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Justices voice skepticism of voting rights law
Headline News |
2013/03/04 12:57
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The Supreme Court's conservative justices voiced deep skepticism Wednesday about a section of a landmark civil rights law that has helped millions of Americans exercise their right to vote.
In an ominous note for supporters of the key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Anthony Kennedy both acknowledged the measure's vital role in fighting discrimination and suggested that other important laws in U.S. history had run their course. "Times change," Kennedy said during the fast-paced, 70-minute argument.
Kennedy's views are likely to prevail on the closely divided court, and he tends to side with his more conservative colleagues on matters of race.
The court's liberals and conservatives engaged in a sometimes tense back-and-forth over whether there is an ongoing need in 2013 for the part of the voting rights law that requires states with a history of discrimination, mainly in the Deep South, to get approval before making changes in the way elections are held. |
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SC court nixes James Brown estate settlement
Headline News |
2013/02/27 22:18
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The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a settlement divvying up the multi-million dollar estate of James Brown, saying a former attorney general didn't follow the late soul singer's wishes in putting together the deal.
Attorney General Henry McMaster brokered a settlement in 2009 that split Brown's estate, giving nearly half to a charitable trust, a quarter to his widow Tomi Rae Hynie and leaving the rest to be split among his adult children.
But the justices ruled the deal ignored Brown's wishes for most of his money to go to charity. The court ruled the Godfather of Soul was of sound mind when he made his will before dying of heart failure on Christmas Day 2006 at age 73.
The court sent the estate back to a lower court to be reconsidered.
The justices did agree with the lower court's decision to remove Brown's original trustees. Members of Brown's family said they wanted them gone because the trustees mismanaged the estate until it was almost broke. |
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Not guilty pleas entered for Lohan on misdemeanors
Headline News |
2013/01/22 23:42
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Lindsay Lohan pleaded not guilty Tuesday to three misdemeanor charges related to a car crash and was ordered to appear in court for a hearing later this month.
Her plea was entered by her attorney Shawn Holley, who declined to comment after the hearing. Lohan was not required to attend.
Superior Court Commissioner Jane Godfrey said the actress must appear at a Jan. 30 pretrial hearing.
Lohan is charged with lying to police, reckless driving and obstructing police from performing their duties.
Police suspect Lohan was driving her sports car when it slammed into a dump truck while she was on her way to the set of "Liz and Dick" in early June. Lohan told police she wasn't behind the wheel.
Lohan was on probation for a 2011 necklace theft case at the time and could face up to 245 days in jail if a judge determines she violated her probation.
Godfrey also set a Feb, 27 trial date on the misdemeanor counts.
The accident was not the only problem encountered by Lohan while shooting "Liz and Dick," a film based on the love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. |
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Man pleads not guilty in deadly DUI crash
Headline News |
2013/01/14 22:49
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A California man has pleaded not guilty to charges in a deadly drunken driving crash that killed a man and four dogs.
Prosecutors say 31-year-old Paul William Walden was drunk behind the wheel of car traveling down a Carmichael street at 80 mph with no lights when he blew through a stop sign.
The car struck 21-year-old Harison Long-Randall, his 23-year-old girlfriend Gemily West and her dogs. Long-Randall and the four dogs were killed.
Walden fled the scene and was captured a short time later.
The Sacramento Bee says Walden pleaded not guilty on Thursday to murder, vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence and other charges in last July's crash.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March.
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Court won't stop embryonic stem cell research
Headline News |
2013/01/08 21:44
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The Supreme Court won't stop the government's funding of embryonic stem cell research, despite some researchers' complaints that the work relies on destroyed human embryos.
The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from two scientists who have been challenging the funding for the work.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia earlier this year threw out their lawsuit challenging federal funding for the research, which is used in pursuit of cures to deadly diseases. Opponents claimed the National Institutes of Health was violating the 1996 Dickey-Wicker law that prohibits taxpayer financing for work that harms an embryo.
Researchers hope one day to use stem cells in ways that cure spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments. |
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High Court to decide how logging roads regulated
Headline News |
2012/12/10 23:02
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The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to switch gears on more than 30 years of regulating the muddy water running off logging roads into rivers.
At issue: Should the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency keep considering it the same as water running off a farm field, or start looking at it like a pipe coming out of a factory?
The case being heard Monday in Washington, D.C., was originated by a small environmental group in Portland, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center.
It sued the Oregon Department of Forestry over roads on the Tillamook State Forest that drain into salmon streams. The lawsuit argued that the Clean Water Act specifically says water running through the kinds of ditches and culverts built to handle storm water runoff from logging roads is a point source of pollution when it flows directly into a river, and requires the same sort of permit that a factory needs.
"We brought this out of a perceived sense of unfairness," said Mark Riskedahl, director of the center. "Every other industrial sector across the country had to get this sort of permit for stormwater discharge," and the process has been very effective at reducing pollution.
The pollution running off logging roads, most of them gravel or dirt, is primarily muddy water stirred up by trucks. Experts have long identified sediment dumped in streams as harmful to salmon and other fish.
The center lost in U.S. District Court in Portland, but won in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The Oregon Department of Forestry and Georgia Pacific-West appealed to the Supreme Court, and 31 states threw in with them. |
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