US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has said that privacy concerns over the new Secure Flight passenger screening program are overstated. Speaking Tuesday with USA Today editors, he observed: The average American gives information up to get a CVS card that is far more in-depth than TSA's going to be looking at… Would [...]

A federal judge set a trial date for early next year in the case of two Albany men accused of money laundering and supporting terrorism. Yassin Aref, 35, is imam at the Masjid as-Salam mosque in Albany and Mohammed Hossain, 50, a mosque founder who owns a restaurant, was freed on bail in August last [...]

The Serb minority in Kosovo Wednesday objected to a self-rule plan proposed by the province's Albanian leaders, asking for more concessions. The Serbs are demanding decentralized power and bigger self-governing areas in what is now a UN protectorate . One Serb leader called the latest plan "improved compared to the original version, but insufficiently compared [...]

In a joint statement issued Wednesday, Unocal and Chevron announced early results from a vote of a majority of Unocal shareholders that favored acceptance of a Chevron offer of $69 per share. The approval of the nearly $18 billion purchase comes after months of negotiations and contentious competition from China National Offshore Oil Company Ltd. [...]

The wife and son of former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet were charged Wednesday as accomplices in a tax fraud case related to accusations that Pinochet hid millions of dollars in overseas accounts, including some in the US . In June, Pinochet was stripped of immunity so that he could face tax evasion charges and [...]

The state of South Dakota has appealed to the US Supreme Court over a ruling in a voting rights case involving American Indian voters filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. . The dispute centers around whether the state must seek a clearance from the Justice Department for new redistricting plans in portions of South [...]

Citing national security concerns, the US Justice Department has asked a federal district court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a Canadian man who claims he was deported to Syria and tortured. Maher Arar , born in Syria and a citizen of Canada as well, was detained at JFK Airport in New York City in [...]

In the wake of a US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision Tuesday in which the convictions and sentences of five accused Cuban spies were overturned , the Cuban government has called for the release of all five men. On Wednesday, Ricardo Alarcon, the speaker of the National Assembly in Cuba, praised the ruling and [...]

President Bush signed a 6-year, $286.4 billion highway bill on Wednesday, ending a long debate between Congress and the White House and putting into place a permanent highway bill for the first time since September 2003. The old bill was extended six times as both sides debated spending amounts and special projects; the Senate originally [...]

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled that Parmalat can proceed with its lawsuit against Bank of America though he dismissed most of the Italian dairy company's claims. Kaplan granted Bank of America's motion to dismiss for 10 of the 12 claims put forth [...]