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Lance Armstrong faces a powerful new adversary -- the United States government. The Justice Department notified a federal court Friday that it has joined one of his former racing teammates in suing him for using performance enhancing drugs during the Tour de France.

A federal court on Thursday blocked a Texas law that would require voters to show photo identification before casting ballots, saying the measure would likely curtail the ability of minorities to vote in the November 6 presidential election.

A federal judge said on Wednesday that he planned to block provisions of a Florida measure that made it harder for organizations to register voters in the state. The measure, part of a broad and contentious 2011 election law in Florida, had a serious impact on third-party voter groups, like the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote, which filed the suit along with the Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund. The groups asserted that the new requirements were onerous and made volunteers vulnerable to fines and even felony charges.

Two tech titans will square off in federal court Monday in a closely watched trial over control of the U.S. smartphone and computer tablet markets. Apple Inc. filed a lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co. last year alleging the world's largest technology company's smartphones and computer tablets are illegal knockoffs of its popular iPhone and iPad products. The Cupertino-based company is demanding $2.5 billion in damages, an award that would dwarf the largest patent-related verdict to date.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who attempted to bring down a U.S. commercial flight on Christmas Day 2009 by detonating a bomb hidden in his underwear, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday in federal court in Detroit.

A federal court rules that California's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, potentially clearing the way for the case to be heard by the Supreme Court.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that plaintiffs who claimed that President Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore not eligible to hold the office have no standing to sue him.

Ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is scheduled to be sentenced on his multiple corruption charges Dec. 6. The new date appeared on a federal court website Monday. In September, Judge James Zagel had indefinitely delayed an Oct. 6 sentencing date for Blagojevich — apparently because it would have conflicted with a related trial.

A guilty plea by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab took a federal court in Detroit by surprise as he admitted he tried to blow up an airliner with a bomb in his underwear for Al-Qaeda.

Terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab defiantly shouted during the start of jury selection today in federal court that his alleged mentor, U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, is "alive." He also railed against the United States — saying the United States is a cancer — and complained about his clothes, adding high drama to the most high-profile terror case in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.