Cities and municipalities across the country have adopted laws similar to the City of Hazleton's 2006 ordinance. However, a federal judge later called the Hazleton law unconstitutional, and its provisions are not being enforced.

On Thursday, a lawyer for the former coal town argued that the ordinance would not conflict with federal immigration policy set by Congress. But an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer argued that municipalities should not be allowed to set varying standards and restrictions for illegal immigrants.

Congress, in crafting U.S. immigration law, aims to strike a balance between the rights of immigrants, foreign policy concerns, national security and other competing interests, ACLU lawyer Omar C. Jadwat told the three-judge panel.

"That's going to be impossible if Hazleton and other cities strike their own balance," Jadwat said.

The city's Illegal Immigration Relief Act would impose fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and deny business permits to companies that give them jobs. It would also require tenants to register with City Hall and pay for a rental permit.

A state law passed in 2005 that tries to limit access to such games is under consideration by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The state law, which prohibits the sale or rental of the games to anyone under 18 and requires them to be clearly labeled, was struck down last year by a lower court. Video game manufacturers argued that it violates minors' First Amendment rights. Courts in several other states have struck down similar laws.

But California Deputy Attorney General Zackery Morazzini asked the federal appeals panel to uphold the law, saying violent games are just as obscene as the sexually explicit material limited from children by the U.S. Supreme Court.

He said states have every right to help parents who want to keep their children from playing violent video games.

The Video Software Dealers Association and Entertainment Software Association say imposing restrictions on video games could lead to states seeking limited access to other material under the guise of protecting children.

The girl's father, Jon E. Pomeroy, 43, and stepmother, Rebecca A. Long, 44, each could face three to four years in prison if convicted of criminal mistreatment.

King County Superior Court Judge Cheryl Carey ordered the couple to avoid contact with the girl and her 12-year-old brother, who are both in foster care. The couple declined to comment afterward.

The couple was charged on Oct. 13, two months after the girl was removed from the home near Carnation, about 20 miles east of Seattle, by the state Department of Social and Health Services.

In court documents, a deputy sheriff described the girl as "extremely skinny and pale" and found she weighed only 48 pounds.

Court documents also said that doctors who evaluated the girl found that she was extremely malnourished and that she hadn't gained weight since she was 9.

The girl told investigators she was allowed about 6 ounces of water each day, and was monitored by Long to keep from drinking extra water. Pomeroy was aware of her treatment but did nothing to stop it, the girl said.

Long told police that she used the water restriction to punish her stepdaughter. The son was not similarly mistreated.

Both Long and Pomeroy had been released from the King County Jail after each posted $20,000 bond.

Marco Allen Chapman's execution was scheduled for Nov. 21 after the Kentucky Supreme Court upheld his sentence last week. Chapman, 36, would be the first inmate put to death in the state in nearly 10 years.

The defense attorneys filed two motions with the Supreme Court on Monday asking for a stay of execution, even though Chapman dismissed them in 2004 before pleading guilty and asking to be put to death.

The public defenders questioned Chapman's competency in one motion for a stay. In another, they argued that Chapman shouldn't be executed until appeals are exhausted in a separate case that questions the validity of Kentucky's execution protocol. That case is pending before the state Supreme Court.

Public defenders Donna Boyce, Randall Wheeler and Emily Rhorer wrote in one of the motions that Chapman "will suffer the most irreparable injury known to law" if the stay isn't granted. "He will be executed before it is determined whether his execution would be legal," they wrote.

The law is designed to keep sex offenders away from children by monitoring how close they live to schools, parks and other spots where kids gather. But critics say it unfairly subjects homeless offenders to a life sentence if they fail to register a home address.

The Georgia Supreme Court's 6-1 decision Monday found the law's registration requirements were "unconstitutionally vague." The opinion also held that homeless offenders are not exempt from the statute, and suggested special reporting requirements for the homeless.

The case involves William James Santos, a homeless man and convicted sex offender who was kicked out of a Gainesville homeless shelter in July 2006 and was arrested three months later on charges he failed to register with Georgia's sex offender list.

The Wisconsin Judicial Commission filed a complaint against Justice Michael Gableman on Tuesday, claiming he violated a rule that prohibits judicial candidates from knowingly misrepresenting facts about their opponents.

Gableman was the first challenger to defeat an incumbent justice in 41 years when he knocked off Louis Butler in the April election with 51 percent of the vote. Gableman, 42, joined the court for a 10-year term in August.

During the campaign, Gableman faced intense criticism from independent observers when his campaign ran a television ad that showed a picture of Butler, the state's first black justice, next to a mug shot of convicted rapist Reuben Lee Mitchell, who is black. A narrator said: "Butler found a loophole. Mitchell went on to molest another child."

When Butler was a public defender, he represented Mitchell on the appeal of his 1985 conviction for raping an 11-year-old girl.

Butler convinced an appeals court that Mitchell deserved a new trial because certain evidence should not have been allowed. The Supreme Court overturned that decision and Mitchell served his full sentence. After his release on parole in 1992, Mitchell was convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

The justices did not comment Monday in turning down a dozen individuals and two groups that oppose abortion rights. The court turned down similar appeals in 2003 and 2006.

Four physicians and abortion clinics sued in 1995 after the activists released a Wild West-style poster that named a dozen abortion doctors underneath the headline, "Wanted." A related Web site, titled the "Nuremberg Files," declared the doctors guilty of crimes against humanity, and listed their addresses and telephone numbers.

In 1999, a jury awarded the doctors and clinics more than $100 million under racketeering laws and a 1994 federal law that makes it illegal to incite violence against abortion doctors. Courts reduced the judgment to more than $16 million.

The activists say the verdict violated their free speech rights under the Constitution.