Drug giant Pfizer to pay record $2.3B fine

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has agreed to pay a record $2.3 billion settlement to resolve criminal and civil liability for illegally promoting certain pharmaceuticals, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

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Bush-era wiretap program had limited results, report finds

Federal agents found much of the information produced by the Bush administration’s top-secret warrantless surveillance program vague and difficult to use, a sweeping review of the program found. Then-President George Bush and other top administration officials have said the program was a critical tool in preventing terrorist attacks. However, a report Friday by the inspectors general of the CIA, the Justice Department, the Pentagon and other agencies found that some FBI and CIA agents were frustrated by the secrecy surrounding the program

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U.S. says it will await appeals of alleged Nazi war criminal

The Justice Department has promised an appeals court that federal agents will not deport a Nazi war crimes suspect to Germany through at least April 30, even if the court lifts the stay that prevents the removal. In a letter to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Justice Department said it is prepared to ensure the necessary time for legal appeals to play out in the case of John Demjanjuk

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U.S. reverses policy, drops ‘enemy combatant’ term

In a dramatic break with the Bush administration, the Justice Department on Friday announced it is doing away with the designation of "enemy combatant," which allowed the United States to hold suspected terrorists at length without criminal charges. In a court filing in Washington, the Justice Department said it is developing a new standard for the government’s authority to hold detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba.

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Obama releases internal Bush Justice Department memos

The Obama administration Monday released nine previously secret internal Justice Department memos and opinions defining the legal limits of government power in combating terrorism. The Bush administration had refused to make the documents public, rejecting demands from congressional Democrats

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Dozens missing after riverboat collision in Bangladesh

More than 60 passengers were missing after a riverboat collided with a trawler in southern Bangladesh Thursday, police said. In his first major speech since being confirmed, the nation’s first black attorney general told an overflow crowd celebrating Black History Month at the Justice Department the nation remains “voluntarily socially segregated.” “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder declared

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