Minority voters in the United States still face unfair poll tactics and barriers that disenfranchise them, according to a major study released Tuesday by the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act , a project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law . The group intends to use the report to lobby Congress [...]

The US Supreme Court issued two decisions Tuesday, including a ruling in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal , 04-1084, in which the Court held that a church congregation could use hallucinogenic tea as part of a religious ceremony to connect with God. In a unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice John [...]

Liberian and UN officials on Monday inaugurated a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights abuses during the country's war-torn rule from 1979-2003. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf presided over the swearing-in of the nine commission members, and she called the commission an opportunity to "bring forth a unifying narrative." The commission, modeled after [...]

An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan on Tuesday sentenced to death eleven members of Jund Allah, an Islam group linked to al Qaeda , after they were convicted of killing ten people in an attack on a convoy escorting Pakistani Lieutenant General Ahsan Saleem Hayat in June 2004. Hayat escaped unharmed, but six soldiers and four [...]

Jacques Bernard, head of Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council , has fled the country in fear of his life two weeks after heavily disputed elections returned President Rene Preval to office. Preval opponents threatened Bernard's life and burned down and looted his farmhouse over the weekend. Bernard is reported to have left the country on Sunday, [...]

MSNBC is reporting that the US Supreme Court has agreed to consider a case concerning the constitutionality of the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act . The Bush administration in September appealed to the Supreme Court a ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The appeals court ruling upheld a Nebraska [...]

New York Gov. George Pataki and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich have threatened to take legal steps to block an Arab company's takeover of operations in several major US ports. The governors cite security concerns associated with the acquisition that will leave Dubai Ports World in control of port operations in Baltimore, Miami, New Jersey, New [...]

Leading Tuesday's international brief, Sudan has issued a formal protest to the UN Envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk over his lobbying for a UN peacekeeping force in the Darfur region , and has rejected the growing call for the African Union to hand over control of the current peacekeeping mission to a fully international force. [...]

The execution of Michael Angelo Morales , scheduled to take place just after midnight Tuesday morning, was delayed after the two anesthesiologists on hand to ensure that Morales would not suffer excessive pain during the process refused to participate due to ethical concerns. Morales, convicted in 1983 of murdering a 17 year old girl, had [...]

The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is set to sign an agreement with the Italian Culture Ministry in Rome Tuesday under which the museum will return several pieces of looted Hellenistic art in exchange for Italy loaning it other works of "equal beauty and importance." Under a 1939 Italian law, all archaeological property excavated [...]