"It's the classic kind of case that the Supreme Court has said doesn't belong in federal court," said Theodore Boutrous, who represents Chrysler Motors Corp., General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor North America Inc., American Honda Motor Co. and Nissan North America Inc.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who filed the suit in September, claims that automakers are violating public nuisance laws by producing high-emission vehicles and should pay damages for polluting. He says automakers could produce cleaner vehicles, but have chosen to fight instead.

"The thrust of what we're saying is the technology to produce vehicles that emit far less greenhouse gases exists," Lockyer spokeswoman Teresa Schilling said. "They fight any attempt to get them to cut back on their pollution."

The lawsuit contends the state is already dealing with the harmful effects of global warming caused by rising emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. Vehicles are the state's largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions.

The complaint cites state reports that say rising temperatures will melt Sierra Nevada snowpack earlier each year, which will flood the Central Valley and threaten the state's water supply.

Automakers are also wrangling with California over a 2002 law requiring them to cut emissions. Under the law, the California Air Resources Board has adopted standards designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions from cars and light trucks by 25 percent and from sport utility vehicles by 18 percent starting in 2009.

The complaint alleges that conditions at the facility, which houses 215 boys up to 19 years old, routinely and systemically deprive youths of federally protected civil rights in violation of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980 (CRIPA). These statutes allow the federal government to identify and root out systemic abuses such as those allegedly discovered in Oklahoma.

This lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma follows an investigation of two and a half years, the findings of which were detailed in a letter sent to Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry in June 2005. That findings letter documented evidence of numerous alleged civil rights violations, including youth-on-youth violence, staff-on-youth violence, youth-on-staff violence, sexual misconduct between youths and staff, sexual misconduct among youths, an inadequate system to prevent suicide and self-injurious behavior, and inadequate psychotropic medication administration. The Civil Rights Division has successfully resolved investigations of other juvenile justice facilities in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and Saipan. Investigations concerning juvenile justice facilities in California, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, and Texas are pending.

In addition to juvenile facilities, CRIPA protects all institutionalized persons. Since 2001, the Department of Justice has opened 67 similar investigations into the conditions at nursing homes, mental health facilities and residences for persons with developmental disabilities, as well as similar institutions. These figures represent a significant increase over the 47 such investigations initiated over the preceding six years.

The war crimes Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina convicted its third defendant in one week on Friday when it sentenced Dragan Damjanovic to twenty years in prison. Damjanovic was found guilty on six of the seven counts of crimes against humanity listed in his indictment, including murder, torture and rape committed during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

The ruling marks the War Crimes Court's ninth conviction since its establishment last year. Earlier this week, the court sentenced a Bosnian Croat to thirteen years in prison and another Bosnian Serb to twenty-four years in prison for war crimes. Last month, the court sentenced the first defendant to be transferred from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Bosnian lower courts have already tried approximately 1000 war crimes cases to relieve the backlog of the ICTY, and some two dozen other suspects are awaiting trial at the war crimes court.

An Alabama jury returned a verdict in favor of pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. on Friday, concluding that the drug Vioxx did not cause the plaintiff in the case to suffer a heart attack. The jury also found that Merck did not withhold information prior to removing the drug from the market in 2004. The plaintiff, Gary Albright, 57, had asked for over $5 million in damages for the heart attack that he suffered in 2001. Evidence was introduced that other pre-existing conditions may have led to Albright's heart attack. Albright has not announced whether he will appeal the verdict.

The Alabama verdict marks Merck's fourth state victory; it has lost three other state suits, and a New Jersey verdict in its favor was vacated in August. On Wednesday, Merck won its fourth federal victory when a jury in New Orleans found it not liable for damages related to Vioxx. While Merck lost a federal trial in August, the judge rejected the $50 million verdict as excessive and ordered a new trial for damages. Merck continues to face thousands of individual lawsuits and hundreds of class actions over the drug, which was pulled from the market after a study showed that it could double the risk of heart attack or stroke if taken for more than 18 months. Last month, a federal judge rejected a bid to combine all federal lawsuits against Merck into a single class action.

According to the court, Zanfei and Crouse, with the help of South Dakota accounting firm Wohlenberg, Ritzman & Co. LLC, sold illegal or improper health care expense reimbursement plans -- the HI Plan and the HealthIER Plan -- to hundreds of employer-customers. The court concluded that the defendants knowingly misrepresented the tax benefits to employees and employers in selling these plans. According to the government’s complaint, the IRS estimated that the defendants'schemes cost the U.S. Treasury losses of between $12 million and $63 million and would cause ongoing losses of between $6 million to $24 million per year if the defendants were not stopped.

The court also found that the defendants told employers that they could avoid employment tax by contributing to such plans. Employees purportedly would also avoid employment tax and would receive the amounts back by seeking reimbursement of health care expenditures.

The court found that defendants made numerous false statements in promoting the plans and improperly administered them. For example, materials supplied to employees as part of defendants'plans listed "athletic shoes," "electrolysis," "health club fees," "soaps," and "day care" as reimbursable expenses. The court noted that expenses such as these are reimbursable as health care expenses only in rare circumstances. Moreover, the court found that the defendants often reimbursed medical expenses without substantiating them. The court also found that defendants'HI Plan was illegal because it allowed reimbursement for health insurance premiums as opposed to out-of-pocket health care expenses.

The court described IRS audits of two of defendants'customers -- both California firms, with more than 250 participating employees. These two firms used the scheme to under-report taxable wages by a combined amount exceeding $450,000 in one year, and had to file corrected employment tax returns and issue corrected W-2 forms to their employees. The companies had to advise their employees to file amended income tax returns to correct the errors. When the court issued the injunction order, it noted that the defendants have not accepted responsibility for the high level of processing errors in the plans and concluded that the defendants'history "provides no basis for believing that they have either the knowledge or the willingness to step carefully around any [legal] line."

The court also noted that the Department of Labor filed a suit in an Indiana federal court against Zanfei and Crouse for violating their fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by using employees'monthly health insurance premiums to pay for personal expenses. The federal court enjoined them from acting as ERISA fiduciaries.

Since 2001, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained more than 210 injunctions to stop the promotion of tax fraud schemes and the preparation of fraudulent returns. Information about these cases is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/taxpress2006.htm. Information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/index.html.

The New Jersey Legislature passed a bill Thursday allowing same-sex civil unions in response to a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling in October that said the state legislature had 180 days to decide whether the state would recognize same-sex marriage or another form of civil partnership.

The measure was approved by the state Assembly 56-19 and passed the Senate 23-12. The bill says:

The Legislature has chosen to establish civil unions by amending the current marriage statute to include same-sex couples. In doing so, the Legislature is continuing its longstanding history of insuring equality under the laws for all New Jersey citizens by providing same-sex couples with the same rights and benefits as heterosexual couples who choose to marry.

Governor Jon Corzine has said he would sign the measure into law. Gay rights advocates welcome the bill as a step forward. But they also say they will continue to push for the right to marry.