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Iran's president slams US court ruling on frozen assets
Court and Trial |
2016/05/02 16:51
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Iran's president said Wednesday that a U.S. court ruling that allows for the seizure of Iranian assets amounts to theft and indicates continued "hostility" toward his country.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the families of victims of a 1983 bombing in Lebanon and other attacks linked to Iran can collect nearly $2 billion in frozen funds from Iran as compensation.
Rouhani was quoted by state TV as warning that the United States would have to face up to "all the consequences of this illegal action," without elaborating. "The move indicates Washington's continued hostility against the Iranian nation," Rouhani added, speaking during a Cabinet meeting.
On Tuesday, the Cabinet tasked a group of top officials with examining the court decision and defending Iran's "rights."
The U.S. court's ruling directly affects more than 1,300 relatives of victims, some who have been seeking compensation for more than 30 years. They include families of the 241 U.S. service members who died in the Beirut bombing.
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Cosby asks court to reseal testimony about affairs, drugs
Court and Trial |
2016/04/17 23:23
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Bill Cosby's lawyers urged an appeals court Wednesday to reseal the comedian's lurid, decade-old testimony about his womanizing, but the panel of judges seemed to think the request was pointless, since the deposition has already made headlines around the world.
Members of the three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit of Appeals reeled off a list of "the toothpaste's out of the tube"-type metaphors to suggest that any damage to Cosby's reputation from the release of the testimony has already been done.
Cosby's attorneys hope a ruling in their favor could help them keep the documents from being used in the criminal case against him in Pennsylvania and in the many lawsuits filed around the country by women who accuse him of sexual assault or defamation.
But the judges questioned that strategy, too.
The other courts "don't have to necessarily follow us. We can't control them," Circuit Judge Thomas L. Ambro said.
Cosby gave the testimony in 2005 as part of a lawsuit brought against him by Andrea Constand, a Temple University employee who said he drugged and molested her at his home. She later settled for an undisclosed sum, and sensitive documents in the file remained sealed.
In the nearly 1,000-page deposition, the comic known as "America's Dad" admitted to several extramarital affairs and said he obtained quaaludes to give to women he hoped to seduce.
The documents were released last year on a request by The Associated Press. U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno found the public had a right to Cosby's testimony because of his role as a self-appointed "public moralist" and because he had denied accusations he drugged and molested women.
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Obama's power over immigration drives Supreme Court dispute
Legal News Interview |
2016/04/16 23:22
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The raging political fight over immigration comes to the Supreme Court on Monday in a dispute that could affect millions of people who are in the United States illegally.
The court is weighing the fate of Obama administration programs that could shield roughly 4 million people from deportation and grant them the legal right to hold a job.
Among them is Teresa Garcia of suburban Seattle, who has spent 14 years in the United States illegally after staying beyond the expiration of her tourist visa in 2002.
She's already gotten much of what she wanted when she chose not to return to her native Mexico. Her two sons are benefiting from an earlier effort that applies to people who were brought here illegally as children. Garcia's 11-year-old daughter is an American citizen.
Now, she would like the same for herself and her husband, a trained accountant who works construction jobs. Neither can work legally.
"To have a Social Security number, that means for me to have a better future. When I say better future, we are struggling with the little amount of money my husband is getting for the whole family. It makes for stress every day. We struggle to pay for everything," Garcia said.
The programs announced by President Barack Obama in November 2014 would apply to parents whose children are citizens or are living in the country legally. Eligibility also would be expanded for the president's 2012 effort that helped Garcia's sons. More than 700,000 people have taken advantage of that earlier program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The new program for parents and the expanded program for children could reach as many as 4 million people, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
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Court sides with Argentina, speeding along bond settlements
Court and Trial |
2016/04/16 23:21
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A federal appeals court cleared the way Wednesday for Argentina to settle its debts and strengthen its ability to maneuver in worldwide markets.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned away creditors who wanted to keep in place court-ordered protections, though Circuit Judge Christopher Droney said a lower-court judge should take steps to determine whether Argentina has met conditions he required be fulfilled before court orders against the republic are permanently lifted. The conditions include completing settlement payments.
A three-judge panel announced its decision after hearing oral arguments for more than an hour. It found a judge was within his rights to conclude that circumstances surrounding the decadelong court battle changed dramatically when Argentina's new president, Mauricio Macri, decided to let the nation negotiate deals with bondholders after he took office Dec. 10.
Since January, Argentina has reached agreements to pay more than $8 billion to creditors, mainly U.S. hedge funds.
Argentine Economy Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay, who is in New York ahead of Argentina's first international bond sale in more than a decade, said, "This is a step toward achieving normality and the kind of development that Argentina deserves."
His country is expected to sell up to $15 billion in bonds, and he said the holdout funds will be paid on April 22.
The creditors went to court in New York after Argentina in 2001 defaulted on $100 billion in bonds. Argentina invited all its bondholders to swap their bonds at steep discounts for new bonds in 2005 and 2010.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa had issued orders banning Argentina from paying interest through U.S. banks to 93 percent of its bondholders, who agreed to exchange their bonds for new bonds worth 25 percent to 29 percent of their original value. |
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Democrats push McConnell, GOP on Supreme Court nomination
Lawyer World News |
2016/04/16 23:20
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Senate Democrats called on Republicans to vote on Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court by Memorial Day, as GOP lawmakers showed no sign of relenting despite the latest round of courtesy calls.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., maintains that the president chosen by voters in November should fill the vacancy on the high court, and there will be no confirmation hearings or a vote. But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and his Democratic colleagues are hoping that election-year pressure will eventually wear them down.
"We feel the public is on our side, and this is to their detriment," Reid told reporters Thursday at a news conference in which Democrats pressed for consideration of Garland's nomination.
One Republican in a tough re-election race, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, met with Garland Thursday morning and told the judge that he agreed with McConnell on delaying the nomination until after the next president takes office.
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