The USDA Forest Service said Tuesday it hopes to salvage a Bush administration initiative to ease logging restrictions in the Northwest by correcting problems cited by federal judge Marsha Pechman. On Monday, Pechman struck down an administration proposal to use data provided by state officials in Washington, Oregon and California in determining whether to allow [...]

US Supreme Court nominee John Roberts promised Tuesday to adhere to established rulings if given the opportunity to serve on the highest court. In his 84-page response to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, Roberts wrote that the role of judges is limited and does not include solving "society's problems," though Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL [...]

Leading Tuesday's corporations and securities law news, a federal appeals court has upheld a lower court decision against Canadian Research in Motion Ltd. , the company that produces the popular BlackBerry e-mail pagers. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the trial court was correct in determining that Research in Motion [...]

US-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), signed into law by President Bush on August 2, 2005 . Read the full text of the law here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chasehere.

New US UN ambassador John Bolton met with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Tuesday to present his credentials and deliver his letter of appointment by President Bush . Bolton is known for his blunt style, his entrenched opposition to the UN-supported International Criminal Court , and a 1994 speech during which he said there is "no [...]

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales marked the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 Tuesday by saying that the Bush administration is working to extend parts of the act which will expire in 2007 . The Voting Rights Act was originally passed to give African-Americans the right to vote and includes provisions that [...]

President Bush Tuesday signed the US-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) into law, making it the first official trade pact between the US and Central America. CAFTA will end tariffs against US products in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Honduras, and ensures those countries duty-free access to the US. Bush [...]

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce on Tuesday agreed to a $2.4 billion settlement over a class-action lawsuit with investors in collapsed energy giant Enron Corp. The settlement is the largest yet, beating the $2.2 billion settlement with JP Morgan Chase and the $2 billion paid by Citigroup to Enron investors . Reuters has more.

Leading Tuesday's states brief, Alabama Governor Bob Riley signed legislation today that creates a mandatory sentence of at least 20 years to life for people convicted of certain sex crimes against children 12 and younger, and allows those offenders to be tracked by Global Positioning System technology for at least 10 years after serving their [...]

Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga asked Sri Lanka's Supreme Court on Tuesday to decide when the next presidential election should be, in an effort to counter increasingly strong opposition calls for a vote this year. The top political parties in Sri Lanka cannot meet a compromise on the timing of the next poll, with main [...]