Belarus newspaper Zgoda has been criminally charged for reprinting cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad that have sparked violent protests across the Muslim world. The Belarus State Security Committee , still known as the KGB, has cited Zgoda for breach of Part 1, Article 130 of the Belarussian Criminal Code, which prohibits the incitement of 'racial, [...]

The Spanish National Court (Audiencia Nacional) has taken jurisdiction over a case investigating Guatemalan officers accused of genocide and torture during the civil unrest from 1978 to 1986. The allegations were made 1999 by Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu , who felt she could not get justice for the atrocities committed during Guatemalan [...]

Perfect 10 v. Google, United States District Court, Central District of California, February 22, 2006 . Read the text of the order . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Command's Responsibility: Detainee Deaths in US Custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, Human Rights First, February 22, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) released a report on Wednesday that criticizes the new federal bankruptcy law enacted in October 2005, saying the new law does little to stop abuses of the bankruptcy system and has just placed unnecessary hurdles in front of people with legitimate reasons to file for bankruptcy. The [...]

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has rejected a 7-year-old ban in New Jersey on the use of local roads by large rigs travelling interstate because it violates the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution. The emergency regulation, originally adopted in 1999 , prohibited double-trailer trucks and many [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Holmes v. South Carolina , a case in which it will decide whether state courts can preclude defendants from presenting evidence that inculpates others for their crimes in capital trials. Holmes, who allegedly beat, robbed, raped, and murdered 86-year-old Mary Stewart, attempted to present evidence that [...]

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced Wednesday that one of the five NTP patents that a court found was infringed upon by Research In Motion's (RIM) , manufacturer of the BlackBerry wireless device, has been found invalid on final review . NTP successfully sued RIM in November of 2002 on claims that the [...]

New Jersey is launching legal actions in federal and state court to keep a company from the United Arab Emirates from taking over US port operations in the state, Gov. Jon Corzine said Tuesday. Corzine said the New Jersey attorney general will file a complaint in federal district court while the Port Authority of New [...]

Pennsylvania's Dover Area School District has agreed to pay $1 million in plaintiff's attorneys' fees after a federal district court found that the school district's inclusion of intelligent design theory in its high school biology curriculum was unconstitutional. In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District , US District Judge John E. Jones ruled that teaching [...]