or its allies or even to be members of terrorist organizations. Their findings appear in a report released Tuesday [...]