The Parliament of New South Wales passed laws in an emergency session Thursday allowing Sydney police to "lockdown" parts of the city if necessary in order to stop racial unrest. The new legislation also increases jail sentences for rioting and affray and expands police power, providing the authority to stop and search people and vehicles, [...]

AP is reporting that the White House has agreed to accept the McCain Amendment that would ban the cruel and inhumane treatment of terror detainees, according to congressional officials. The White House has previously threatened to veto any legislation to which the amendment was attached and called for an exemption for CIA operatives. 2:36 PM [...]

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit brought by an Idaho county against local employers who allegedly hired illegal immigrants which sought to recover medical, school and other costs the county said it spent on the workers. Canyon County sued four businesses and the director of the nonprofit Idaho Migrant Council under [...]

UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari told the UN Security Council Wednesday that the human rights situation in Iraq requires urgent action . Gambari expressed concern over the "increasingly disturbing reports" of abuses occurring in Iraqi detention facilities. US forces first discovered 173 badly malnourished, beaten and possibly tortured detainees in November, and earlier [...]

The US House committee investigating the government's actions in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina issued a subpoena Wednesday commanding Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to turn over internal records on the Pentagon's efforts to stabilize public safety, mobilize active duty forces in the region and send supplies to victims. The subpoena was issued due to the [...]

Officials from the US Department of Defense have said that they will review its TALON program , which gathers information about potential threats to military facilities, after an NBC News report disclosed that the database also includes information on peace protesters and others whose shouldn't have been in the database. Officials said that the Pentagon [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Wendy J. Keefer, former senior counsel and chief of staff in the US Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy and now with Bancroft Associates in Washington DC, says that the US Senate should join the House in quickly approving reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act to secure both public safety [...]

The US House of Representatives late Wednesday voted 308-122 in support of the so-called McCain Amendment , designed to prohibit the cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees in US custody. The non-binding vote instructs negotiators working to finalize the 2006 military spending bill, to which the amendment is attached, to include the amendment in [...]

After the US House voted to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act Wednesday, Senate Republican leaders are working to prevent the renewal from being blocked by a bipartisan group of senators that is concerned that the reauthorization measure gives too much power to the government without adequate safeguards. The reauthorization bill could face a filibuster in [...]

Iraqis voted Thursday in Iraq's parliamentary elections to choose their first full-term parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. There was large voter turnout reported in Sunni Arab areas that had been disinterested in balloting last January, including in several insurgent strongholds such as Ramadi and Haqlaniyah. Sunni Arabs are hoping to end Shiite [...]