A federal appeals court has upheld the firing of an Indiana sheriff's deputy who accused the department of racism in part because detectives watched excerpts from the movie "Blazing Saddles" in his presence.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that Warrick County Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Harris' 2007 firing for insubordination was legal. Harris was let go during a standard one-year probationary period.

Harris claimed white officers on probation received better treatment despite their performance problems. Harris also claimed other deputies gave him racially tinged nicknames modeled after African-American TV characters, according to court documents.

A federal judge in Indianapolis, however, ruled there wasn't enough evidence to show discrimination, and the appeals court agreed.

The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal seeking to expand the ability of foreigners to contribute to American political campaigns.

The justices on Monday upheld a federal court ruling in favor of the ban on foreign contributions from all but immigrants who permanently live in the United States.

Washington lawyer Michael Carvin wanted the justices to extend their 2010 decision in the Citizens United case allowing greater political participation by corporations and labor unions. Carvin sued on behalf of two people with visas to work in the United States.

A three-judge court in Washington said Congress was well within its powers when it prohibited most foreigners from making campaign contributions.

Court documents reveal grisly details about the hatchet killing of one woman and the razor attack of another in northwest Missouri, crimes that have been connected to a Platte City man.

Quintin P. O'Dell, a 22-year-old Eagle Scout, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree assault and armed criminal action. Prosecutor Eric Zahnd said the death penalty would be considered in the Platte County Circuit Court case.

O'Dell is jailed in Platte County on a $750,000 cash-only bond. There is no record of him having an attorney, according to the prosecutor's office.

The investigation into the hatchet attack began this spring after the body of Alissa Faye Shippert, 22, was discovered. She had been attacked while fishing in the Platte Falls Conservation Area.

But O'Dell, who had worked with Shippert at a convenience store, wasn't charged in the crime until after he was questioned in the December razor attack. The victim in that incident, a 21-year-old woman, awoke in her Ferrelview apartment the morning after Christmas with her belly slashed open.

Authorities said she was unconscious and on a ventilator for several days after the attack. According to the probable cause statement, she gradually began sharing details with investigators, including that she had spent Christmas night drinking with O'Dell.

According to court documents, O'Dell was interviewed by investigators this past week and told them he called the woman Christmas night and asked if he could "hang out." She agreed and he arrived after 11 p.m. with a six-pack of beer and a bottle of tequila, a detective said in the probable cause statement.

The Utah Court of Appeals has refused to dismiss charges against a couple accused of killing their baby in 2006 by sleeping with him — their second child to die in bed with them.

The appeals judges sided with a lower court in a pair of opinions released Friday concerning the death of 3-month-old Kayson Merrill. The infant died while in bed between his father, Trevor Merrill, and mother, Echo Nielsen, both 28, of South Jordan.

The judges said that while a state medical examiner listed the official cause of death as "undetermined," there was enough evidence that "co-sleeping" caused the baby to suffocate to put the parents on trial.

The parents, whose first child also died while sleeping with them in 2003, have been charged with child-abuse homicide and reckless endangerment. They have pleaded not guilty.

Defense attorneys argued there wasn't enough certainty to go to trial after the medical examiner also cited illness and low birth weight in his report.

Mike Sackett remembers what he thought when he saw the eye-popping fines of more than $30,000 a day that the Environmental Protection Agency was threatening to impose on him over a piece of Idaho property worth less than one day's penalty.

"If they do this to us, we're going to lose everything we have," Sackett said.

The EPA said that Sackett and his wife, Chantell, illegally filled in most of their 0.63-acre lot with dirt and rocks in preparation for building a home. The agency said the property is a wetlands that cannot be disturbed without a permit. The Sacketts had none.

They say they considered walking away from the property, near scenic Priest Lake, and a difficult fight with the federal government. Instead, they went to court and now the Supreme Court is hearing their case, with implications well beyond their property.

The justices are considering how and when people can challenge the kind of order the Sacketts got. The EPA issues nearly 3,000 administrative compliance orders a year that call on alleged violators of environmental laws to stop what they're doing and repair the harm they've caused.

Major business groups, homebuilders, road builders and agricultural interests all have joined the Sacketts in urging the court to make it easier to contest EPA compliance orders issued under several environmental laws.

A Rhode Island judge on Tuesday denied a request by West Virginia University to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Big East Conference over the university's bid to make a quick exit for the Big 12.

Providence County Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein rejected all of the university's arguments for dismissal.

The school had argued the Rhode Island courts did not have the authority to decide the matter and should defer to the courts in West Virginia, where the first civil suit was filed in this dispute.

The university also claimed it can't be sued in Rhode Island because it has sovereign immunity as an agency of the state of West Virginia and was not properly notified by the Big East of its lawsuit.

Court spokesman Craig Berke said the timetable for future legal proceedings in Rhode Island has not been determined.

The Big East's lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an order that West Virginia stay in the conference for 27 months.

West Virginia accepted an invitation from the Big 12 in October and hopes to join in time for the 2012 football season.

Since then the school and Big East have each sued the other and filed motions to dismiss the other's lawsuits. A West Virginia judge earlier this month refused to dismiss a university lawsuit against the Big East.