US defense secretary Chuck Hagel has recommended that Congress change military law so that commanders can no longer overturn convictions in military court for sexual assault and other major offences, he announced on Monday.

The proposed changes follow widespread outrage over the overturning of the conviction of a US air force officer found guilty of aggravated sexual assault, in a case which victims groups said was symptomatic of the military’s failure to address an “epidemic” of …

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When it comes to US energy policy, President Obama’s actions toward changing our basic reliance on fossil fuels is so incremental, you can hardly notice it is moving forward.

Yes, one came blame the Republicans for continuing an earth-destroying dependency on fossil fuel, but you get the feeling Obama is not pushing much beyond lip service to create a systemic change in US energy policy.

That is why there is no reason to be surprised that President …

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At a time when higher education is under siege all over the globe by market mentalities and moralities, there is an urgent necessity on the part of the American public to reclaim the academy in its multiple forms as a site of critique and a public good, one that connects knowledge and power, scholarship and public life, and pedagogy and civic engagement. The current assault on higher education by the apostles of neoliberalism and religious …

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Kenya’s new president, Uhuru Kenyatta, who faces international charges of crimes against humanity, has been sworn in to office at a ceremony in a stadium packed with supporters and foreign dignitaries.

Kenyatta took the oath on Tuesday on a bible used by his father, Kenya’s first president, and was watched by tens of thousands of Kenyans, almost a dozen African leaders and other officials.

“I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance …

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MARTIN, S.D. — Rural Americans are increasingly without lawyers even as law school graduates are increasingly without jobs. Just 2 percent of small law practices are in rural areas, where nearly a fifth of the country lives, recent data show.

Here in Bennett County, which is situated between Indian reservations on the Nebraska border, Fredric Cozad is retiring after 64 years of property litigation, school board disputes, tax cases and homicides with no one to …

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(Reuters) – A federal judge has ruled the Obama administration broke the law when it issued oil leases in central California without fully weighing the environmental impact of “fracking,” a setback for companies seeking to exploit the region’s enormous energy resources.

The decision, made public on Monday, effectively bars for the time being any drilling on two tracts of land comprising 2,500 acres leased for oil and gas development in 2011 by the Interior Department’s Bureau …

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The magnitude 6.3 quake struck more than 55 miles southeast of the city of Bushehr at 11.52am GMT at a depth of 6 miles, according to the US Geological Survey.

Offices as far as Qatar and Bahrain were evacuated after the quake, which was followed by several aftershocks, while the shock was also felt in Dubai.

Atomstroyexport, the Russian company that built the Bushehr plant, Iran’s only nuclear power station, said the quake had been felt …

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Just as dead pigs and ducks stopped washing up in rivers in China, another public health threat crops up: Chinese media announced that a strain of bird flu never before seen in humans was found in Shanghai and surrounding provinces, infecting 24 people so far in China and killing seven of them.

For the most part, flu outbreaks like this pop up then fade within weeks. But every once in a while, they become pandemics, spreading …

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GUATEMALA CITY — A former soldier implicated Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina in civil war atrocities on Thursday during the trial of former U.S.-backed military strongman Efrain Rios Montt, proceedings that have heard witnesses recount a litany of horrors.

Hugo Reyes, a soldier who was a mechanic in an engineering brigade in the area where atrocities were carried out, told the court that Perez Molina, then an army major, ordered soldiers to burn and pillage during …

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Four NFL players are considering coming out as gay in one joint announcement, a player claimed on Friday.

The former Baltimore Ravens (and currently free-agent) linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo, who is an outspoken advocate of LGBT rights, said the players were “trying to be organized” so they could come out on the same day, in what he said would be a “monumental” occasion for the NFL. Ayanbadejo said he was helping to lay plans for the announcement …

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