Outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge , in an interview with BBC News airing Friday, said that the US does not condone the use of torture to extract information from terrorists, but added that "under an extreme set of circumstances," where it could prevent a major loss of life, torture "could happen." Ridge's comments [...]

Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott has filed a federal lawsuit against Ryan Pitylak, a 22-year-old college student, and his 40-year-old business partner, Mark Trotter, who Abbott says head the world's fourth-largest spamming operation. According to allegations in the lawsuit , Pitylak and Trotter have sent hundreds of thousands of unsolicited, misleading e-mails in violation of [...]

US District Judge John Bates has heard arguments in a case seeking to prevent the recitation of a prayer during President Bush' inauguration next week. Plaintiff Michael Newdow , who unsuccessfully tried to remove the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, argued that allowing a Christian prayer at the ceremony forces him to [...]

Italy's Constitutional Court will allow a referendum to overturn parts of a controversial new Italian law on fertility treatments to proceed, but rejected a call for a referendum to completely overturn the law. Last year, Italian lawmakers passed a measure which allows only cohabitating heterosexual couples access to fertility treatments, bans egg or sperm donation [...]

Former Argentine Navy captain Adolfo Scilingo appeared in a Spanish court Friday where he is on trial for committing genocide during Argentina's "Dirty War." In addition to genocide, Scilingo also faces 30 charges of murder, 93 of causing injury, 255 terrorism charges, and 286 torture charges, all stemming from Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship. The trial, authorized [...]

The United States has announced that it will withhold $10 million in aid to Serbia and Montenegro due to Belgrade's lack of cooperation with the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia . According to the US State Department: The Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2005 Section 563 (c) prohibits [...]

The Kansas Senate voted Thursday in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and would prohibit the state from allowing civil unions or granting benefits normally associated with marriage to same-sex couples. The measure, which passed by a 28-11 vote, will now move to the state House, where it must pass [...]

Google Inc. and the Securities and Exchange Commission have settled a complaint over the company's failure to register employee stock options during its initial public offering in August. The settlement, in which Google accepted a cease-and-desist order by the SEC, allows the company to avoid any financial penalties. The SEC charged Google with violating a [...]

Court-martial proceedings began Friday for a US soldier charged with the murder of a wounded Iraqi teenager during a outbreak of violence in Baghdad last year. Staff Sgt. Cardenas Alban, of the 41st Infantry Regiment out of Fort Riley, KA, is one of three soldiers charged in the incident and the second to be court-martialed. [...]

A defense witness testifying Thursday in the military trial of Spc. Charles Graner told the jury that intelligence officers at the Abu Ghraib prison told Graner and others what to do. Former military policewoman Megan Ambuhl said "They would come down with their detainees and let us know what they wanted us to do with [...]