Pete Yost Posts

After years of delays, four former guards from the security firm Blackwater Worldwide are facing trial in the killings of 14 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of 18 others in bloodshed that inflamed anti-American sentiment around the globe. Whether the shootings were self-defense or an unprovoked attack, the carnage of Sept. 16, 2007 was seen by critics of the George W. Bush administration as an illustration of a war gone horribly wrong.

A federal appeals court on Friday rejected an industry challenge to stronger health standards for soot, saying that the EPA has broad leeway in interpreting and enforcing the Clean Air Act.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the Environmental Protection Agency's emission standards for hazardous air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants. In its ruling, the court rejected state and industry challenges to rules designed to clean up mercury, lead, arsenic and other dangerous air pollutants. The new regulations were designed to remove toxins from the air that contribute to respiratory illnesses, birth defects and developmental problems in children.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Tea Party Senator Rand Paul found unusual common ground – the restoration of voting rights for ex-felons. The odd couple called on states to change the rules that forbid these offenders from participating in the democratic process.

In an assertion of same-sex marriage rights, Attorney General Eric Holder is applying a landmark Supreme Court ruling to the Justice Department, announcing Saturday that same-sex spouses cannot be compelled to testify against each other, should be eligible to file for bankruptcy jointly and are entitled to the same rights and privileges as federal prison inmates in opposite-sex marriages. The Justice Department runs a number of benefits programs, and Holder says same-sex couples will qualify for them. They include the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and benefits to surviving spouses of public safety officers who suffer catastrophic or fatal injuries in the line of duty.

The FBI is looking into whether the U.S.-based director of a Russian government-run cultural exchange program is a spy who tried to recruit young Americans as intelligence assets, a national intelligence community official said Wednesday.

13 members of the computer hacking ring Anonymous were indicted Thursday for committing cyber-attacks around the world, some of which were on behalf or in solidarity with Julian Assange's Wikileaks anti-secrecy group.

A man arrested in Belgium shortly after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001 has been extradited to the US. He is charged with conspiracy in a suicide bomb plot meant to kill Americans traveling in Europe.

The Justice Department will sue the state of North Carolina for alleged racial discrimination over tough new voting rules, the latest effort by the Obama administration to fight back against a Supreme Court decision that struck down the most powerful part of the landmark Voting Rights Act and freed southern states from strict federal oversight of their elections.

The FBI has been using drones to support its law enforcement operations since 2006 and has spent more than $3 million on the unmanned aircraft, the Justice Department's internal watchdog said Thursday.

The Justice Department is expanding a major change in federal drug sentencing policy to cover pending drug cases, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday.

With the U.S. facing massive overcrowding in its prisons, Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for major changes to the nation's criminal justice system that would scale back the use of harsh sentences for certain drug-related crimes. Federal prisons are operating at nearly 40 percent above capacity and hold more than 219,000 inmates.

The Daily Caller, a conservative website, reported shortly before the November election that Menendez traveled on Melgen's private plane to the Dominican Republic to engage in sex with prostitutes. Menendez's office said that any accusations of engaging with prostitutes "are manufactured by a politically motivated right-wing blog and are false."