Judge strips former Nazi camp guard of US citizenship News
Judge strips former Nazi camp guard of US citizenship

[JURIST] US District Judge Robert Pratt ruled Friday that a former Nazi guard who became a US citizen must relinquish his naturalization papers and passport. John Hansl of Des Moines Iowa, now 80, came to the United States under a 1953 immigration law intended to exclude people who aided in the persecution of others because of their race, religion or political views. Hansl said that he had disclosed that he had been in the German army when his family came to the US in 1955. Prosecutors said, however, that Hansl failed to reveal he had been a member of the SS Death's Head battalion [Wikipedia entry in German] that guarded concentration camps at Natzweiler [camp backgrounder] in France in 1944 and at Sachsenhausen [camp backgrounder] near Berlin in 1943. Read Judge Pratt's opinion [PDF]. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

South Africa becomes first country on continent to legalize same-sex marriage

Same-sex marriages became legal in South Africa on November 30, 2006 as the country's Civil Union Act, 2006 went into effect, making South Africa the only country on the African continent to legalize same-sex marriage. Read the Civil Union Act, 2006.