Three South Florida law firms that represent mortgage lenders are being investigated by the state attorney general over allegations they forged documents filed with the courts in foreclosure cases.

The Florida attorney general issued the subpoenas this week, requesting reams of paperwork by the end of the month from attorneys working in the foreclosure capital of the country.

The investigation targets firms considered to be handling the largest number of foreclosures in Florida on behalf of lenders, in some cases handling thousands of cases a month. They are the Law Offices of David J. Stern in Plantation; the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson in Fort Lauderdale; and Shapiro & Fishman, which has offices in Boca Raton and Tampa.

The subpoenas request documents going back to at least Jan. 1, 2008.

Attorney General Bill McCollum said the firms may have presented fabricated documents in court to obtain foreclosure judgments against homeowners. Thousands of final judgments of foreclosure against Florida homeowners may have been the result of improper actions by the firms under investigation, said McCollum, a Republican who is a running for governor.

He likened their work processing so many foreclosures to a mill, churning out foreclosures in large volumes.

Victoryland casino closed voluntarily Monday as a court ruling loomed that could allow a raid of Alabama's largest electronic bingo operation, the last non-Indian casino doing business in the state.

Victoryland owner Milton McGregor said the casino was be closing temporarily due to the "legal shenanigans and threats" from Gov. Bob Riley and his gambling task force commander, John Tyson Jr.

Riley and Tyson contend the casino is an illegal slots operation and court rulings in Alabama have made that clear. But McGregor said no court has ruled specifically that Victoryland's machines are in violation of a constitutional amendment allowing bingo that Macon County voters approved.

"The system of government in our state has broken down," McGregor said in a statement.

Macon County's district attorney and sheriff have contended the casino is legal. Their attorneys had a Monday afternoon deadline from the Alabama Supreme Court to respond to Tyson's request to raid Victoryland and confiscate its 6,000 bingo machines.

Civil rights groups on Thursday accused the U.S. Census Bureau of discrimination in its hiring of more than a million temporary workers to conduct the 2010 census, saying it ignored a warning from a federal agency that its hiring practices might violate the Civil Rights Act.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Public Citizen Litigation Group were among groups that sued the secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce in April to end the hiring practices and obtain back pay for plaintiffs. They beefed up the lawsuit Thursday with new claims and plaintiffs.

The lawsuit, which seeks class action status in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, alleges the Census Bureau in hiring temporary workers over the past two years illegally screened out applicants with often decades-old arrest records for minor offenses or those who were arrested but never convicted. It accuses the bureau, a division of the Department of Commerce, of discriminating against more than 100,000 blacks, Latinos and Native Americans, who are more likely to have arrest records than whites.

The first word on whether California's same-sex marriage ban passes scrutiny under the U.S. Constitution is scheduled to come down Wednesday when a federal judge issues his ruling in a landmark case.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has reached a decision on whether to uphold or overturn the voter-approved ban known as Proposition 8 and plans to publish his opinion in the afternoon, court spokeswoman Lynn Fuller said.

His verdict comes in response to a lawsuit brought by two same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco seeking to invalidate the law as an unlawful infringement on the civil rights of gay men and lesbians.

Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriages in California five months after the state Supreme Court legalized them, passed with 52 percent of the vote in November 2008 following the most expensive campaign on a social issue in U.S. history.

Attorneys on both sides have said an appeal was certain if Walker did not rule in their favor. The case would go first to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals then the Supreme Court if the high court justices agree to review it.

Anticipating such a scenario, lawyers for the coalition of religious and conservative groups that sponsored Proposition 8 in 2008 filed a legal brief Tuesday asking Walker to stay his decision if he overturns the ban so same-sex couples could not marry while an appeal was pending.

An appeals court panel has reversed the murder conviction of a mother accused of driving her teenage son and his friends to a Southern California park where a 13-year-old rival gang member was stabbed to death.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal panel ruled 2-1 on Monday that jurors in the case of 33-year-old Eva Daley were given an "impermissibly ambiguous" jury instruction during the 2008 trial.

Associate Justice Laurie D. Zelon wrote that case records don't show the jury based its verdict on a legally valid theory, so the conviction should be reversed.

Daley had been convicted of second-degree murder for the 2007 death of Jose Cano.

Prosecutors argued that Daley wanted revenge because Cano allegedly stabbed her son six months earlier.

The lawsuit says Locksley attacked Gerald on Sept. 20 by choking him, punching him in the face and cursing at him in front of peers and athletes, and should have to pay damages to Gerald.

The lawsuit says the University of New Mexico discriminated against Gerald, who is black, by encouraging him to minimize the assault and failing to take appropriate action.

UNM spokeswoman Susan McKinsey says the university "will vigorously defend itself and its employees against these claims."

A judge has lifted an order that prevented a legal newspaper from publishing information found in court records that were supposed to have been shielded from public view.

The Internet blog of the National Law Journal said Friday that the judge freed the newspaper to publish the information, which concerned an investigation of juicemaker POM Wonderful by the Federal Trade Commission.

POM had fought to keep the investigating agency's name secret, but reversed course Friday and asked D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff to rescind her order. Bartnoff had ordered the records sealed, but they mistakenly remained available.

POM said in a statement that it never intended to provoke a First Amendment fight over the issue.

"POM is, and always has been, fervent supporters of and believers in the freedom of the press, and takes very seriously its commitment to transparency in all aspects of our business," the company said.

Its request to the judge came as news organizations filed legal papers in support of the law journal that said Bartnoff's order lacked "any conceivable justification" and should be reversed immediately.