The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the state's ethics laws on Wednesday while backing the censure of a Sparks councilman for his 2005 vote on a casino project involving his former campaign manager.

In a 5-2 opinion, justices rejected arguments from Sparks Councilman Michael Carrigan that the conflict of interest laws are overly vague and violate constitutional protections of right of association.

Chief Justice Kris Pickering, writing for the majority, said the law serves to ensure that public officers "avoid conflicts between (their) private interests and those of the general public whom (they) serve."

At issue was whether a catch-all phrase in Nevada law extending defined voting prohibitions — such as in matter involving family members, business partners or employers — to any other substantially similar relationship is vague and unconstitutional.

Carrigan was censured by the state Ethics Commission for voting on the Lazy 8 hotel-casino project. Carlos Vasquez, a lobbyist for the project, had served as Carrigan's campaign manager free of charge and placed media ads for the campaign at cost, according to court documents. He also lobbied for the project before the Sparks City Council.

The Lazy 8 was backed by one-time developer and Nevada political powerhouse Harvey Whittemore, who was convicted this year in federal court on felony charges related to illegal campaign contributions made to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

A federal appeals court is set to take up a lawsuit over a former San Francisco sheriff's decision to remove male deputies from female housing units at the county's jail.

San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey made the decision in 2006 in response to inmate complaints of sexual misconduct. More than two dozen male and female deputies have since sued, saying it is discriminatory.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/1adufFe) that a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to consider the case next Wednesday.

Attorneys for the deputies say not one sexual misconduct claim made by a female inmate against a male deputy was sustained in the 16 years before the sheriff' policy change.

City attorneys dispute that, saying three deputies resigned and two others were suspended.

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to referee another dispute over President Barack Obama's health care law, whether businesses can use religious objections to escape a requirement to cover birth control for employees.

The justices said they will take up an issue that has divided the lower courts in the face of roughly 40 lawsuits from for-profit companies asking to be spared from having to cover some or all forms of contraception.

The court will consider two cases. One involves Hobby Lobby Inc., an Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts chain with 13,000 full-time employees. Hobby Lobby won in the lower courts.

The other case is an appeal from Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp., a Pennsylvania company that employs 950 people in making wood cabinets. Lower courts rejected the company's claims.

The court said the cases will be combined for arguments, probably in late March. A decision should come by late June.

The cases center on a provision of the health care law that requires most employers that offer health insurance to their workers to provide a range of preventive health benefits, including contraception.

In both instances, the Christian families that own the companies say that insuring some forms of contraception violates their religious beliefs.

The key issue is whether profit-making corporations can assert religious beliefs under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act or the First Amendment provision guaranteeing Americans the right to believe and worship as they choose. Nearly four years ago, the justices expanded the concept of corporate "personhood," saying in the Citizens United case that corporations have the right to participate in the political process the same way that individuals do.

"The government has no business forcing citizens to choose between making a living and living free," said David Cortman of the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian public interest law firm that is representing Conestoga Wood at the Supreme Court.

Lawyers for Amanda Knox filed an appeal of her slander conviction in Italy with the European Court of Human Rights, as her third murder trial was underway in Florence.

The slander conviction was based on statements Knox made to police in November 2007 when she was being questioned about the slaying of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, in the house they shared in Perugia.

Knox says she was coerced into making false statements blaming the slaying on bar owner Patrick Lumumba.

"The interrogation took place in a language I barely spoke, without a lawyer present, and without the police informing me that I was a suspect in Meredith's murder, which was a violation of my human rights," Knox said in a statement released Monday as the appeal was filed.

Knox was convicted of slander at her first trial in December 2009. That conviction was upheld during the appeal that resulted in her 2011 murder acquittal.

Knox has returned to Seattle, where she is a student at the University of Washington. She is not attending the third trial being held in an appeals court in Florence.

The European Court for Human Rights is an international court in Strasbourg, France, that oversees the European Convention on Human Rights.

The government for the first time has enforced environmental laws protecting birds against wind energy facilities, winning a $1 million settlement from a power company that pleaded guilty to killing 14 eagles and 149 other birds at two Wyoming wind farms.

The Obama administration has championed pollution-free wind power and used the same law against oil companies and power companies for drowning and electrocuting birds. The case against Duke Energy and its renewable energy arm was the first prosecuted under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act against a wind energy company.

"In this plea agreement, Duke Energy Renewables acknowledges that it constructed these wind projects in a manner it knew beforehand would likely result in avian deaths," Robert G. Dreher, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement Friday.

An investigation by The Associated Press in May revealed dozens of eagle deaths from wind energy facilities, including at Duke's Top of the World farm outside Casper, Wyo., the deadliest for eagles of 15 such facilities that Duke operates nationwide. The other wind farm included in the settlement, Campbell Hill, is northwest of Casper.

A federal appeals court refused Friday to toss out court rulings finding that New York City carried out its police stop-and-frisk policy in a discriminatory manner, ending what was likely the city's last chance to nullify the decisions before the arrival of a new mayor who has criticized the tactic.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a five-page order Friday, saying the city could make its arguments to toss out the rulings when its appeal of the decisions of U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin is heard next year.

Last month, the same appeals panel had suspended the effects of Scheindlin's rulings and removed her from the case, saying she misapplied a related ruling that allowed her to take the stop-and-frisk case and made comments to the media during a trial that called her impartiality into question.

The city had argued that the panel's decision to remove Scheindlin meant it should also nullify her rulings.