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Nebraska court could hold up Keystone pipeline
Headline Court News |
2015/01/08 13:24
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The Republican-led Congress appears ready to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, but no matter what actions are taken in Washington, the entire 1,179-mile project could be delayed until Nebraska signs off on the route.
After several years of intense debate, the routing process is before the Nebraska Supreme Court, and depending on how the justices rule, months or years could pass before construction begins in that state.
Even if approval comes from Washington and the high court, opponents are looking for new ways to block the project, including filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of Native American tribes in Nebraska and South Dakota over the possible disruption of Indian artifacts.
The court is considering whether an obscure agency known as the Nebraska Public Service Commission must review the pipeline before it can cross the state, one of six on the pipeline's route. Gov. Dave Heineman gave the green light in 2013 without the involvement of the panel, which normally regulates telephones, taxis and grain bins.
The justices have given no indication when they will render a decision.
President Barack Obama has said he is waiting for the court's decision, and the White House on Tuesday threatened to veto the bill in what was expected to be the first of many confrontations with the new Congress over energy and environmental policy. |
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Suspect in trooper shooting case heads to court
Headline Court News |
2015/01/05 15:09
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A man who eluded police for 48 days after allegedly shooting to death a state trooper and wounding another is due in court for a preliminary hearing which could decide whether his case goes to county court for trial.
A Pennsylvania district judge must decide Monday whether there are sufficient grounds to send the case against Eric Frein, 31, to county court.
Frein has been charged with shooting Cpl. Bryon Dickson and Trooper Alex Douglass Sept. 12 outside their state police station in northeastern Pennsylvania. He was captured Oct. 30 at an abandoned airplane hangar in the Pocono Mountains.
Authorities say Frein confessed to what he described as an assassination designed to "wake people up" and result in a change in government. Dickson was killed and Douglass was wounded.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Frein was identified as a suspect shortly after the shootings when a passer-by found his vehicle partially submerged in a small pond near the state police station.
The manhunt, with drew a large police force to the rural area, frightened residents as there were numerous reported sightings of Frein, an expert marksman. A team of federal marshals performing a systematic search stumbled across him about 30 miles from the scene of the shooting and were able to arrest him.
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Egypt court bans festival honoring Moroccan rabbi
Headline Court News |
2014/12/31 09:50
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An Egyptian court has banned an annual festival in honor of Moroccan rabbi that was regularly attended by hundreds of Jewish pilgrims, mainly from Israel and Morocco.
After the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Egypt began allowing organized trips to the tomb of Yaakov Abu Hatzira in the Nile Delta north of Cairo. The Culture Ministry declared the site an Egyptian monument.
The Administrative Court of Alexandria on Monday banned the visits and stripped the ministry's designation. It acted on a complaint filed by local residents who objected to the mingling of men and women and the consumption of alcohol at the festival. |
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Nevada court says Strip club dancers are employees
Headline Court News |
2014/11/04 14:45
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In a legal decision with wide implications for strip clubs in Sin City, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday that dancers at one Las Vegas club are employees, not independent contractors, and are entitled to be paid minimum wage.
The unanimous ruling Thursday in a 2009 class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of six dancers at Sapphire Gentlemen's Club could change the landscape statewide in a business where dancers have for decades depended on tips and even paid "house fees" to establishments that allowed them to work.
"Given that Sapphire bills itself as the 'World's Largest Strip Club,' and not, say, a sports bar or nightclub," the high court said, "we are confident that the women strip-dancing there are useful and indeed necessary to its operation."
Mick Rusing, the Tucson, Arizona, attorney who represented plaintiff Zuri-Kinshasa Maria Terry and five other dancers in the initial case, said the ruling might directly effect more than 6,500 current and former members of the affected class, dating to about 2006.
Rusing said they could be entitled to a combined $40 million in back wages, plus the return of house fees.
"And it keeps going up every month," Rusing said. "As employees, you get a lot of rights. The girls are entitled to be paid. At very least, minimum wage."
Sapphire officials and the attorneys who represented the company before the Supreme Court didn't immediately respond to messages.
The Supreme Court ruling, written by Justice Kristina Pickering, declared clubs are not exempt from provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
That includes worker compensation and sexual harassment rules, Rusing said. |
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