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Burst.com has filed a countersuit against Apple Computer claiming that the iTunes software, the iPod and the Quicktime streaming software all infringe on patents held by Burst.com, Burst announced Monday. [more]

The people of the Arctic filed a landmark human rights complaint against the United States, blaming the world's No. 1 carbon polluter for stoking the global warming that is destroying their habitat. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), representing native people in the vast, sparsely-populated region girdling the Earth's far north, said they had petitioned an inter-American panel to seek relief for Canadian and US Inuit. "For Inuit, warming is likely to disrupt or even destroy their hunting and food-sharing culture as reduced sea ice causes the animals on which they depend to decline, become less accessible, and possibly become extinct,"...

Junk Lawsuits: Congress passed legislation to protect law-abiding gun makers from unscrupulous trial lawyers. But will gun rights supporters shield themselves from the demagoguery that's going to be fired at them? Last week's passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which President Bush will soon sign, is sure to be exploited in next year's congressional campaigns. But this time those who think guns and not criminals are the problem will have a harder time getting voters to swallow their disinformation. That's because Americans have seen on their TV screens what the much-maligned National Rifle Association has been...

The President, whose efforts to change the tort system have been buoyed by successful passage of a class action reform bill, said that becoming a part of the federal government when he was elected made him a convert to the notion of a national medical liability reform law. "When I first got to Washington, I thought that medical liability reform would best be handled at the state level until I realized what the cost was of the defensive practice of medicine, the cost of settling lawsuits, and the rising costs of premiums do to the federal budget," he said. "If...

3:31 Senate passes class action reform bill

Bushmaster Requests Your Help in Preventing Junk Lawsuits Against the Firearms Industry   The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, S.659, is coming up for US Senate approval very soon and your support is urgently needed to help get it passed. The US House of Representatives passed it yesterday, but in the Senate we need you to contact your Senators to urge them to support this bill. There are several Democratic Senators, such as Senator Schumer (D-NY), that are threatening to kill the bill by filibuster, but this can be avoided by getting 60 votes. Currently there are...