Speaking as part of a panel on the independence of the judiciary at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association Tuesday, US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said that controversial rulings on divisive issues like the rights of homosexuals and capital punishment have created a surge in political reaction that is threatening the independence [...]

Former WorldCom accounting director Buford Yates was sentenced to a year and a day in prison on Tuesday for his role in the company's billion-dollar business fraud. In 2002 Yates pleaded guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to conspiracy and securities fraud charges for his part in a scheme to defraud investors by falsifying WorldCom's financial [...]

A three-judge panel of the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned the convictions and sentences of five accused Cuban spies Tuesday, ruling that their trial in Miami was biased due to community prejudice and extensive media coverage. Ringleader Gerardo Hernandez's murder conspiracy conviction was also overturned. Hernandez was convicted for his role [...]

New Saudi King Abdullah has pardoned four activists jailed after criticizing the strict religious environment and the slow pace of democratic reform in Saudi Arabia. In June, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had called for the release of Ali al-Demaini, Abdullah al-Hamed and Matruk al-Faleh, but had been rebuffed. University Professor Saeed bin Mubarak [...]

Leading Tuesday's states brief, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today refused to block the implementation of Arizona's Proposition 200 , which denies some state public benefits to illegal immigrants and makes it a crime for public employees to fail to report undocumented immigrants who seek benefits outlined in the legislation. The panel said [...]

Britain's Home Office said Tuesday that the UK government is considering a move to special judge-only courts hearing in-camera evidence argued by security-cleared "special advocates" after reports surfaced that secret pre-trial terror hearings could be in the works. The Home Office said that no specific model was being examined, but a Guardian report claims that [...]

In addition to the deals currently being finalized between the United States and the governments of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, the US is negotiating with 10 more Muslim countries to return their citizens held at Guantanamo Bay , the Washington Post reported Tuesday. The goal of the plan is to expedite detainee transfers and [...]

In a clash of opposing viewpoints, a group of strongly conservative Iraqi women Tuesday confronted a sit-in by their liberal counterparts in Baghdad's Firdous Square as the August 15 deadline for the country's constitution nears. The liberal secularists were passing out leaflets and calling on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others to press for female [...]

The Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday proposed new radiation exposure limits for the Yucca Mountain waste dump project with the goal of ensuring a safe public site for hundreds of thousands of years. The proposal is intended to satisfy a July 2004 court decision that rejected the EPA's plans to protect against radiation for 10,000 years [...]

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales addressed lawyers attending the annual meeting of the American Bar Association Monday, arguing for support of several controversial legal issues on the Bush administration's agenda. Gonzales urged the group to endorse Supreme Court nominee John Roberts as strongly as it had when Bush named him to a federal appeals court [...]