The US Supreme Court announced Friday that it would hear an appeal brought by the Chicago-based accounting firm Arthur Andersen, previously convicted for obstruction of justice by destroying documents related to the fall of the Enron Corp. Andersen was convicted by a federal jury in June 2002 and was sentenced to a $500,000 fine and [...]

Following up on a report this morning in JURIST's Paper Chase, jury selection came to a close Friday after the seating of a 10-man jury in the military trial of Spc. Charles Graner, named by prosecutors as the ringleader of the alleged prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. The jury, consisting of four officers and [...]

Reuters is reporting that a US bankruptcy judge has rejected a United Airlines labor deal with pilots which would have saved the struggling airline some $180M per year. The pilots union ratified the deal only yesterday by a vote of 76.8 percent to 23.1 percent. Labor groups has critized the agreement because it imposed a [...]

The Sri Lankan government, concerned at reports of abduction and trafficking of children in the wake of the December 26 tsunami disaster that killed over 30,000 in Sri Lanka alone, has announced that adoption of children is illegal until further notice. A government spokesman made the announcement after a cabinet meeting in the capital, Columbo. [...]

Military prosecutors late Thursday dropped adultery and obstruction of justice charges against US Army Spc. Charles Graner on the eve of Friday's start of jury selection in his court-martial trial in connection with abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. In photos that precipitated an international scandal when they were released early [...]

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania; official website here) said Friday that he expected White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to be approved by his Committee and confirmed in the wake of Thursday's seven-hour hearing on his nomination for the post of US Attorney General. As reported yesterday in JURIST's Paper Chase, Gonzales was subjected [...]

Israeli authorities Friday arrested independent Palestinian presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti, a distant relative of imprisoned militant and withdrawn presidential contender Marwan Barghouti, as he tried to attend prayers at the El Aksa Mosque in East Jerusalem. He was later taken a checkpoint outside the city limits and released. Mustafa Braghouti is one of seven candidates [...]

John Bolton (official biography here), the US Under-Secretary of State who led the US campaign against the establishment of the International Criminal Court (see a representative speech by Bolton here) and later helped negotiate a series of controversial bilateral agreements with countries around the world that would exempt American personnel from its jurisdiction, is planning [...]

An alleged member of the Ku Klux Klan was arrested in Mississippi Thursday after being indicted by a grand jury for the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers that later inspired the movie "Mississippi Burning". The accused, Edgar Ray Killen is a now-80 year-old Baptist minister and one of eighteen individuals who stood trial [...]

The Washingston state governor's race went back to court Thursday as voters filed two challenges to the recount results which gave Democratic Christine Gregoire a victory over Republican Dino Rossi by a margin of 129 votes out of 2.9 million ballots cast (official recount results from the WA Secretary of State here). The state Republican [...]