The Venezuelan National Assembly (official site in Spanish) Tuesday approved the appointment of 5 replacement judges and 12 new judges to the nation's Supreme Court (official site in Spanish). Opposition members who lacked the votes to block the appointments stormed out of the session. The expansion was authorized by a bill approved in April, and [...]

A Maryland judge has struck down as unconstitutional Maryland's 2002 Commercial Electronic Mail Act , the first state law to punish senders of junk e-mail, commonly known as spam. Judge Durke G. Thompson of the Montgomery County Circuit Court dismissed a case brought against a New York e-mail distribution company by Eric Menhart, a George [...]

KGW-TV is reporting that the Washington state Supreme Court has rejected a bid by state Democrats (read the complaint here ) to include previously rejected absentee and provisional ballots in the hand recount of votes in the WA state governor's race. 1:13 PM ET – In a brief opinion authored by Chief Justice Gerry Alexander, [...]

The US Military Combatant Status Review Tribunal has said that 13 more detainees at Guantanamo Bay are properly being held as "enemy combatants." The US government has taken the position that prisoners classified as enemy combatants are not entitled to the same legal protections as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. The military has [...]

Tyco International said Tuesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered the company to turn over information on its involvement in the UN Oil-for Food program in Iraq. Tyco said the SEC wants information on its participation, "if any," in the UN program, which is the subject of several corruption investigations. AP has more.

Ellen Podgor, Georgia State University College of Law: "According to today's Wall Street Journal article titled Rigas Cable Assets Run By Adelphia May Be Seized we see the government taking a first step to obtaining assets in a case. The government has asked a federal court "to enter a judgment of $2.53 billion against two [...]

The French Council of State, France's highest civil court, has banned the broadcast of Lebanese satellite channel Al-Manar due to the Hezbollah-linked station's airing of militant and anti-Semitic statements. French broadcast regulator CSA granted Al-Manar a license in November on the condition that the station respect French laws against inciting racial or religious violence. Al-Manar [...]

Former Bosnian Croat soldier Miroslav Bralo pleaded not guilty Tuesday to war crimes charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague. Bralo faces nine counts of grave breaches of the Geneva conventions and 12 counts of violating the laws and customs of war for the murder, rape and torture of [...]

The US Justice Department has asked a judge to enter a $2.53 billion judgment against Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and his son Timothy Rigas, also Adelphia's former CFO, according to a report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. The DOJ says that if it receives the judgment, equal to the amount obtained by the Rigases [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union will file a federal suit Tuesday against a Pennsylvania school district for requiring that ninth-grade biology students be instructed in "intelligent design" as an alternative to the theory of evolution. "Intelligent design" suggests that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by some higher intelligent power. [...]