Court

PHILADELPHIA — Less than an hour before the 8 p.m. tipoff, Philadelphia 76ers employees are scurrying around the Wells Fargo Center, hoping this Saturday night unfolds as planned. It's late March, and the team is handing out Allen Iverson bobblehead dolls. Iverson himself is scheduled to attend, a rare public appearance for the 37-year-old former NBA superstar. He'll be introduced during a pregame ceremony and then watch the game from Sixers chief executive Adam Aron's suite.

CLEVELAND — The families of three women who spent years in captivity inside a Cleveland home celebrated on Tuesday their remarkable rescue, as questions began emerging about why police were called to the house at least twice in recent years yet never went inside. The women — Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight — vanished separately a decade ago while in their teens and early 20s only blocks from the eight-room house where they were found Monday night. Their rescue came when Berry,...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — El Salvador's Supreme Court heard opening arguments Wednesday in a landmark abortion case in which a woman suffering from kidney failure and lupus has not been allowed to terminate a pregnancy in which the fetus is given no chance of surviving. The Central American country's laws prohibit all abortions, even when a woman's health is at risk. At present, the woman and any doctor who terminated her 23-week pregnancy would face arrest and criminal charges.

Shorty needed a ride home. She got confused sometimes, the result of some undefined mental condition, and wasn't always sure where she'd wandered. Her family knew this about Michelle "Shorty" Knight, all 4 feet 7 inches of her, and that's why they worried. She got in a car. It begins there, with that simple act, a 21-year-old — in many ways still very much a girl — got in a car. Aug. 22, 2002. If she'd looked up in that last moment of freedom, she would have seen a...

Skechers agreed to pay $40 million to settle charges that it made unfounded claims about the benefits of its toning shoes by asserting that they help people lose weight, tone lower body muscles and even combat heart disease. In a complaint filed Wednesday in federal court, the Federal Trade Commission said Skechers hyped advertising for its Shape-ups line with unsubstantiated tag lines such as "Get in Shape Without Setting Foot in a Gym. " The...

Regarding the March 4 editorial " Protecting families ": As someone who has accompanied my clients to family court in Montgomery County, I have observed bizarre judicial decisions that put children at risk. Many of the contests over parenting arrangements that end up in court are there because one parent is trying to protect the child from the damaging behavior of the other. Damaging behaviors include such things as threatening the other parent in front of the child, leaving the child alone, starting an argument in...

FLUSHING, N.Y., Sept. 3 -- There's a fine line between a coach who offers an encouraging thumbs-up during a tennis match and a coach who uses a prearranged hand signal to convey a strategic tip. Conceding the futility of trying to police the difference, the Women's Tennis Association announced Wednesday that it will start allowing players to consult their coaches during matches beginning next season. And, in doing so, the power brokers of women's tennis hope that on-court coaching will spice up the sport's entertainment value by...

A Silver Spring woman whose three children were slain last weekend in a case in which her husband has been charged said yesterday that the court system in Montgomery County needs to better understand mental illness and that "some people . . . would not listen to me. " "I felt almost like something was going to happen," said Amy Castillo, speaking publicly for the first time since her children were drowned Saturday in a Baltimore hotel room....

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III may not be sued by a Pakistani man who was seized in the United States after the 2001 terrorist attacks and who alleged harsh treatment because of his religion and ethnicity. The court ruled 5 to 4 that the top officials were not liable for the allegedly discriminatory actions of their subordinates unless they had ordered the measures. The decision affects similar lawsuits filed by Arab Muslims picked...

BILLINGS, Mont. — After less than two years of freedom, a Montana man was returned to custody Wednesday following a state Supreme Court ruling that could send him back to prison for the rest of his life over the 1979 slaying of a teenage classmate. Barry Beach surrendered to the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday morning without incident, said state attorney general spokesman John Barnes. "It was hard enough to be innocent to begin with," Beach told...

SAO PAULO — Brazil's Supreme Court has annulled the trial and conviction of a rancher jailed for ordering the 2005 murder of U.S. nun and Amazon defender Dorothy Stang. In a ruling posted Wednesday, the court said Vitalmiro Moura was not given enough time to prepare his defense in 2010 when he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. The court said Moura will remain behind bars until he his retried at a yet-to be scheduled date. Also convicted of ordering Stang's...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A federal appeals court has denied asylum to a Christian family that fled Germany so they could home-school their children, after ruling that U.S. immigration laws do not grant a safe haven to people everywhere who face restrictions that would be prohibited under the Constitution. Many American home-school families and evangelical Christians have taken up the cause of Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, who faced fines and the threat of losing custody of their...

RICHMOND, Va. — A federal appeals court heard arguments Wednesday in the case of a Virginia death row inmate convicted in the bludgeoning and stabbing deaths of a Richmond couple and their two young daughters. The hearing before a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals focused largely on whether an evidentiary hearing should have been held on disputed issues during Ricky Jovan Gray's state court appeals. A federal judge last year ruled that Gray failed...

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to proceed with plans to expand the court complex in Leesburg's downtown historic district, rather than move some or all of the courts outside the town limits. The board had considered several options for expanding the court facilities to meet increasing caseloads and other needs resulting from Loudoun's rapid population growth, including the construction of court facilities on county-owned property off Sycolin Road outside Leesburg.

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Dec. 24 -- A Zimbabwean human rights activist missing for three weeks was taken to court Wednesday, and state media said she was accused in a plot to overthrow President Robert Mugabe. Late Wednesday, a judge ordered Jestina Mukoko and six other activists sent to a hospital under police guard so that allegations of torture could be investigated, a human rights lawyer said. The lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, said the seven would be brought to court again Monday to determine the next step, while...

The Justice Department accused Apple executives, including its late chief executive Steve Jobs, of leading a conspiracy that raised e-book prices in an attempt to hurt Amazon and other competitors, according to documents filed in federal court Tuesday. At one point, Eddy Cue, Apple's lead e-books negotiator, counseled the chief executive of Random House to withhold e-books from Amazon unless it agreed to higher prices, the Justice Department said. Another publisher, Macmillan, would later employ this strategy,...

LAS VEGAS — His leg shackles rattling as he shuffled to the witness stand, a grayer, bulkier O.J. Simpson made his case for a new trial on armed robbery charges Wednesday, saying he was relying on the advice of his trusted attorney when he tried to reclaim mementos from his football glory days. The former NFL running back also said his trial attorney never told him about possible plea bargains with much less prison time. And he said his attorney assured him he could not be convicted.