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Apple has acknowledged that its iPad made it a major force in ebooks but denied that it?s stifling competition in a formal reply to the Justice Department's antitrust suit.

Two laws preventing the federal government from recognizing and providing benefits to same-sex couples are unconstitutional, a federal judge in California ruled.

Forty-five prisoners are abstaining from food in an effort to highlight what they say are inhumane conditions in Virginia's Red Onion State Prison.

Days after the Alabama legislature voted to update a stringent immigration law considered among the toughest in the nation, Governor Robert Bentley has called for a special legislative session to address his concerns with the law.

The announcement came on the heels of a survey that found one in 10 inmates are sexually victimized by other prisoners or prison staff.

A clear majority of Americans support some form of legally recognized same-sex unions, according to a new CBS/New York Times poll.

Law-enforcement officers who track the locations of people via their cell phones may be operating outside the bounds of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said Thursday.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives added amendments to a Justice Department funding bill that would restrict taxpayer money from litigation involving voter ID laws, the health care law and other politically-divisive issues.

Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social network, is facing a probe into its acquisition of Instagram that could delay its $100 billion initial public offering.

The Department of Justice plans to sue Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for civil rights abuses, including racial profiling against Latinos.

Less than 24 hours after President Barack Obama explicitly declared his support for same-sex marriage, becoming the first sitting American president to do so, his re-election campaign sought to capitalize with an Internet video drawing a contrast between the president and his likely Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Hours before President Obama made history on Wednesday by becoming the first sitting president to explicitly back same-sex marriage, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney underscored his belief that marriage should be exclusively between a man and a woman.

President Obama is disappointed that North Carolina passed an amendment to its state constitution banning same-sex marriage, according to a statement from his campaign.

Same-sex marriage advocates are confident that the nation is moving gradually towards marriage equality, but they will need to contend with a majority of states -- North Carolina among them -- that restrict marriage to a man and a woman.

Senior Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod downplayed Vice President Joe Biden's vocal embrace of gay marriage, saying President Obama's shared the same beliefs.

The number of blacks and Hispanics registered to vote has dropped precipitously since the 2008 election, diminishing two bastions of Democratic support that could prove crucial in what promises to be a tight presidential race.

A recent investigation concluded more than 1,500 boxes of top secret or confidential-level documents have been misplaced as of March 2011.

Two members of the Florida Legislature argue the self-defense law empowers women against potential attackers, despite its questionable application in domestic violence cases.

Tasers can cause cardiac arrest and even death, according to a new study.

BP Plc (BP.L) reported a bigger-than-expected profit drop on the back of a fall in production prompted by the need to sell oil fields to pay for the Gulf of Mexico disaster, raising concerns about the oil group's turnaround plan.

Two members of Congress introduced a bill on Friday that would ban employers from requiring employees to hand over their social networking account information. The Social Network Online Protection Act was introduced by Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel of New York and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois.

The first part in a saga of litigation and claims for damages following the BP 2010 Gulf oil spill is just days away from being finished.

Apple Inc, Google Inc, Intel Corp and four other technology companies were ordered by a judge to face an antitrust lawsuit claiming they illegally conspired not to poach each other's employees.

Yonas Fikre, an American Muslim, is seeking asylum in Sweden and has claimed that he was detained, torture and kept in solitary confinement in the United Arab Emirates for 106 days at the request of the FBI.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York said 68-year-old David Gilmartin went to great lengths to avoid his legal obligation as a citizen to pay taxes.

Shares of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), the No. 1 search engine, fell after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said it had tried to impede a privacy investigation.

Google reported first-quarter financial results that beat analysts' estimates by a wide margin.

Chris Dodd, a former U.S. senator who heads the Motion Picture Association of America, said there will be another push for some kind of anti-piracy legislation after the 2012 elections.

The United States Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple and a handful of major book publishers on Wednesday, alleging that the companies colluded to raise the price of e-books back in 2010. Amazon is the clear winner here, but it won't win out in the long-run.