The GOP-dominated Senate Wednesday pushed ahead proposed bankruptcy overhaul legislation by defeating a series of Democratic amendments that would have sheltered seniors and sick people. Senators voted 59-40 to reject an amendment which would have given older Americans a special exemption which would have allowed them to keep their homes even if they file for [...]

Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund v. US Department of Agriculture, United States District Court for the District of Montana, Judge Richard Cebull, March 2, 2005 . Read the full text of the opinion and order . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The US House of Representatives late Wednesday approved a job-training bill that would allow faith-based organizations which receive federal funds to consider the religious beliefs of prospective employees. The vote on HR 27, the Job Training Improvement Act of 2005 , was 224-200 , largely along party-lines. Under current law, faith-based organizations must obey the [...]

An Indonesian court Thursday found radical cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir guilty of conspiracy to commit the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people. The five-judge panel found that although Ba'asyir was not directly involved in the bombings, he did give his approval for the attack. The panel sentenced Ba'asyir to two and a half [...]

Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Thursday, March 3. The US Senate will convene at 9:30 AM ET today, and it will consider S.J.Res. 4 , expressing disapproval over a Department of Agriculture rule, and S. 256 , the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act [...]

Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2004, International Narcotics Control Board , March 2, 2004 . Excerpt: Despite efforts made by the Government of Afghanistan, with the assistance of the international community, the drug control situation in Afghanistan continued to deteriorate in 2004. Widespread cultivation of opium poppy and the processing of and [...]

Queen v. Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School, Supreme Court of Judicature Court of Appeal , Lord Justice Brooke, March 2, 2005 . Excerpt: All this is for the future, and this case has achieved the result of ensuring that schools will set about deciding issues of this kind in the manner now required [...]

Douglas Berman : "When the Supreme Court declared in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), that the Eighth Amendment prohibited the execution of mentally retarded offenders, the Court punted a number of tough administrative issues when it left to the states "the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction upon its [...]

Momcilo Perisic, a former general and chief of staff of the Yugoslav army under Slobodan Milosevic and later a Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia who pressed for co-operation with international war crimes prosecutors , has decided to turn himself in to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). In a statement released by [...]

US officials announced Wednesday they will no longer require a new UN declaration on women's issues to take an anti-abortion position. The current meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women , held to review progress on women's rights and circumstances ten years after the landmark the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women [...]