Incoming European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has finalized a new team of commissioners that appeared to put the power transition of the European Union back on track. Most notably, Barroso replaced controversial Justice portfolio nominee Rocco Buttiglione with Franco Frattini, now the Italian Foreign Minister. The new administration was supposed to take office last [...]

Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Friday, Nov. 5. The Cato Institute is holding a briefing on Congressional legislation of computer spyware, featuring Orson Swindle of the Federal Trade Commission. Audio from the briefing is available beginning at 12 PM ET. The US House and Senate [...]

Senior UN official Jan Pronk told the UN Security Council Thursday that unless African Union troops enter the Sudan's Darfur region soon, the entire region might fall into anarchy. Pronk, the UN envoy for Darfur, said that rebels were gaining territory and the whole region may soon see "a total collapse of law and order." [...]

Hollywood studio officials said Thursday that they will begin to file hundreds of lawsuits against individuals who file share pirated movies over the internet. According to MPAA head Dan Glickman, the decision to file lawsuits was not easy, but he hopes a preemptive strike will prevent online file sharing of movies from spinning out of [...]

Daschle v. Thune et al., United States Distrcit Court for the Distrcit of South Dakota, November 2, 2004 . Read the order here .

A man once ranked as the eighth-most prolific spammer in the world by Internet watchdog Spamhaus has been sentenced to nine years in a Virginia prison for sending hundreds of thousands of unwanted e-mail messages. Jeremy Jaynes, the first person indicted under Virginia's felony anti-spam law, had been charged with four counts for sending more [...]

One North Carolina electronic voting machine is thought to have lost more than 4,500 votes, which could affect the result in several local races; election officials have said that the manufacturer, UniLect, told them that each machine could handle 10,500 votes, but the actual storage capacity was closer to 3000 votes. AP has more. Meanwhile, [...]

Senior aides said today that controversial Attorney General John Ashcroft was likely to step down before January's inauguration, citing exhaustion and stress. Possible replacements include Ashcroft's former deputy, Larry Thompson, who would become the first African-American attorney general; Marc Racicot, Bush's campaign manager; and White House general counsel Alberto Gonzales. AP has more.

In the wake of Tuesday's election, which saw 11 states ban gay marriage, two Oklahoma lesbian couples have filed a federal lawsuit challenging both their state's ban and the federal Defense of Marriage act. The plaintiffs–one couple that has cohabited for eight years and another that was joined in a Vermont civil union in 2001–argue [...]

The Republican lawmaker expected to head the Senate Judiciary Committee early next year has issued a stern warning to President Bush against appointing Supreme Court justices who would seek to overturn abortion rights, or who are otherwise too conservative to sit on the high court. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), a moderate Republican who will likely [...]