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High court climate case looks at EPA's power
Headline Topics |
2014/02/24 14:30
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Industry groups and Republican-led states are heading an attack at the Supreme Court against the Obama administration's sole means of trying to limit power-plant and factory emissions of gases blamed for global warming.
As President Barack Obama pledges to act on environmental and other matters when Congress doesn't, or won't, opponents of regulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases cast the rule as a power grab of historic proportions.
The court is hearing arguments Monday about a small but important piece of the Environmental Protection Agency's plans to cut the emissions — a requirement that companies expanding industrial facilities or building new ones that would increase overall pollution must also evaluate ways to reduce the carbon they release.
Environmental groups and even some of their opponents say that whatever the court decides, EPA still will be able to move forward with broader plans to set emission standards for greenhouse gases for new and existing power plants.
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Gov. Snyder signs jury duty, trampoline court laws
Headline Court News |
2014/02/20 14:08
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Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has signed a law letting full-time college students postpone jury duty until the end of the school year.
The governor on Tuesday also approved rules for indoor trampoline parks where adults and kids can bounce around for a fee.
Snyder says jury duty is "an important part of our civil responsibility" but can be disruptive to college students' studies. A similar exemption already exists for high school students.
The other law requires trampoline courts to publicly display rules and inform customers of the activity's inherent dangers. Trampoliners also must adhere to rules specified in the law.
A trampoline user, spectator or operator who violates the law is liable for damages in civil lawsuits. |
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Argentina asks top US Court to stop 'catastrophe'
Headline Topics |
2014/02/20 14:07
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Argentina filed a long-shot appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday asking the justices in Washington to avert an "economic catastrophe" by overturning lower court rulings that could force the South American government to default on billions of dollars in debts.
Making Argentina pay cash in full to investors who didn't accept bond swaps in exchange for defaulted debt could destabilize the global economy by making other voluntary debt restructurings "substantially more difficult, if not impossible," the petition said.
"Full payment of the holdouts would cut Argentina's reserves approximately in half, an unimaginable result for any nation," Argentina's lawyers argued. "Any sovereign would protest if a foreign court issued an extraterritorial order threatening its creditors and citizens and coercing it into turning over billions of dollars from its immune reserves."
By ignoring the federal sovereign immunity law that normally protects other countries' assets from seizure outside the United States, the lower court decisions also could make U.S. assets overseas vulnerable to similar seizures by other governments, the petition said. |
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Court revives transgender widow's legal fight
Headline Topics |
2014/02/17 16:12
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A Texas appeals court on Thursday overturned a judge's ruling that had voided the marriage of a transgender widow whose firefighter husband died battling a blaze.
The 13th Texas Court of Appeals sent the case of Nikki Araguz back to the lower court, saying "there is a genuine issue of material fact regarding sex and whether the marriage was a same sex marriage."
In 2011, state District Judge Randy Clapp in Wharton County ruled that the marriage between Nikki Araguz and her husband Thomas Araguz was "void as a matter of law."
Thomas Araguz's mother and his first wife had challenged the marriage's validity, arguing the fallen firefighter's estate should go to his two sons because Nikki Araguz was born a man and Texas does not recognize same-sex marriage.
Nikki Araguz, 38, had argued in court she had done everything medically and legally possible to show she is female and was legally married under Texas law and that she's entitled to widow's benefits.
Kent Rutter, Nikki Araguz's attorney, said his client was very pleased by Thursday's ruling.
"This decision recognizes that transgender Texans have the right to marry the person that they love," he said.
Attorneys for Simona Longoria, Thomas Araguz's mother, and Heather Delgado, his ex-wife, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment. |
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Court tosses California's concealed-weapons rules
Network News |
2014/02/17 16:12
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A divided federal appeals court on Thursday struck down California concealed-weapons rules, saying they violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
The 2-1 ruling of a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said California counties were wrong to require law-abiding applicants to show "good cause" beyond self-defense to receive a concealed-weapons permit.
California prohibits people from carrying handguns in public without a concealed-weapons permit. State law requires applicants to show good moral character, have good cause and take a training course. It's generally up to the state's sheriffs and police chiefs to issue the permits, and the vast majority require an applicant to demonstrate a real danger or other reasons beyond simple self-defense to receive a permit. The 9th Circuit on Thursday said that requirement violates the 2nd Amendment.
The San Francisco-based appeals court said those requirements were too strict and ran afoul of a 5-4 landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2008 that struck down a Washington, D.C., handgun ban and said law-abiding citizens are allowed to have handguns in their home for self-defense. |
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Nevada Officials Won't Defend Gay Marriage Ban
Press Release |
2014/02/13 14:48
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In an about-face, Nevada has decided against defending its constitutional ban on same-sex marriages, the latest step in a series of battles being waged across the nation on the volatile issue.
Nevada's attorney general and governor said Monday that they won't defend the state's gay marriage ban pending before a federal appeals court, saying a recent court decision made the state's arguments "no longer defensible."
Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto filed a motion with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that said Nevada's legal arguments supporting the voter-approved prohibition aren't viable in light of the court's recent ruling that said potential jurors cannot be removed from a trial during jury selection solely because of sexual orientation.
"After thoughtful review and analysis, the state has determined that its arguments grounded upon equal protection and due process are no longer sustainable," Masto said in a statement.
Nevada's move comes as courts around the country and the federal government have chipped away at laws that prohibit same-sex marriage and benefits in recent months. Meanwhile, some states and interest groups have rallied to defend limiting marriage to between a man and a woman. |
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Ky. high court to hear death penalty appeal
Headline Topics |
2014/02/13 14:44
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The Kentucky Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the case of a death row inmate who has twice won a new trial.
The justices on Thursday will take up the case of 57-year-old Michael Dale St. Clair, who was convicted in the 1991 slaying of distillery worker Frank Brady in Bullitt County.
St. Clair has won three trials in the case, which has lingered for years in appeals.
St. Clair and another inmate escaped from an Oklahoma prison before going on a multistate spree that ended in Kentucky with Brady's death. St. Clair also faces a murder charge in New Mexico for the 1991 kidnapping and slaying of paramedic Timothy Keeling.
St. Clair also received a second death sentence for capital kidnapping from the Hardin County Circuit Court. |
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