Free Republic

Europe must make clear to the United States that quitting the Paris climate agreement is not a straightforward process, and that fully leaving the deal will take years, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Wednesday. "The Americans can't just leave the climate protection agreement. Mr. Trump believes that because he doesn't know the details." In reality, it would take several years for the U.S. to extricate itself from the obligations that flow from having signed the agreement, the head of the European Union's executive arm added.

MERRIMACK — The attorney representing the illegal immigrant charged by New Ipswich police for criminal trespassing will argue state law is being misused and the Vienna Convention was violated when her client was not put in touch with the Mexican Consulate. During an interview in her Merrimack office, Attorney Mona Movafaghi said the Vienna Convention guaranteed the right of her client to contact the Mexican Consulate, but police failed to provide the opportunity. New Ipswich Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain charged Jorge Mora Ramirez, 21, with criminal trespass and operating a vehicle without a valid license on April 15. Ramirez...

Mike Farrell, ex-M. A. S. H. actor and president of Death Penalty Focus, writes in the Los Angeles Times that "Once again, Bush scorns international humanitarian standards." Farrell laments about the indecency of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice notifying the United Nations that United States would withdraw from the Optional Protocol of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations guarantees citizens the right to seek help from their consulate if they run afoul of the law when traveling abroad. The Optional Protocol in the accord gives the International Court of Justice in The Hague...

Congress passed the PROTECT Act in 2003, "which among other things reformed the federal criminal laws concerning child abduction and child pornography," Sensenbrenner said. "Among the provisions of the bill were reforms of the federal sentencing guidelines; particularly, reforms correcting abuse by federal judges of downward departure authority." Judges use "downward departure" when they hand down lighter sentences than called for under sentencing guidelines. The act requires that data be kept on individual judges showing how often they use "downward departure." ... Sensenbrenner also attacked what he called the Supreme "Court's increased reliance on foreign laws or judicial proceedings in...

<p>WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The U.S. Supreme Court invited world opinion into its consideration of capital punishment Friday, accepting the case of a Mexican national sentenced to death in Texas for his part in the rape and murder of two teenage girls.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP)--A South Korean man who met with John Kerry's fund-raisers to discuss creating a new political group for Korean-Americans was an intelligence agent for his country, raising concerns among some U.S. officials that either he or his government may have tried to influence this fall's election. South Korean officials and U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Chung Byung-Man, a consular officer in Los Angeles, actually worked for South Korea's National Intelligence Service. A spokesman for the South Korean consulate office said Chung was sent home in May amid "speculation" he became involved with the Kerry campaign and...