U.S. lawmakers were expected on Friday to approve new sanctions on Russian weapons companies and investors in the country's high-tech oil projects, putting more U.S. pressure on President Vladimir Putin for interference in eastern Ukraine.
Six men held for more than a decade at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were flown to Uruguay for resettlement on Sunday, the latest step in a slow-moving push by President Barack Obama's administration to close the facility.
Florida's water war against Georgia advanced as the U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear an interstate dispute on whether Atlanta's suburbs are sucking dry the river flow that feeds the oyster beds and fisheries of the northern Gulf Coast.
Immigration activists close to the White House worry that President Barack Obama could delay or scale back executive actions on immigration that he has promised to take before the year ends.
Public defender Kevin Gough who represents 17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins is confident his client is "absolutely, 1,000 percent not guilty," for the shooting death of a Georgia baby who was killed at point-blank rach in his stroller last week. Elkins made his first court appearance on Monday, charged as an adult with first degree murder, along with a 14-year-old who was not identified because he is a juvenile, Brunswick Police Chief Tobe Green said.
Texas carried its first execution of 2013 on Thursday in Huntsville, putting Carl Henry Blue to death for setting his then-girlfriend on fire almost 20 years ago. He died by lethal injection. In Georgia, Andrew Allen Cook was executed, convicted of fatally shooting two university students in 1995.
A federal appeals court gave Georgia death row inmate Warren Lee Hill, a temporary last minute reprieve because doctors changed their minds, believing he is mentally disabled. His legal battle to avoid lethal injection still likely faces an uphill climb. Another inmate, Andrew Cook also has used the mental disability clause.
