In the Nation

CHARLESTON, S.C. - A lawsuit alleging that a man convicted of plotting terrorism had been detained illegally and then tortured at a military prison should be allowed to move forward, his attorneys said Monday.

The lawsuit says Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was illegally detained as an enemy combatant and then held in a Navy brig in South Carolina for 44 months. It names government and brig officials, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, as defendants.

"There is a floor for human treatment in any U.S. prison below which no officer can go," Ben Wizner, litigation director for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, told U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel.

Padilla was arrested in 2002 on suspicion of plotting to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb." He was turned over in 2006 to civilian authorities and was convicted in 2007 of sending money, recruits, and supplies to Islamic extremist groups. Padilla has appealed his 17-year sentence. - AP

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The Palestinian Authority has settled a federal lawsuit in Rhode Island over the 1996 shooting deaths of a couple driving home from a wedding in Israel, according to court papers filed Monday.

The documents do not disclose the settlement terms, and it is unclear how much, if any, money the authority offered to resolve the case.

The settlement erases a $116 million default judgment entered against the authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization for refusing to respond to the lawsuit. It also lifts a judge's 2005 order that had barred the authority from transferring or withdrawing assets in the United States.

U.S. citizen Yaron Ungar, 25, a rabbinical student, and his pregnant wife, Efrat Ungar, were killed in a drive-by shooting by Islamic Hamas gunmen while driving near Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem. Their infant son was unharmed. Several Hamas members were convicted.

The Ungars' relatives sued in Rhode Island under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act. Ungar family lawyer Max Wistow declined to comment Monday, as did Palestinian Authority attorney Mark Rochon. - AP

RALEIGH, N.C. - Two-time presidential candidate John Edwards has testified under oath in a lawsuit over a videotape that purportedly depicts him in a sexual encounter, an attorney for a former Edwards aide said.

Robert Elliot said the former North Carolina senator was deposed last week as part of a dispute between former Edwards aide Andrew Young and Edwards mistress Rielle Hunter. Elliot declined to discuss the content of the testimony. A judge last year warned both sides that he could hold people in contempt if the deposition material were talked about outside the case.

Hunter has sued Young to reclaim materials, including a video that Young has said depicts a sexual encounter involving Edwards and a woman he assumes to be Hunter. Young has said he helped cover up the affair. - AP

Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake said Monday that he would seek the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2012, after Thursday's announcement by Republican Sen. Jon Kyl that he would not seek reelection.