The Bush Administration reversed itself and declared that non-Iraqis captured fighting in Iraq are not protected by the Geneva Conventions; such prisoners, it was reported, have already been transferred out of Iraq in recent months and could be taken to Egypt or Saudi Arabia where torture is more common than it is in the United States.ScotsmanFour British citizens who were held without charges in Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, filed suit against Donald Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials, and claimed that they were tortured while in custody. The Pentagon responded that the men were “enemy combatants” and thus had no right …

The United States Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan law school’s use of affirmative action in its admissions process and overturned a Texassodomy law, saying that “the state cannot demean [homosexuals'] existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”New York Times“This opens the door to bigamy, adult incest, polygamy, and prostitution,” said the head of the FamilyResearch Council.New York TimesThe court also ruled that a California law that retroactively abolished the statute of limitations on sex crimes is unconstitutional; California’s attorney general said that the ruling will lead to the release of about 800 …

Federal authorities placed the United States on “orange alert” and American embassies in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia were closed after an Al Qaeda prisoner claimed that terror attacks were scheduled for the September 11 anniversary. The New York Lottery’s evening number came up 9-1-1 on September 11, and President Bush shed a tear during a speech on Ellis Island. Police shut down a large section of Interstate 75 after a woman named Eunice Stone thought she heard four young Arab men “laughing about 9/11″ in a Shoney’s restaurant in Calhoun, Georgia. The men, who were detained in Florida for …

A Roman protester was shot twice in the head and killed by a 20-year-old paramilitary officer at the G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy; the Land Rover in which the police were riding then backed up and ran over the body before speeding away. Three days earlier, British prime minister Tony Blair declared that people have been “far too apologetic” toward demonstrators who disrupt gatherings of world leaders, noting that “if the public knew their views, they’d disagree with them.” Hundreds of thousands of semi-naked youths were gyrating in the streets of Berlin during its eleventh annual Love Parade. Russian president …

Albert Einstein’s theory that a massive spinning object will twist space-time around it received support from X-rays emanating from three neutron stars detected by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, a NASAsatellite. President Bill Clinton’s lawyers argued in court that disbarment was too harsh a penalty for lying in a deposition about his sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky; they also repeated the President’s claim that he did not technically lie. The Supreme Court issued an emergency stay preventing California from allowing the medical use of marijuana. President Clinton went to Colombia and met with President Andres Pastrana, who three years ago …