WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a rebuke of government secrecy, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the CIA must give a fuller response to a lawsuit seeking the spy agency’s records on drone attacks.

The CIA’s claim that it could neither confirm nor deny whether it has any drone records was inadequate because the government, including President Barack Obama himself, has clearly acknowledged a drone program, the court said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In President Barack Obama’s latest act in support of gay rights, his administration will urge the U.S. Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriages to resume in California, an administration official said on Thursday.

Thursday is the deadline for the administration to file a friend-of-the-court brief in a case that is due to be argued on March 26 on whether California’s 2008 law, known as Proposition 8, is constitutional.

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Feb 27 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme
Court made it easier on Wednesday for shareholders to bring
class-action lawsuits, breaking a recent line of decisions that
had made it harder to sue corporate defendants collectively and
perhaps obtain greater recoveries.

By a 6-3 vote, the court allowed shareholders of Amgen Inc
to sue the biotechnology company as a group without
first having to show that misinformation had materially and
fraudulently inflated its stock price.

WASHINGTON, Feb 22 (Reuters) – The United States accused cyclist Lance Armstrong on Friday of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service by taking its sponsorship money at the same time he was doping and using performance-enhancing drugs in violation of cycling rules.

The government joined a civil suit against Armstrong, stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life from cycling in 2012 after accusations he had cheated for years. In January, he said the accusations were true in an interview with television host Oprah Winfrey.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong has failed to talk the U.S. government out of suing him to recover sponsorship money that the U.S. Postal Service paid his teams to compete in international events, Armstrong’s lawyer said on Friday.

Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from cycling for life after accusations that he took performance-enhancing drugs. In January he said the accusations were true in an interview with television host Oprah Winfrey.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong has failed to talk the U.S. government out of suing him to recover sponsorship money that the U.S. Postal Service paid his teams to compete in international events, Armstrong’s lawyer said on Friday.

Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from cycling for life after accusations that he took performance-enhancing drugs. In January he said the accusations were true in an interview with television host Oprah Winfrey.

WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors said on
Thursday they brought criminal fraud and conspiracy charges
against peanut company employees tied to a 2009 salmonella
outbreak blamed for nine U.S. deaths.

The charges filed in U.S. District Court in Georgia on
Wednesday included fraud, conspiracy and the introduction of
adulterated and misbranded food into interstate commerce,
according to court papers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One-time Democratic Party rising star Jesse Jackson Jr., weeping and repentant as his famous father looked on, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to misusing about $750,000 in campaign funds on luxuries such as fur capes and a Rolex watch.

Jackson, 47, who had represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 until his resignation in November, told U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins he had been living off his political campaign funds for years.

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) – Former Chicago congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., son of the famed civil rights leader, plans to plead guilty to charges filed on Friday accusing him of misusing $750,000 in campaign funds, his attorney said.

Jackson’s wife, Sandi Jackson, has also agreed to plead guilty to a related charge of filing false tax returns, according to her attorneys. She resigned her seat on the Chicago city council last month.

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) – Prosecutors filed criminal fraud and conspiracy charges on Friday against former Chicago congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., son of the famed civil rights leader, accusing him and an unnamed co-conspirator of misusing $750,000 in campaign funds.

Jackson, 47, released a statement as the charges were filed admitting mistakes but did not immediately enter a plea in U.S. District Court in Washington.