In Monday's environmental law news, British company JD Wetherspoon , owner of 650 restaurants and pubs, announced that it will be banning smoking in its establishments, with all of them becoming smoke-free by May 2006. The company has been a proponent of non-smoking areas, but has decided to take the action of completely banning smoking [...]
Israel has reportedly begun seizing land in east Jerusalem land owned by Palestinians in the West Bank under a law passed in 1950. The land has been transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property , a body formed by the law, according to documents from Israel's finance and justice ministries. The law allows Israel to [...]
Thousands of abortion opponents marched on Washington Monday, commemorating the 32nd anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade which fell Saturday. In a phone call from Camp David President Bush addressed the March for Life rally, stating that "this movement will not fail." Every anniversary of the January 23 decision prompts demonstrations [...]
Leading Monday's corporations and securities law news, ImClone Systems Inc. has agreed to settle a class-action shareholder lawsuit from 2002 for $75 million. The lawsuit accused the company of making false and misleading statements about a prospective drug. The settlement comes a week after ImClone's former CEO settled an insider trading case with the SEC [...]
Wednesday's scheduled execution of convicted mass murderer Michael Ross was postponed indefinitely Monday by order of District Judge Robert N. Chatigny, so that Chatigny can hear arguments on Ross' mental capacity. Had the execution by lethal injection gone ahead, Ross would have become to first person put to death in New England in 45 years. [...]
Khalil al-Duleimi, an Iraqi lawyer representing ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has gone into hiding after receiving death threats over the last three weeks, Saddam's chief defense attorney Ziad al-Khasawneh announced on Monday. Al-Duleimi, one of 25 attorneys representing Saddam, reportedly told other lawyers on the team about the threats which followed his Dec. 16 [...]
Gannett Company , the nation's largest newspaper publisher, and the New York Times Company , are under investigation by federal antitrust enforcers regarding their plans to acquire rival papers, according to a report Monday by the Wall Street Journal . The Justice Department is specifically investigating Gannett's proposed buyout of HomeTown Communications Network Inc. , [...]
The US Supreme Court Monday issued rulings on the Fourth Amendment in Illinois v. Caballes and on a tax law issue in Commissioner v. Banks. In Caballes, the Court held that a driver stopped for speeding and then subjected to a "dog sniff" that indicated the presence of drugs in a particular location of the [...]
In Monday's international brief, US lawmakers from the House International Relations Subcommittee on Africa who met with Sudanese government officials and displaced Sudanese refugees in Chad over the weekend are expected to announce that they will urge the US Government to push harder for UN sanctions against Sudan . Representatives Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, Diane [...]
Microsoft announced Monday that it has decided not to appeal the landmark December ruling of the European Court of Justice ordering it to immediately implement EU antitrust sanctions that the European Commission imposed in a March 2004 decision . The sanctions order the software giant to create a version of Windows stripped of its music [...]