Arkansas Circuit Judge Timothy Fox Wednesday declared that a state ban on placing foster children in a household with a gay member was unconstitutional. The Arkansas chapter of the ACLU brought the case, challenging a 1999 regulation that stated that gays cannot become foster parents, and foster children cannot be placed in any home with [...]

Republican Dino Rossi has asked Democrat Christine Gregoire to join him in asking the Washington state legislature to pass a bill allowing a re-vote in the close Washington governor's race, awarded to Gregoire by 128 votes after two state Supreme Court rulings on manual recounts and disputed ballots. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has more.

A survey of US lawyers and legal scholars released Wednesday by Thomson-West legal publishers listed the presidential election, Iraq and gay marriage as the top legal news stories of 2004. The election was picked for its impact on federal judicial appointments, Iraq for the multiplicity of international and national legal issues raised by the situation [...]

Israeli prosecutors Wednesday charged four antiquities collectors with forgery and receiving fraudulent goods, alleging they had passed off ordinary items as biblical relics to unsuspecting consumers and modified items with some historic value by adding inscriptions. The objects include the notorious James ossuary, purported to have held the remains of Jesus' brother and controversially exhibited [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Tuesday upheld a lower court holding that internet telephone service providers should not be subject to state regulation. VoIP (voice-over-internet) providers, such as Vonage had argued against Minnesota's classification of their services as "telecommunications", saying that they merely provide the software to recieve calls via an [...]

The Montana Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Democratic candidate Jeanne Windham was the winner of a contested seat in the Montana House of Representatives. After a recount revealed both Windham and her Constitution Party opponent Rick Jore received 1,559 votes, Governor Judy Martz was charged with the duty of breaking the tie. She appointed Jore, [...]

Authorities in Thailand have dispatched hundreds of additional police to coastal provinces hardest hit by Sunday's tsunami in an effort to stem an apparent tide of looting. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has issued stern warnings to would-be looters, and several arrests have already been made. Well-off Western tourists killed and otherwise affected by the [...]

Six members of a Navy SEALs unit and two Navy wives sued the Associated Press Tuesday, stating that the news agency endangered the servicemen's lives and invaded their privacy by publishing private photos showing the men interacting with Iraqi prisoners. The lawsuit states the agency erred by not obscuring the identity of the six Navy [...]

Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, now a maverick war crimes lawyer and an outspoken critic of American foreign policy on Iraq who held office in the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson, has joined the legal team defending Saddam Hussein. He said his principal concern was protecting the rights of the former Iraqi leader. He [...]

The Supreme Court of Ukraine's press service is reporting that the court has dismissed without consideration the first of four electoral complaints presented to the court by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, according to Maidan News in Kyiv.