Don't Ask, Don't Tell is dead. But the fight for equality in the military is nowhere near finished. While the official end of DADT at midnight on Monday is a historic turning point, unresolved issues with the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and military regulations mean that service members and their partners in same-sex relationships will continue to suffer second-class treatment.
Stephen Peters knows what it's like to live a lie, both as a serviceman and as a serviceman's partner. In 2007, he was discharged under DADT after informing his commanding officer that he was gay. Peters had just reenlisted in the Marines—but he didn't want to hide who he was anymore.
There's More to Equality Than Asking and Telling
US court rules against Chevron in Ecuador oil case
A US court has overturned a block on Ecuadoreans collecting damages totalling $18.2bn (£11.5bn) from Chevron over Amazon oil pollution. The order reversed a previous judge's ruling that froze enforcement of the fine outside Ecuador.
But it is not the end of the legal saga, which is also going through the courts in Ecuador.
Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, was accused of dumping toxic materials in the Ecuadorean Amazon.
(Prescription) Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in U.S., data show
Fueling the surge are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol.
Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Wall Street protesters: over-educated, under-employed and angry
Inspired by Tahrir Square, those who gathered in lower Manhattan are keen to mount a more permanent protest at corporate influence in US politics.
In the heart of New York's financial district, the marble and concrete floor of lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park was strewn with untidy clumps of people, gathered in small groups amid a jumble of sleeping bags, mattresses and home-made banners, protesting against the banks and institutions that towered over them.
The silent battle for servicewomen: sexual assault
They are the nation's women in uniform, and they are being sexually harassed, abused and assaulted at an alarming rate by their fellow soldiers and officers. Since 9/11, with unprecedented numbers of women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nation's military leaders say that misogyny is undermining troop readiness.
Three earthquakes hit Guatemala
Three earthquakes struck southern Guatemala Monday within 90 minutes, shaking buildings in the capital and killing three people.
The quakes struck near Guatemala's southwestern coast in the sugar cane-growing region around Santa Rosa, forcing the evacuation of about 400 people and cutting electricity and telephone services, emergency services said.
$43-million settlement approved for asbestos victims in Libby, Mont.
For decades, the residents of Libby, Montana have lived a double life.
On the outside, the town of 3,000 people along the Kootenai River is a picture postcard of why western Montana is one of the most gorgeous places in the country.
Unseen, though, is how asbestos pollution from a former W.R. Grace & Co. mine has sickened more than 1,300 residents with a deadly lung disease, killing many of them and turning Libby into the deadliest Superfund site in the nation's history.
Phone hacking: Milly Dowler's family offered £2m-plus settlement
Millie Dowler's family have been offered a multimillion-pound settlement offer by Rupert Murdoch's News International, in an attempt to settle the phone-hacking case that led to closure of the News of the World and the resignation of the company's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks.
It is understood that News International has made a settlement offer estimated by sources at close to £3m, a figure that would include a £1m donation to charity. But the publisher has not yet reached agreement with the Dowler family, whose lawyers were thought to be seeking a settlement figure of closer to £3.5m.
Court says Padilla terror sentence was too lenient
The 17-year prison sentence imposed on convicted terrorism plotter Jose Padilla is far too lenient for someone who trained to kill at an al-Qaida camp and also has a long, violent criminal history, a federal appeals court ruled Monday as it threw out the sentence.
A divided three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new sentencing hearing for Padilla, a U.S. citizen and Muslim convert convicted in 2007 along with two co-conspirators of several terrorism-related charges. Padilla, 40, was held for more than three years without charge as an enemy combatant before he was added to the Miami terror support case.
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