SACRAMENTO — The California Assembly passed a bill on Thursday that would make the state the first in the nation to allow noncitizens who are in the country legally to serve on jury duty.

Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, said his bill, AB 1401, would help California widen the pool of prospective jurors and help integrate immigrants into the community.

It does not change other criteria for being eligible to serve on a jury, such as being at …

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LHOKSEUMAWE, Aceh — Syukri A-Wahap still bears scars from the two days he spent tied to a chair at a military checkpoint here in northern Indonesia in 2003.

Indonesian soldiers who suspected he was aiding separatist rebels used their guns to try and beat a confession out of him. With the butt of an SS1 rifle they cracked his skull and busted his lower lip.

Syukri says he now suffers from short-term memory loss, pointing to a …

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SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday urging managers of the city’s public employee retirement system to withdraw the approximately $580 million they have invested in major fossil fuel producers.

“The Retirement Board can divest responsibly without affecting the fund’s security or yield,” Supervisor John Avalos told the San Francisco Chronicle. “This is a great time to make a statement about how we can hold the fossil fuels companies …

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According to a report released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) this week, the government has made no progress towards achieving most of the goals articulated in its 2010 National Drug Control Strategy. For example, no progress has been made on reducing drug use among 12 to 17-year-olds by 15%. Moreover, despite the plan for drug control reform released by Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the …

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Environment groups want the UK Government to back a proposal in Brussels on Monday to ban certain uses of neonicotinoids.

Yesterday (Friday) around 250 people descended on Parliament Square for “The March of the Beekeepers” calling for a ban.

Fashion designers Katherine Hamnett and Vivienne Westwood handed in a Petition at No.10 with 300,000 signatures calling on the Government to back the EU proposals.

But despite the public outcry Sir Mark Walport, the Government’s new chief scientific adviser …

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Whether it’s an explosion in a fertiliser factory in the US, or the collapse of a factory building in Bangladesh, industrial catastrophe tends to be reported almost as if it’s a natural disaster. An individual carrying out a mass shooting or planting a bomb – that’s news, that’s blameworthy, that’s deserving of justice for the victims. But when business is the culprit, fingerpointing is deemed less important. Which is odd, in a way. Humanity may …

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DHAKA, Bangladesh — As the search for survivors continued on Friday in one of the worst manufacturing disasters in history, pointed questions were being raised about why a factory building in Bangladesh was not padlocked after terrified workers notified the police, government officials and a powerful garment industry group about cracks in the walls.

As the death toll neared 300, the owner of the collapsed building, the eight-story Rana Plaza, was in hiding, and the …

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MEXICO CITY — One of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s signature efforts to shake up the country — a broad plan to overhaul the education system — has run into violent protests that underscore how difficult it may be to carry out, particularly in some volatile states with poor academic performance.

Armed with iron rods and rocks, dozens of masked members of the teachers’ union in Guerrero State attacked the local offices of the four major …

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The Medical Board of California would be stripped of its power to investigate physician misconduct under a sweeping reform plan by legislators who say the agency has struggled to hold problem doctors accountable.

The medical board has come under fire for failing to discipline doctors accused of harming patients, particularly those suspected of recklessly prescribing drugs.

Under the proposed legislation, amended Thursday, investigations of doctors would be handled by the California attorney general, leaving the board to …

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD) have so far declined to join Li & Fung Ltd. and other companies in voluntarily compensating victims of a fire last year at a Bangladesh garment factory.

Wal-Mart and Sears also didn’t respond to an invitation to attend a meeting today in Geneva, where companies whose clothing was manufactured at the Tazreen Design Ltd. factory are expected to discuss compensation payments, said Scott Nova, executive director of …

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