The second largest bank in the nation, JP Morgan Chase & Co. , has publicly disclosed that two of its predecessor banks had received thousands of slaves as collateral prior to the Civil War. JP Morgan offered a formal apology letter Thursday and said it was creating a $5 million dollar scholarship fund for African-American [...]

Iraq's interim defense minister said Friday that the government would arrest prominent Iraqi National Congress party leader Ahmad Chalabi after the end of the Muslim festival of Eid on Sunday for maligning him and the country's defense ministy. Hazim al-Shaalan told Aljazeera TV that "We will arrest him and hand him over to Interpol." Chalabi [...]

US Bankruptcy Judge Eugene Wedoff Friday approved a 90-day extension of the exclusivity period covering the bankruptcy reorganization plan of UAL Corporation, parent of United Airlines . During the exclusivity period, no other parties may submit rival reorganization plans. Also Friday, Judge Wedoff refused to approve changes to United's union contracts until each union's membership [...]

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that it will offer large "factory-style" farms an exemption from Clean Air Act fines if, in return, the farms monitor air quality and submit those figures to the government. The plan is designed to greatly speed up the development of new animal-processing emissions standards that, with the help of [...]

Denmark's High Court ruled Friday that Danish supermarket chain Dansk Supermarked Group has the right to ban employees from wearing religious headscarves, saying that the legislature "has weighed the right of an employer to demand a uniform or a certain dress code over consideration for an employee who for religious reasons is unable to adhere [...]

The US Commission on Civil Rights , newly reconstituted with the addition of a new Republican chairman and another Republican appointee , has removed from its website a controversial staff report highly critical of the civil rights policies of the Bush administration. Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush [...]

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said Friday that he would be willing to call a national election over the issue of same-sex marriage, the subject of pending legislation in the Canadian House of Commons where Martin presides over a tenuous minority government. Martin said he would be willing to call the vote to "uphold the [...]

Updating a report from earlier today in JURIST's Paper Chase, Federal Communications Chairman Michael Powell has now announced his resignation from the Commission. In a statement released in Washington, he said: Having completed a bold and aggressive agenda, it is time for me to pursue other opportunities and let someone else take the reins of [...]

The European Union announced Friday its unanimous approval of a measure to end penalty sanctions imposed on $4 billion worth of US exports. The European Council recommended the sanctions end on February 1 and approved a program to reimburse all penalty fees collected in January. The penalty sanctions were put in place after the Senate [...]

Leading Friday's international brief, a key member of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement , now the ruling party in Southern Sudan, has expressed concern about the makeup of the proposed UN peacekeeping force to be deployed in March. Deng Alour Deng, a senior official in the SPLA, said that Southern Sudanese officials were unhappy with [...]