Baton Rouge rapper Torrence "Lil Boosie" Hatch has pleaded not guilty to several charges including first-degree murder.

Hatch appeared Monday before state District Judge Mike Erwin.

Hatch's attorney, Marcus Allen, spoke after the hearing and said Hatch is "absolutely not guilty."

The Advocate reports that Hatch is accused of paying a man to kill 35-year-old Terry Boyd, who was shot to death through a window while inside his home on Oct. 21. Two other Baton Rouge men also face first-degree murder charges in Boyd's death.

California-based law firm Kershaw, Cuttiner, and Ratinoff is asking for customers with iPhone 4 signal reception issues to contract them, likely signaling the beginnings of a class-action suit against Apple over the issues. An announcement was posted to their site this week.

The reception problem looks like it won’t be going anytime soon. While some have tried to argue that the problems are related to iOS4 itself, it seems highly unlikely it’s a software issue alone. With Apple confirming that the metal band around the phone does serve as an antenna, it seems as if any interference to that (including putting your hand over it) would degrade signal quality.

President Barack Obama is turning his attention to energy and immigration legislation Tuesday.

He'll meet with a bipartisan group of senators to discuss passing comprehensive energy and climate legislation this year.

The president also will meet with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to discuss the possibility of an overhaul of federal immigration laws — an iffy proposition in this election year.

Obama also will have a working lunch with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

A Delaware bankruptcy court judge on Friday cleared the way for auto parts supplier Visteon Corp. to begin soliciting votes on its proposed reorganization plan, which would leave unsecured bond holders in control of the company.

Overruling objections from certain shareholders and holders of unsecured trade claims, Judge Christopher Sontchi approved documents describing Visteon's proposed reorganization plan and the process for creditors to vote on it.

Creditors will have until July 30 to vote on the plan, and Sontchi scheduled a plan confirmation trial to begin Sept. 28.

The shareholders could receive nothing under Visteon's plan, and the trade creditors would get no more than 50 cents on the dollar for their claims, which total about $48 million. Their attorneys argued that the disclosure statement outlining Visteon's plan did not contain enough information on the company's valuation, and that the plan itself was unconfirmable because of how it treats various creditor groups.

Attorneys for Visteon argued that the objections to the disclosure statement were without merit, or that they should be addressed at what promises to be a contentious plan confirmation trial stretching over two weeks.

The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that Philip Morris does not have to pay $100 million in punitive damages to the family of a smoker who sued the tobacco giant over its low-tar cigarettes.

The case, however, is going to another jury to decide just how much the death of Michelle Schwarz from lung cancer in 1999 will cost Philip Morris — and legal experts say it could easily be another big award.

A Multnomah County jury in Portland originally awarded the Schwarz family $150 million in March 2002 before the trial judge reduced it to $100 million.

On Thursday, the Oregon Supreme Court vacated the $100 million award and sent the case back to the trial court to reconsider the punitive damages after ruling the judge failed to properly instruct the jury.

The court said the judge should have told the jury it could not punish Philip Morris directly for harm caused to others besides Schwarz.

But the court also supported the trial judge, who had rejected jury instructions the tobacco company had requested.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday extended gun rights to every state and city in the nation in a ruling involving Chicago's 28-year-old handgun ban.

By a 5-4 vote and splitting along conservative and liberal lines, the nation's highest court extended its landmark 2008 ruling that individual Americans have a constitutional right to own guns to all the cities and states for the first time.

The right to bear arms, under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, previously applied to just federal laws and federal enclaves, like Washington D.C., where the court struck down a similar handgun ban in its 2008 ruling.

Gun rights have been one of the country's most divisive social, political and legal issues. Some 90 million people in the United States have an estimated 200 million guns.

The United States is estimated to have the world's highest civilian gun ownership rate. Gun deaths average about 80 a day, 34 of them homicides, according to U.S. government statistics.

The ruling, issued on the last day of the Supreme Court's term, was a victory for four Chicago-area residents, two gun rights groups and the politically powerful National Rifle Association.

It was a defeat for Chicago, which defended its law as a reasonable exercise of local power to protect public safety. The law and a similar handgun ban in suburban Oak Park, Illinois, were the nation's most restrictive gun control measures.

"We hold that the Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the states," Justice Samuel Alito concluded for the court majority in the 45-page ruling.

European nations do not have to allow same-sex marriage, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled, though gay rights groups claimed a partial victory Friday because the court acknowledged growing agreement that their relationships should be recognized in law.

Seven judges at the European court ruled unanimously that two Austrian men denied permission to wed were not covered by the guarantee of the right to marry enshrined in Europe's human rights convention.

The judges acknowledged "an emerging European consensus" that same-sex couples should have legal recognition but said individual states may still decide what form it should take because marriage had "deep-rooted social and cultural connotations which may differ largely from one society to another."

The European Union's 27 member states range from socially liberal countries like Sweden and the Netherlands to religious, conservative nations such as Poland.