The Texas State Board of Education has given final approval to establishing Bible classes in state high schools, rejecting calls to draw specific teaching guidelines and warnings that it could lead to constitutional problems in the classroom.

Seven former Florida boot camp guards and a nurse were acquitted today of manslaughter in the death of a 14-year-old black boy who was hit and kicked in a videotaped altercation with the guards.

A Michigan appeals court ruling that bans public universities and state and local governments from providing health insurance to partners of gay employees has alarmed gay rights advocates across the US.

A Taiwanese politician threw a shoe at the Legislature’s speaker today as the final day of the legislative session dissolved amid massive pushing and shoving.

New York’s highest court today ruled that gay marriage is not allowed under state law, rejecting arguments by same-sex couples who said the law violates their constitutional rights.

A near-total ban on abortions has been signed into law in South Dakota, a measure the governor called a “direct frontal assault” on the US Supreme Court decision to legalise the procedure 33 years ago.

South Dakota’s governor today signed into law a bill banning nearly all abortions, in a move aimed at challenging the 1973 US Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion across the US.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger suffered a major political setback when voters decisively rejected two of his ballot proposals, including his centrepiece plan to slow state spending, in a special election that became a referendum on his leadership.

FOR the second time in less than a day, a federal appeals court yesterday rejected a bid by Terri Schiavo’s parents to have her feeding tube re-inserted.

The Massachusetts high court declared that gays are entitled to nothing less than marriage and that civil unions will not suffice, setting the stage for the first legally sanctioned same-sex weddings in the US.

CHARGES against Michael Jackson won't be derailed by a settlement, a prosecutor says, and the reason is a law passed in response to the last time the pop singer was accused of molestation, when the accuser refused to testify.

THE husband of a brain-damaged American woman at the centre of a bitter right-to-life battle plans to argue in court next week that Governor Jeb Bush’s order that led to her feeding tube being reinserted is unconstitutional.

A PROSECUTOR told jurors yesterday that former hippie guru Ira Einhorn had a history of violence against women, and promised to present overwhelming evidence that Einhorn bludgeoned his girlfriend to death more than 20 years ago.