President Barack Obama has nominated Hamlin native Stephanie Dawn Thacker as a judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Thacker has been a partner in the Charleston law firm of Guthrie & Thomas since 2006.

Before that she spent seven years with the U.S. Department of Justice. Her work as a trial attorney there focused on prosecution and training in connection with child pornography and sexual exploitation, sex trafficking, obscenity and other offenses.

She also served as an assistant federal prosecutor and worked for the state attorney general's office.

The U.S. Senate must now consider Thacker's nomination to the Richmond, Va.-based court. The seat became vacant after the March death of Judge Blane Michael.

The 15-member court covers North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.

A Bristol man has pleaded guilty to stealing Social Security benefits and making false statements in an attempt to hide the thefts.

Seventy-one-year-old David Ross entered the plea Thursday in federal court in Abingdon.

Ross faces a sentence of up to 65 years in prison on all counts.

Federal prosecutors say Ross admitted stealing more than $318,000 in benefits that had been intended for his mother, who died in 1971. He told the Social Security Administration that his mother died in December 2010.

A German court rules that Samsung Electronics's Galaxy Tab cannot be sold in Germany because it violated patents of rival Apple's iPad2.

A Duesseldorf state court said Friday it would not allow Samsung, based in Seoul, South Korea, to market its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany because it too closely resembles the iPad2.

Already in August, the court had ruled in favor of Apple, based in Cupertino, California, forcing Samsung to withdraw its tablet from the market.

Samsung challenged the ban. The companies are involved in a series of legal disputes in countries around the world over allegations that each copies the other's technology.

A Georgia judge who pointed a gun at himself in the courtroom, berated his boss in a bizarre televised rant and admitted to regularly smoking marijuana was ousted from the bench for life by the state's top court Tuesday.

The Georgia Supreme Court's unanimous opinion also barred Catoosa County Magistrate Anthony Peters from ever holding another judicial office in Georgia, concluding he has done "nothing to show that he has any ability to live up to the high standard of conduct expected of members of the judiciary in Georgia."

Peters' home phone number was disconnected, and his attorney Chris Townley did not return calls and emails Tuesday seeking comment. But Peters said during an April hearing that the violations took place during a "rough patch" in his life, and his attorney blamed his behavior on prescription drug abuse after his client was involved in a devastating 2005 ATV accident.

Peters, who is not an attorney, was a detective for the county sheriff's office for 10 years before he was appointed as a magistrate judge in 1997. But his demeanor started changing after a difficult 2005, which began when his father committed suicide and grew worse after the ATV accident. The magistrate was taking heavy doses of pain medications by 2009 after surgeries didn't ease the pain, his lawyer said.

A former attorney has been convicted of embezzling at least $450,000 from the law firm where she worked.

Henrico County Circuit Judge L.A. Harris Jr. on Friday found Kyle C. Leftwich guilty of eight counts of embezzlement in a scheme to divert funds from Marks & Harrison's accounts between 2004 and 2008. She could face up to 160 years in prison when she's sentenced in November.

Evidence showed that Leftwich endorsed Social Security checks made out to her for representing disabled clients. But she deposited the money elsewhere than into the firm's account and rigged firm ledgers to cover her actions.

Leftwich was fired in June 2010 and lost her law license a short time later. She repaid $450,000 to Marks & Harrison as part of a civil settlement.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated the murder conviction of a former justice minister for masterminding the 1989 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, a courageous foe of drug cartels.

The court also reinstated the 24-year prison sentence a lower court imposed in 2007 on Alberto Santofimio, who was widely considered the "political godfather" of the late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.

Hitmen employed by Escobar killed Galan, and a key witness in Santofimio's trial said he saw the defendant urge Escobar to order the murder.

"Kill him, Pablo," testified John Jairo Velasquez, or "Popeye," who was Escobar's chief henchman at the time and has confessed to organizing the assassination.

Santofimio, a senator who had been justice minister in the 1970s, was at the time a rival of Galan for the Liberal Party's presidential nomination.

The Aug. 18, 1989, assassination badly traumatized a nation already reeling from a terror campaign by Escobar's henchmen, who killed hundreds of judges, journalists and police. Escobar also targeted civilians with car bombs, even blowing up an airplane in midflight.

The drug kingpin was trying to pressure Colombia's leaders not to extradite drug lords to the United States. Nonetheless, Galan, the presidential frontrunner when he was killed, promised to battle the narcos with extradition.