As Al Milano watched in court, prosecutors laid out a sampling of Jamar Houser's previous run-ins with the law even before the 18-year-old was accused of killing 80-year-old Angeline Fimognari last month.

Houser, who was arrested Friday, was arraigned Monday and issued $3 million bond in the Jan. 23 shooting death of Fimognari in the parking lot of St. Dominic's Church on the city's South Side.

Authorities said Houser's record dates back to when he was just 14 and convicted in juvenile court of receiving stolen property. Two years later, he was convicted on aggravated robbery. Then in September, he was accused of assaulting Jabone Kennedy, who claimed Houser thought he had said something about his father.

That same day Houser was arrested for reportedly firing a gun into the air outside his house on Volney Road. His bond for that was set at $500,000.

"If that bond were still in place, he likely would still be incarcerated pending trial," said city Prosecutor Jay Macejko.

A judge ruled Monday that online travel sites such as Expedia do not owe the city of Anaheim $21 million in hotel taxes for rooms booked over the Internet, the first ruling of its kind in California on an issue that has bubbled up in cities across the country.

In her ruling, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl set aside last year's decision by a city hearing officer that the travel booking sites owed $21.3 million to Anaheim in back hotel taxes.

The city is reviewing its options, spokeswoman Marty DeSollar said in an e-mailed statement.

A coalition of the online travel sites, including Priceline, Expedia Inc., Orbitz, Hotwire, Hotels.com and Trip Network Inc., filed papers asking to overturn the hearing officer's ruling.

Such disputes are increasingly common between online travel companies and tourist-dependent cities.

Lawsuits or complaints have been filed around the country by cities or customers, including in Georgia, Maryland, Texas, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and in the California cities of San Diego and San Francisco.

The undercover officer who obtained a search warrant for a planned raid at the Country Crossing gambling hall in Dothan, Ala., said its electronic machines aren't bingo because they can be played blindfolded.

In papers filed in federal court Monday, Lt. Mike Reese of the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board said he is the officer who obtained search warrants for a successful raid of a gambling hall in White Hall on March 19 and for a raid at Country Crossing on Jan. 6 that was blocked by a judge.

Reese, a member of Gov. Bob Riley's Task Force on Illegal Gambling, told the court the Country Crossing games don't meet any of the standards for player interaction that the Alabama Supreme Court laid out in the White Hall case, including marking numbers and recognizing a winning card.

"In fact, once money is inserted, the game can be played blindfolded or with the eyes closed by simply pressing the button three times, and can be played without ever looking at the bingo card," Reese said in an affidavit presented to U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson.

Reese's search warrant for the Jan. 6 raid expired without ever being used. The task force is now fighting in court with Country Crossing's attorneys over whether the task force can stage a new raid on the gambling hall's 1,700 machines. A planned raid last Friday was called off when a judge sought more information before issuing a new search warrant.

Many Americans were glued to their television as President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address last Thursday.

Near the conclusion of his speech, I sat and watched as the President publicly criticized the highest judicial authority, the Supreme Court, for ruling in favor of “allowing corporations to spend without limit in our elections.”

While this statement alone was enough to rile support from some seated in the House chamber, six of nine justices in attendance remained seated; their unmoved faces reflecting their point of view. Except for Samuel Alito.

“Not true, not true,” the Associate Justice appeared to say as he visibly shook his head in opposition to Obama’s scolding.

The question I pose is, where does the disrespect come to an end across the board?

While media networks criticized Alito for his blatant acts of disagreement, no one has questioned the extent to which President Obama took to openly disagree with the Supreme Court.

In the years of the State of the Union address, legal experts do not recall encountering a president openly scolding the court since Roosevelt’s address to Congress in 1937.

Rather than sharing how he felt about their decision, President Obama should have exercised restraint for this particular occasion. The State of the Union address should be a time designated for the president to “report to Congress the current state of the Union” and to implement his own legislative ideas.

At the same time, Associate Justice Alito should refrain from making his gestures of disagreement so blatant.

I am sure that Obama is grateful that he did not have another “you lie” incident, however if the President wants respect from other high ranking politicians, he too should give respect where it is due.

Long before teacher Tetyana Nikitina was shot to death Friday, she said she feared for her life.

In fact, according to divorce records filed in 2005, the 34-year-old Ukranian immigrant also said she was terrified her then-husband would kill their two children.

Nikitina was gunned down Friday afternoon as she left the Salt Lake Head Start school where she worked. Police say she was fatally shot by her former mother-in-law, 70-year-old Mary Nance Hanson.

Unified Police executed a search warrant Monday on the Taylorsville home of Nikitina's ex-husband and Hanson's son, Dale Jankowski. Police said they hoped they could piece together the circumstances that led to Nikitina's death.

For his part, Jankowski said in voluminous divorce records filed in 3rd District Court that Nikitina was trying to set him up with false accusations of domestic abuse, and he was deeply afraid that she would flee the United States with their children — which resulted in a battle over the children's passports.

"There is no label for him (such as person of interest)," Unified Police Lt. Don Hutson said. "He is just a relative of the suspect." Hutson said investigators are interested in the relationship Nikitina had with Hanson, who called 911 after the shooting.

Delaware's death penalty was upheld as constitutional on Monday, paving the way for executions -- on hold since May 2006 -- to resume.

Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said Monday he was pleased the court ruled that Delaware is meeting its constitutional obligations and that his office will be working with Superior Court to begin "scheduling executions as appropriate."

Biden said the three-year delay "caused uncertainty, and I'm glad this has resolved that uncertainty
."
In its 47-page opinion, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals warned Delaware about "the worrisome course it appears to have taken at times" in executions.

"The record before us reflects an occasional blitheness on Delaware's part that, while perhaps not unconstitutional, gives us great pause. We remind Delaware not only of its constitutional obligation ... but also of its moral obligation to carry out executions with the degree of seriousness and respect that the state-administered termination of human life demands," Circuit Judge D. Michael Fisher wrote on behalf of the panel.

Attorney Michael Wiseman of the Federal Community Defender's office in Philadelphia -- which represents Delaware's 18 death-row inmates in the class-action lawsuit -- declined to comment Monday, saying he was still reviewing the opinion.

In court papers, attorneys for Delaware's condemned inmates detailed problems during executions, including inadequate qualifications and training of execution team members, improper dosages of the lethal injection drugs and odd procedures such as the execution team mixing drugs in the dark.

Attorneys for Delaware inmates essentially charged that because of the state's history of mistakes and because it didn't follow its own rules in past executions, there was significant doubt that the state could properly follow new court-approved rules to execute inmates without unnecessary suffering.

Ralph Mabey, a former bankruptcy judge who was appointed as the examiner, said he was seeking an additional 21 days to conduct the investigation, as he has had some difficulty in obtaining necessary witnesses, documents and other information that he had hoped to obtain consensually.

The examiner, who was originally expected to file his report on February 19, asked for a delay until March 12.

Extended Stay filed for bankruptcy protection in June saying it was "significantly over-leveraged" and that projected cash flows could not continue to service its more than $7 billion in debt.

In September, a U.S. bankruptcy judge approved a request by the U.S. Trustee for an examiner to be hired to probe questions surrounding the purchase and financing of the lodging chain.

The examiner is tasked with looking into the acquisition of Extended Stay by David Lichtenstein's Lightstone Group, which had purchased the chain of 680 hotels from a Blackstone Group LP (BX.N) affiliate, prior to its bankruptcy.