The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Monday halted an effort to grant "personhood" rights to human embryos, saying the measure is unconstitutional.

The state's highest court ruled unanimously that a proposed amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution that would define a fertilized human egg as a person violates a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving a Pennsylvania case and "is clearly unconstitutional." Supporters of the personhood amendment are trying to gather enough signatures to put it before Oklahoma voters on the November ballot.

Opponents contend the measure would ban abortions without exception and interfere with a woman's right to use certain forms of contraception and medical procedures, such as in vitro fertilization.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights filed a protest with the state Supreme Court on behalf of several Oklahoma doctors and residents. They asked the court to stop the group Personhood Oklahoma from gathering signatures.

The nine-member court determined the initiative petition "is void on its face" and struck it down.

"The only course available to this court is to follow what the United States Supreme Court, the final arbiter of the United States Constitution, has decreed," the court said.

Emboldened by signals that the U.S. Supreme Court may uphold parts of Arizona's immigration law, legislators and activists across the country say they are gearing up to push for similar get-tough measures in their states.

"We're getting our national network ready to run with the ball, and saturate state legislatures with versions of the law," said William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration. "We believe we can pass it in most states."

That goal may be a stretch, but lawmakers in about a dozen states told The Associated Press they were interested in proposing Arizona-style laws if its key components are upheld by the Supreme Court. A ruling is expected in June on the Department of Justice's appeal that the law conflicts with federal immigration policy.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said he was encouraged that several justices suggested during Wednesday's oral arguments that they are ready to let Arizona enforce the most controversial part of its law — a requirement that police officers check the immigration status of people they suspect are in the country illegally.

The Supreme Court will decide whether to apply retroactively its 2010 decision that immigrants have a right to be told that a guilty plea could lead to their deportation.

The high court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from Roselva Chaidez, who was in the process of being deported when the court made that March 2010 decision.

Chaidez pleaded guilty to fraud in 2004 after falsely claiming to be a passenger in a car wreck. Authorities started deportation procedures while she was applying for U.S. citizenship in 2007.

Her lawyer never told her that her fraud conviction may lead to her deportation. Chaidez says she should be able to take advantage of the Supreme Court decision that cemented that principle.

Italian confectionery group Ferrero has agreed to set aside $3 million to settle a class-action lawsuit championed by a Californian mother after she discovered the group's Nutella chocolate spread packed more calories than jam or syrup.

Notices of class action settlements said that Ferrero USA Inc., the group's U.S. division, would pay up to $4 for every jar of Nutella bought in California since August 2009, or bought anywhere else in the United States since January 2008.

The notices posted on nutellaclassactionsettlement.com said the settlement was for $3,050,000 in total.

Ferrero USA also agreed to "modify certain marketing statements about Nutella" and to give more prominence to nutrition labels on Nutella jars, the notices said.

"Ferrero USA continues to stand by its product," a spokeswoman for Ferrero said on Sunday. "We believe that it is in the best interest of the company to resolve these matters, and have reached an agreement with the parties involved."

A seemingly divided Supreme Court on Monday weighed a potentially costly challenge to the pharmaceutical industry's practice of not paying overtime to its sales representatives.

The justices questioned whether the federal law governing overtime pay should apply to the roughly 90,000 people who try to persuade doctors to prescribe certain drugs to their patients.

Many sales jobs are exempt from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. But unlike typical salespeople who often work on commission, pharmaceutical sales representatives cannot seal a deal with doctors. Federal law, in fact, forbids any binding agreement by a doctor to prescribe a specific drug.

Two salesmen who once worked for drug maker GlaxoSmithKline filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that they were not paid for the 10 to 20 hours they worked each week on average outside the normal business day. Their jobs required them to meet with doctors in their offices, but also to attend conventions, dinners, even golf outings.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was among several justices who wondered about limits on overtime opportunities if the court were to rule for the sales reps. A court filing by the industry said drug companies could be on the hook for billions of dollars in past overtime.

Plea bargain negotiations between criminals and prosecutors will now come under constitutional scrutiny because a divided Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that convictions can be overturned if defense lawyers don't adequately assist clients in deciding whether to accept such offers.

The court's decision could affect nearly every criminal case in the United States, where more than 9 in 10 convictions come by guilty pleas.

In a rare move justices use to underscore their objections, Justice Antonin Scalia read his dissent aloud from the bench. He said the court's decision "upends decades of our cases ... and opens a whole new boutique of constitutional jurisprudence" — plea bargaining law — even though there is no legal right to be offered a plea bargain.

"In the United States, we have plea bargaining a plenty, but until today, it has been regarded as a necessary evil," said Scalia, who was on the losing side of two 5-4 decisions on the issue. "...Today, however, the Supreme Court elevates plea bargaining from a necessary evil to a constitutional entitlement. It is no longer a somewhat embarrassing adjunct to our criminal justice system; rather as the court announces ... 'it is the criminal justice system.'"

The two majority opinions, both written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, have potentially broad impact because 97 percent of federal convictions and 94 percent of state convictions in 2009 were obtained by a guilty plea, according to the Justice Department.

The rulings crafted by Kennedy mean that criminal defense lawyers are now required to inform their clients of plea bargain offers, regardless of whether they think the client should accept them, and must give their clients good advice on whether to accept a plea bargain at all stages of prosecution. If they don't, Kennedy said, they will run afoul of the Sixth Amendment guarantee that criminal defendants have a right to assistance of counsel.