US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Wednesday promised that long-awaited legislation to establish a $140 billion compensation fund for asbestos victims would top the Senate agenda when it reconvenes in January. Frist said there would be "no more delay," on the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 2005 , which was co-sponsored by [...]

Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward disclosed Wednesday that he testified earlier this week before a federal grand jury that he was told the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame several weeks before her identity was published, evidence that prosecutors are continuing to investigate the leak of Plame's identity. Woodward's statement comes more than two weeks [...]

The US government has again refused a UN demand to have unconditional access for inspectors to Guantanamo Bay detainees. A State Department spokesman said Tuesday that the US would allow inspections, but that it would not agree to unfettered access for representatives from the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture during a visit scheduled for Dec. [...]

The US Department of Defense has delayed the release of a new US Army manual on interrogation of detainees aimed at eliminating harsh procedures that came to light at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The manual was scheduled to be released Wednesday, and sources said the delay in release was "open-ended." Pentagon officials said that [...]

Leading Wednesday's environmental law news, the European Commission has agreed to amend the draft version of the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals Act (REACH) to limit some of the chemicals that would have to be tested when produced in, or imported to, the EU in small quantities. REACH is scheduled for a vote in [...]

An Iranian appeals court has upheld the acquittal of the intelligence agent who was accused of murdering Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi , lawyers said Wednesday. Kazemi died in 2003, while being detained for photographing a demonstration outside a Tehran prison; evidence of torture and rape surfaced after her death . Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, the [...]

Legislators on Wednesday reached a tentative compromise on the USA Patriot Act and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005 that would limit certain law enforcement powers under the statute while making most of the provisions permanent. Following the deal reached by the conference committee, Republican leaders pushed for a vote on the bill on Thursday [...]

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday said in a Senate speech that he has "significant concerns" about US Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito , who Reid said was one of the most conservative judges in the country. Reid said that recent reports about an anti-abortion statement made by Alito while serving in the Department [...]

A German court has charged three Iraqi German residents with conspiring to kill former Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and membership in a terrorist organization, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday. German authorities arrested all three the morning of December 3, 2004, the day they planned to attack Allawi while he attended an event at a [...]

The UN's World Summit on the Information Society opened Wednesday in Tunisia as participants reached an 11th-hour agreement on a draft declaration which will leave the US-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in charge of overseeing the main computers that control Internet traffic. Pakistan and other countries had called for the UN [...]