The Justice Department is preparing to take fresh legal action in a string of voting rights cases across the nation, U.S. officials said, part of a new attempt to blunt the impact of a Supreme Court ruling that the Obama administration has warned will imperil minority representation.
The decision to challenge state officials marks an aggressive effort to continue policing voting rights issues and follows a ruling by the court last month that invalidated a critical part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The justices threw out a part of the act that determined which states with a history of discrimination had to be granted Justice Department or court approval before making voting law changes.
Justice Department to challenge states’ voting rights laws
Former UBS bankers get prison terms for muni bid-rigging
Three former UBS AG (UBSN.VX) bankers were sentenced to prison on Wednesday for deceiving U.S. municipalities by rigging bids to invest municipal bond proceeds, with the longest sentence at 27 months, a fraction of what prosecutors had sought.
Gary Heinz, 40, a former bank vice president who was caught on recordings discussing the scheme, received the prison sentence of 27 months. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood also ordered Heinz to pay a $400,000 fine.
US House votes against NSA limits
The US House of Representatives has narrowly voted to continue collecting data on US phone calls in the first legislative move on the programme.
In a 217-205 vote, lawmakers rejected an effort to restrict the National Security Agency's (NSA) ability to collect electronic information. The NSA's chief had lobbied strongly against the proposed measure.
The vote saw an unusual coalition of conservatives and liberal Democrats against the programme.
4 decades after war ended, Agent Orange still ravaging Vietnamese
In many ways, Nguyen Thi Ly is just like any other 12-year-old girl. She has a lovely smile and is quick to laugh. She wants to be a teacher when she grows up. She enjoys skipping rope when she plays.
But Ly is also very different from other children. Her head is severely misshapen. Her eyes are unnaturally far apart and permanently askew. She’s been hospitalized with numerous ailments since her birth.
Her mother, 43-year-old Le Thi Thu, has similar deformities and health disorders. Neither of them has ever set foot on a battlefield, but they’re both casualties of war.
Same-sex marriage: Ohio judge opens new frontier for gay activists
A decision by a federal judge in Ohio Monday to grant marriage rights to a same-sex couple residing in a state that does not recognize such unions highlights a new front for gay rights activists seeking to expand rights for couples living in states that are unfriendly to same-sex marriage.
On Monday, US District Judge Timothy Black ruled in favor of John Arthur and James Obergefell, a Cincinnati couple who married in Maryland on July 11 and want the rights they earned in that state transferred to Ohio so that both men can be buried next to each other in the Arthur family plot, which is restricted to direct descendants and spouses. Mr. Arthur is suffering from a disease doctors have diagnosed as terminal.
Live free or high: New Hampshire becomes 19th state to allow medical marijuana
Fulfilling a campaign promise, Gov. Maggie Hassan signed a law Tuesday making New Hampshire the 19th state to allow seriously ill residents to use marijuana to treat their illnesses.
"Allowing doctors to provide relief to patients through the use of appropriately regulated and dispensed medical marijuana is the compassionate and right policy for the state of New Hampshire, and this legislation ensures that we approach this policy in the right way with measures to prevent abuse," Hassan said in a statement.
Cancer Concerns With Colorado's Drilling, Fracking Boom
A former president of the Colorado Medical Society calls the current hydraulic fracturing boom in the state’s oil and gas industry an “experiment in motion” for the public at large.
One that could lead to higher rates of cancer and other illnesses over the next 10 to 15 years.
Dr. Michael Pramenko, a Grand Junction family physician, says he isn’t as worried about acute cases of exposure to carcinogens in “fracking” fluid – although he has treated a patient who accidently guzzled cancer-causing benzene. Pramenko says he is more concerned with long-term exposure from tainted water.
U.S. makes $1 billion in gulf lease sale
Oil companies paid more than $1 billion collectively to acquire 1.6 million acres of oil and natural gas blocks in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. government said.
The U.S. Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management published the final tallies from a March 20 lease sale for the central Gulf of Mexico.
'Big leap' towards curing blindness in stem cell study
The prospect of reversing blindness has made a significant leap, according to scientists in the UK. An animal study in the journal Nature Biotechnology showed the part of the eye which actually detects light can be repaired using stem cells.
The team at Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London say human trials are now, for the first time, a realistic prospect.
Experts described it as a "significant breakthrough" and "huge leap" forward.
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