The NAACP , the largest civil rights organization in the United States, has picked Bruce Gordon, formerly an executive with Verizon , to succeed Kweisi Mfume as its leader. An official announcement is expected after he is confirmed on June 25. Gordon will become the first NAACP president since 1975 who is not a politician [...]

Judge Salem Mahmud Haj Ali was shot to death on Thursday in Mosul along with his driver. He was in charge of a court division in the northern Iraqi city, and is the third judge to be killed in Mosul since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Nationwide, more than a dozen Iraqi judges [...]

The Task Force on the United Nations , a bipartisan group created by the US Congress in December 2004, released a report Wednesday calling for significant changes in the UN, a number of which echo proposals advanced by the world body itself . The recommendations include restructuring leadership positions and powers, creating an oversight board [...]

Executive Michael R. Wilson joined UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday in denying that the two had met and discussed an oil contract as suggested in company memo made public earlier this week. The memo said "We had brief discussions with the SG and his entourage. Their collective advice was that we should respond as [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled Wednesday that Duke Energy's challenged construction practices did not violate the Clean Air Act's New Source Rules . The government and several organizations, including the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense , had sued Duke Energy , one of the nation's largest electric utilities, alleging that [...]

After a meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit in Cairo, International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo told reporters Wednesday that the court will support Sudan in any genuine effort to prosecute suspects in the Darfur uprising. The Sudanese government announced the creation of a domestic tribunal last week, with proceedings scheduled to [...]

Leading Wednesday's corporations and securities law news, Bristol-Myers Squib has reached a $300 million settlement with the federal government over securities fraud. US Attorney for the district of New Jersey Christopher Christie announced the settlement today, and also announced that two former employees, former Chief Financial Officer Frederick Schiff and the former head of Bristol-Myers [...]

Despite the looming threat of a Presidential veto , the US House of Representatives voted 238-187 late Wednesday to approve the so-called Sanders Freedom to Read Amendment limiting a section of the USA Patriot Act giving the FBI and Justice Department power to search public library records and book store sales without a search warrant. [...]

Leading Wednesday's states brief, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled today that the town of Greenwich must release its computer database of aerial photographs and maps to the public. The Supreme Court rejected the town's argument that the records were exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act because the release of detailed information [...]

The Mexican Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that former president Luis Echeverria can be prosecuted for the deaths of student demonstrators killed in 1971. A panel of judges voted 3-2 to allow Echeverria and his former interior minister to face prosecution after noting that the 30-year statute of limitations began to run in 1976 when Echeverria's [...]