US military officials said Thursday in testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee that they are confident that Iraq will vote to approve the draft constitution in the upcoming October 15 referendum, but warned that approval is "critically important" to avoid a descent into anarchy. Under Iraq's Transitional Administrative Law , a majority must [...]

US Army Reserve Colonel Janis Karpinski , former US commander of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison , said Friday that the US military has done little to ensure that abuses first exposed by the Abu Ghraib photos are not continuing in US-run facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay . In an interview with BBC's Today [...]

Government officials in the United Kingdom are rethinking plans to enact a new law that would criminalize the act of "glorifying terrorism." In an interview Thursday with BBC's Today program, Prime Minister Tony Blair noted that because the proposed law needed to strike a balance between security and civil rights, it needed to be "very [...]

The International Criminal Court (ICC) will soon issue arrest warrants for leaders of the Uganda rebel group Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) , according to statements from a UN official Thursday. The LRA leaders, who have taken refuge in Congo, have been accused of raping and maiming children over the past two decades. Some diplomats believe [...]

ACLU, et al. v. DOD, et al., Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, United States District Court Southern District of New York, September 29, 2005 . Excerpt: In its most recent discussion of FOIA, the Supreme Court commented that "FOIA is often explained as a means for citizens to know what 'their Government is up to.' The [...]

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Thursday followed through on his promise to veto the gay marriage bill passed by the California Assembly earlier this month. In a veto statement issued late Thursday in Sacramento Schwarzenegger said he supports the current rights and benefits extended to same-sex partners in the state, but that signing the current bill [...]

AP is reporting that New York Times reporter Judith Miller has been released from federal prison after agreeing to testify to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity, according to legal sources. Her time at the Alexandria Detention Facility in Virginia marks the longest any journalist has ever served to protect [...]

Trial preparations commenced Thursday in federal court in Houston for the first federal civil trial involving the Merck-manufactured Vioxx painkiller. Earlier this month, New Orleans-based US District Judge Eldon Fallon, charged with managing the hundreds of federal civil suits involving the withdrawn prescription drug, decided to move the trial from New Orleans to Houston in [...]

The White House said Thursday that President Bush will probably wait until next week to announce his next nominee to the US Supreme Court. Bush was earlier expected to announce his nominee to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor almost immediately after the Senate confirmed John Roberts to be Chief Justice. Because Justice O'Connor's replacement [...]

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously Thursday that provincial governments can pass laws to recover health care costs incurred in taking care of people sickened by smoking. Canadian tobacco companies had challenged the constitutionality of the 1998 Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act which authorized British Columbia to seek damages against the [...]