Va. court: Hookah lounge exempt from smoking ban

A divided Virginia Court of Appeals has ruled that a Blacksburg hookah lounge is exempt from the state's restaurant smoking ban.

In a 6-3 ruling Tuesday, the court said the She-Sha Cafe and Hookah Lounge is not subject to the ban because it's a retail tobacco store as well as a restaurant. She-Sha says most of its revenue comes from customers' use of hookahs - tall water pipes that are used to smoke flavored tobacco.

The state law regulating indoor public smoking covers restaurants but specifically exempts tobacco retailers. The court's majority cited that exemption in ruling in She-Sha's favor.

The decision reverses a three-judge panel's ruling that She-Sha is covered by the ban because it also serves food.

Texas Supreme Court tackles same-sex divorce

The issues of same-sex marriage and divorce are set to go before the Texas Supreme Court.

The court is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday on whether Texas can grant divorces to same-sex couples who married elsewhere.

Both cases involve same-sex couples who married legally in Massachusetts. Texas approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage in 2005.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott argues that state law won't allow Texas to recognize the divorces because that would validate the marriage. The couples question whether the same-sex marriage ban applies to divorce and whether it conflicts with the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down parts of the federal Defense of Marriage Act because it treats same-sex couples unequally.

The Texas court is not expected to rule for several months.

Attorney asks court to push hard on school funding

The attorney representing a coalition of parents and education groups that sued the state over school funding told the Washington Supreme Court on Monday that it's time for the justices to get tough with lawmakers.

In a filing to the court, attorney Thomas Ahearne asks the justices to warn elected state officials they face sanctions, a holding of contempt or some other appropriate judicial enforcement if they don't stop dragging their feet on spending more state dollars on education.

The filing follows an update from the Legislature in August on its progress toward fulfilling a court order in the case known as the McCleary decision to fix the way Washington pays for K-12 education.

In January 2012, the Supreme Court ruled the state isn't meeting its constitutional obligation to amply pay for basic education. The Legislature added about $1 billion to education funding this year.

Court: US can keep bin Laden photos under wraps

A federal appeals court is backing the U.S. government’s decision not to release photos and video taken of Osama bin Laden during and after a raid in which the terrorist leader was killed by U.S. commandos.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia turned down an appeal Tuesday from Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, which had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the images.
The court said that the CIA properly withheld publication of the images. The court concluded that the photos used to conduct facial recognition analysis of bin Laden could reveal classified intelligence methods — and that images of bin Laden’s burial at sea could trigger violence against American citizens.

LulzSec hacker pleads guilty to cyberattacks

A British computer hacker affiliated to the group Lulz Security pleaded guilty Tuesday to cyberattacks on institutions including Sony, Britain's National Health Service and Rupert Murdoch's News International.
Ryan Ackroyd admitted one count of carrying out an unauthorized act to impair the operation of a computer.
Prosecutors say the 26-year-old accessed websites belonging to Sony, 20th Century Fox, the NHS, Nintendo, the Arizona State Police and News International between February and September 2011.
He will be sentenced May 14 at Southwark Crown Court in London. Other charges against him are being dropped.
Three other British hackers — 18-year-old Mustafa Al-Bassam, 20-year-old Jake Davis and Ryan Cleary, 21 — had previously pleaded guilty to launching distributed denial of service attacks on organizations including the CIA and Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency. Denial of service attacks work by overwhelming sites with traffic.

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Court won't hear Ga. Gun lawsuit

The Supreme Court won't overturn a Georgia law banning firearms in churches and other places of worship.

The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from GeorgiaCarry.org, which wanted the justices to overturn a lower court decision upholding Georgia's law banning guns in churches and other places of worship.

GeorgiaCarry.org argued that the ban applying specifically to places of worship burdens "religiously motivated conduct by regulating how or what a worshipper can do with a weapon while he is worshipping."

But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's dismissal of the lawsuit brought by GeorgiaCarry and the Rev. Jonathan Wilkins of the Baptist Tabernacle of Thomaston, Ga. The Supreme Court, without comment, refused to reconsider that ruling.