SUPREME COURT

Goodwin Liu, a University of California law professor whose confirmation to a federal appeals court was blocked in the U.S. Senate, was confirmed on Wednesday to serve as a justice on California's top court.

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, a key Republican leader in the state's battle earlier this year over the union rights of public workers, plans to run for the Senate being vacated in 2012 by retiring Democrat Herb Kohl, his office said on Tuesday.

The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as dozens of investors, on Tuesday lodged objections to Bank of America Corp's proposed $8.5 billion mortgage-backed securities settlement.

Bank of America Corp. was sued by the trustee of a $1.75 billion mortgage pool, which seeks to force the largest bank to buy back all of the loans in the trust because of alleged misrepresentations.

While the United States says many hacking attacks appear to come from China, often targeting human rights groups as well as U.S. companies, China says that it is one of the world's biggest victims of hacking attacks.

Sipping coconut water and honey, Anna Hazare ended a hunger strike on its 13th day on Sunday, a protest that had sparked huge rallies across the country, exposed a weak government and ushered in a new middle-class political force.

President Barack Obama declared August 26 -- the 91st anniversary of the Constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote -- Women's Equality Day in a proclamation on Thursday.

A New York judge dropped all criminal sexual assault charges against ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Tuesday, leaving him free to return to Franceand rebuild a shattered career.

A New York Supreme Court judge dismissed charges against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in May.

A New York judge dropped all criminal sexual assault charges against ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Tuesday after prosecutors lost faith in the credibility of his accuser.

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who hoped to be the next French president, collapsed because what prosecutors believed was strong testimony deteriorated into a fabric of lies.

A New York state judge granted the request of dozens of investors including pension funds, insurers and several Federal Home Loan Banks to intervene in Bank of America Corp's proposed $8.5 billion settlement with investors who lost money on mortgage-backed securities.

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was hit with two libel lawsuits seeking $90 million by former Marsh & McLennan Cos executives over a column posted on Slate.com about an insurance bid-rigging scandal.

A summary of all-things Washington for Monday, August 22, 2011.

Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. aka West Memphis Three are now free men. Nearly after two decades, the trio, imprisoned for murdering three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas in 1993, walked out of a courtroom on Friday proclaiming their innocence.

Women who were part of a massive class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc will have until the end of October to file individual lawsuits against the company, a judge ruled.

The West Memphis 3 gets freed with an unusual plea deal where they get to maintain their innocence.

A man convicted of raping and killing an elderly Virginia woman was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, the first inmate put to death in that state this year, the attorney general's office said.

A judge has called a surprise hearing for Friday concerning three men - known as the West Memphis Three - convicted of satanic killings in 1993 of three 8-year-old Cub Scouts in Arkansas.

Wisconsin voters have gone through a summer of historic and bitter recall votes for state legislators -- the most in U.S. history -- at a cost of about $40 million in campaign spending.

The California Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to review the 2009 murder conviction of music producer Phil Spector, turning down an appeal that had been filed by his attorneys.