The Supreme Court is stepping into a legal fight over Omega's effort to stop Costco from offering the Swiss maker's watches for up to a third less than they cost elsewhere.

The case has important implications for discount sellers like Costco and Target as well as eBay, Amazon and other companies that form an estimated $58 billion annual market for goods that are purchased abroad, then imported and resold without the permission of the manufacturer.

The justices said Monday they will hear Costco's appeal of a lower court ruling that sided with Omega in its attempt to invoke U.S. copyright law to halt the discount sales. Omega owns a U.S. copyright on the Omega Globe Design symbol that is engraved on its watches at the time they are made.

The high court has previously ruled that copyright protections do not apply to goods made in the United States, sold abroad and then imported back into the country for resale. At issue in this case are items that are manufactured overseas, sold by their maker abroad and then brought back here for resale.

This means of purchase, importation and resale is sometimes called the secondary-goods or gray-goods market, and it is a big part of Costco's business.

The Supreme Court appears likely to rule against public employees who claimed a local government violated their privacy by reading racy text messages they sent on their employers' account.

Several justices said Monday that the employer, the Ontario, Calif., police department, acted reasonably in monitoring the text messages in view of its written policy warning employees they have no guarantee of privacy in the use of office computer and electronics equipment.

Justice Stephen Breyer said he didn't see "anything, quite honestly, unreasonable about that."

While the case involves government workers, the decision could have broader privacy implications as courts continue to sort out privacy issues in the digital age. Many employers, including Ontario, tell workers there is no guarantee of privacy in anything sent over their company- or government-provided computers, cell phones or pagers.

The case arose when the Ontario department decided to audit text message usage to see whether its SWAT team officers were using them too often for personal reasons. Three police officers and another employee complained that the department improperly snooped on their electronic exchanges, including many that were said to be sexually explicit.

The Supreme Court by an 8-1 vote Tuesday struck down a federal law that makes it a crime to sell videos and other depictions of animal cruelty, saying the law infringed on free speech rights.

"We read (the law) to create a criminal prohibition of alarming breadth," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, noting that nowhere in the disputed law was there a requirement that the depicted conduct actually be "cruel."

The text of the law, used to prosecute a Virginia man who had advertised videos of dogfights in an underground magazine, sweepingly covered "any depiction" in which "a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed."

Yet as the justices struck down that prohibition, they specifically said they were not deciding the validity of a law that would target only so-called "crush videos," which typically show women's high heels digging into kittens and other small animals and which had inspired Congress to write the 1999 law in the first place.

Robert Stevens, who had run a business known as "Dogs of Velvet and Steel," appealed his conviction under the law, saying it violated his First Amendment speech rights. He also contended he was trying to provide educational and historical materials about the pit bull breed, not promoting illegal dogfighting.

The Supreme Court seemed to split sharply Monday on whether a law school can deny recognition to a Christian student group that won't let gays join, a case that could determine whether nondiscrimination policies trump the rights of private organizations to determine who can — and cannot — belong.

In arguments tinged with questions of religious, racial and sexual discrimination, the court heard from the Christian Legal Society, which wants recognition from the University of California's Hastings College of the Law as an official campus organization with school financing and benefits.

Hastings, located in San Francisco, turned them down, saying no recognized campus groups may exclude people due to religious belief or sexual orientation.

The Christian group requires that voting members sign a statement of faith. The group also regards "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle" as being inconsistent with the statement of faith.

Ms. Weinberg provides corporations with practical and proactive labor and employment law counseling services. She works closely with high-tech and start-up companies in the Richardson, Plano, Frisco and Dallas areas.

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Education

Ms. Weinberg received her J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law in 1985 and was an Associate Editor of the Hofstra Law Review.
Ms. Weinberg graduated Magna Cum Laude from the State University of New York at Albany with a B.A. in History and Education.

Honors

Named as a Texas "Super Lawyer" in Labor and Employment law, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 & 2003.
Member of Strathmore's Who's Who 2002-2003.
Elected to Membership in the Fellows of the Texas Bar Foundation 2008

Expertise

Successfully negotiating employment and severance packages.
Successfully defending corporations and individuals against sexual harassment, race, age and religious discrimination claims.
Supervising out of state litigation to ensure cohesive and consistent strategies.
Negotiating with federal agencies to reduce liability exposure and avoiding additional liability for monetary fines and attorney fees.
Providing confidential group and one-on-one sensitivity training to individuals

With tragedy comes an outpouring of support but an area law firm's way of helping is raising some eyebrows.

Underwood Law Firm wasted no time putting ads in local newspapers a week after the deadly blast killed 29 miners at Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County.

Attorney Mark Underwood says he stands by his decision; especially because he says benefit packages are often difficult to understand.

"I think it was perfect timing in light of the fact that Massey came out with a benefits package the very next day," Underwood said.

Underwood said his grandfather was killed in an industrial accident years ago. His family understands what happens following the funeral with emotions running high, and the daunting task of legal paperwork.

"The family members that would be considering those benefit packages need to seek some sort of legal counsel whether it's our firm, another firm, a friend or a neighbor that's a lawyer," Underwood said. "They need to go and sit down and talk to a lawyer before they agree to anything with Massey."

But how soon, is too soon? It's a question many people started asking as ads popped up before all the funerals had even been finished.

"The timing of this...was it the right thing to do immediately after the tragedy or before all the funerals had taken place or would it have been better to wait until later?" Patrick Gallagher said.

It's been called a groundbreaking law, but a measure approved in Nebraska last week that changes the rationale for abortion bans probably won't go into effect anytime soon — if ever.

Instead, abortion opponents are hoping it will become the most important case on abortion to reach the U.S. Supreme Court in recent memory. Even they acknowledge the ban on abortions at and after 20 weeks of pregnancy won't see the light of day unless the high court rules that it is constitutional.

Mary Spaulding Balch, legislative director for National Right to Life, said a court injunction will likely prevent the implementation of the law. The measure passed last week by Nebraska's nonpartisan Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Dave Heineman is scheduled to take effect in October.

Lower courts have no precedent to support the law, which bases the new restrictions on the assertion that fetuses feel pain.