United States v. Ameline, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, June 1, 2005 . Read the full text of the opinion here . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

AP is reporting that President Bush intends to nominate Congressman Christopher Cox (R-CA) as the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to Republican officials. Current SEC Chairman William Donaldson announced earlier Wednesday that he would be stepping down effective June 30 .

HB 1041, Women's Health Care, signed into law by Florida Governor Jeb Bush on May 31, 2005 . Read the full text of the bill here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

AFL-CIO v. Chao, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, May 31, 2005 . Excerpt: Because section 208 limits the Secretary's authority to promulgate rules requiring financial reporting to what she determines is "necessary to prevent" circumvention or evasion of a union's Title II reporting requirements, we hold that to the [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that federal inmates in western states within its jurisdiction may challenge their sentences. The case, United States v. Ameline , follows the US Supreme Court ruling earlier this year in United States v. Booker where the high court ruled that federal judges were not [...]

Chile's National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture, known familiarly as the Valech Commission, released a new report Wednesday indicating that children under the age of 12 were tortured during the rule of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet . The commission was created in 2003 to gather testimony of persons imprisoned and tortured under [...]

A lawyer for Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks said Wednesday that he has secured opinions from several international lawyers concluding that the US government's terror-related charges against Hicks have no foundation in international law. Hicks, whose trial before a US military commission has been suspended pending the outcome of a process appeal by another [...]

US District Judge Tom S. Lee ruled Wednesday that Mississippi's law restricting abortions performed after the first-trimester violates the Fourteenth Amendment. The Jackson Women's Health Organization challenged a July 1, 2004 amendment to Mississippi Code § 41-75-1 that required abortions after the first trimester be performed in a licensed hospital or ambulatory surgical facility. The [...]

A day after President Bush dismissed as "absurd" an Amnesty International rights report condemning the US for ill-treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other facilities, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Wednesday defended the US military's handling of Gitmo detainees, calling the AI report "reprehensible" but acknowledging that some prisoners have been "grievously" mistreated. [...]

An Italian court has sent five members of left-wing extremist group the Red Brigades to prison for life for involvement in the 2002 murder of Marco Biagi , an economic advisor to the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi . In addition to their sentences the five were ordered to pay Biagi's family $2 million [...]