Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Saturday issued a decree officially delaying the scheduled July 17 parliamentary elections in the Palestinian Authority to allow time to settle a disagreement over election law changes. Holding up the vote is a dispute over the method for picking candidates. The delay is likely to please Abbas' Fatah party , currently [...]

In a State Department human trafficking report released Friday the US accused 14 nations of failing to adequately stop the flow of slaves traded into prostitution, child sex work, and forced labor. According to the State Department, as many as 800,000 people are purchased and sold annually, many because of false promises of better work [...]

After jurors in the trial of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy told Judge Karon Bowdre Friday that they were unable to reach a verdict, Bowdre told them to continue deliberating, stressing the time and expense invested by the government to try the case. Prosecutor Richard Smith dispelled any rumors of a possible settlement, even with [...]

A panel of the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Friday struck down a Virginia law prohibiting a controversial late-term partial-birth abortion procedure, finding it unconstitutional because it lacks an exception to protect a woman's health. The 2-1 decision upheld a 2003 ruling finding the law "unconstitutional on its face." In a pointed dissent Judge [...]

Saddam Hussein's morale has dropped due to the the magnitude of the charges against him and the fact that his trial will be before an impartial court, according to Judge Raid Juhi of the Iraqi Special Tribunal , speaking in an interview published Saturday in the London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat . Juhi said that Saddam [...]

The Navajo Nation's Tribal Council voted Friday to override Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr.'s veto of a same-sex marriage ban it approved last month for the UnitedS States' largest Indian reservation. The Dine Marriage Act of 2005 defined marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. The vote on the veto override was [...]

Italian prosecutors have appealed the 2004 acquittal of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on charges that he bribed judges to block competing industrialist Carlo De Benedetti from buying a state-owned food conglomerate. In 1985, judges stopped the sale and the food group eventually ended up being partitioned and sold in pieces. In Italy, both acquittals [...]

Former FBI No. 2 W. Mark Felt , also known as "Deep Throat", is not likely to be prosecuted for revealing information to reporters during the Watergate scandal according to US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, speaking Friday. Felt's identity was revealed earlier this week in a Vanity Fair article, but the incident occurred 30 years [...]

Koran Inquiry: Description of Incidents, US Southern Command, June 3, 2005 . Excerpt: During an interrogation in FEB 02, a detainee complained that guards at Camp X-ray kicked the Koran of a detainee in a neighboring cell four to five days earlier.The interrogator reported the first detainee's complaint in a memorandum dated 27 FEB 02. [...]

Montoy, et al., v. Kansas, et al., Supreme Court of the State of Kansas, June 3, 2005 . Excerpt: The initial attractiveness of the Board's suggestion that we accept H.B. 2247 as an interim step toward a full remedy pales in light of the compelling arguments of immediate need made by the plaintiffs and amici [...]