Asylum | featured news

A Texas lawyer is among those trying to broaden the definition of asylum, dismaying conservative critics and some Mexican officials. One of his clients, a Mexican waitress and widowed mother of three, says she played dead under a pile of bodies to survive a massacre in Ciudad Juarez led by men she recognized as federal police.

Ecuador cast its dispute with Britain over asylum for WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange as a struggle against colonialism on Saturday, drawing growing support from its neighbors in the international diplomatic saga.

Ecuador has granted political asylum to WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said on Thursday, a day after the British government threatened to storm the Ecuadorean embassy in London to arrest the former hacker.

A wooden boat packed with asylum seekers smashed against jagged rocks in a storm off an Australian island Wednesday, flinging terrified occupants into churning waters and killing at least 27 people.

Disturbed locked up their fourth consecutive number one album on the Billboard 200 as their new disc, Asylum, sold 179,000 copies last week. Still, the album failed meet the sales pace set by their last album, Indestructible, which moved 253,000 copies when it was released in 2008.