The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a California law that would require euthanizing downed livestock at federally inspected slaughterhouses to keep the meat out of the nation's food system.

The high court ruled that the state's 2009 state law was blocked from going into effect by federal law administered by the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service. .

Federal law "precludes California's effort ... to impose new rules, beyond any the FSIS has chosen to adopt, on what a slaughterhouse must do with a pig that becomes non-ambulatory during the production process," said Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the court's unanimous opinion.

California strengthened regulations against slaughtering so-called "downer" animals after the 2008 release of an undercover Humane Society video showing workers abusing cows at a Southern California slaughterhouse. Under California law, the ban on buying, selling and slaughter of "downer" cattle also extends to pigs, sheep and goats.

But pork producers sued to stop the law, saying the new law interfered with federal laws that require inspections of downed livestock before determining whether they can be used for meat.

An appeals court says it cannot reduce a $20 million restitution order against the public relations consultant who partnered with lobbyist Jack Abramoff to bilk Indian tribes out of millions in inflated fees.

Michael Scanlon is serving a 20-month sentence after pleading guilty in part to defrauding the tribes of their right to "honest services." Abramoff persuaded tribes that hired him for lobbying to pay inflated fees for Scanlon's public relations services, and the two secretly split the profits.

The Supreme Court weakened the honest services law last year and Scanlon argued the $20 million he's been ordered to repay his victims should be lowered to reflect that ruling.

But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled Friday that courts cannot modify plea agreements.

Shoe retailer Zappos is facing a national class action suit one day after it warned customers that its servers had been hacked.

On Monday, the Amazon-owned shoe company sent a mass email stating that 24 million customer accounts had been breached. The incident resulted in hackers obtaining names, phone numbers, emails, encrypted passwords and the last four numbers of customer credit cards.

The lawsuit claims Amazon violated a part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to properly encrypt and secure customer information, and seeks unspecified damages for 24 million customers.

The lead plaintiff in the case is a Texas woman but the suit was filed in federal court in Louisville, Kentucky on the grounds that Amazon has servers located in that state.

As these type of hacking incidents have become more common, so too have related lawsuits. So far, though, few of these lawsuits been successful because customers have been unable to show that they have been harmed by the data breaches.

The Kentucky lawsuit appears based in part on a novel legal theory that customers will now be more susceptible to phishing and other online scams because hackers have their email. It also alleges the plaintiffs suffered emotional distress. Other high-profile data breach cases such as one involving Sony’s Play Station have been based in part on state consumer laws.

Although courts have been reluctant to find that customers have been harmed by data breaches, there is evidence this may be changing. A security publication recently reported
that an appeals court allowed customers to claim they suffered harm in the form of having to buy insurance for identity theft.

Some media publications this week praised Zappos’ for having a pre-arranged plan to respond to the data theft. The company claims that its customer credit cards remained secure because they were stored in a separate server.

The Supreme Court upheld a law Wednesday that extended U.S. copyright protection to books, musical compositions and other works by foreign artists that had been available without paying royalties.

The justices said in a 6-2 decision Wednesday that Congress acted within its power to give protection to works that had been in the public domain. The law's challengers complained that community orchestras, academics and others who rely on works that are available for free have effectively been priced out of performing "Peter and the Wolf" and other pieces that had been mainstays of their repertoires.

The case concerned a 1994 law that was intended to bring the U.S. into compliance with an international treaty on intellectual property. The law made copyright protection available to foreign works that previously could not have been copyrighted.

The court ruled in 2003 that Congress may extend the life of a copyright. Wednesday's decision was the first time it said that published works lacking a copyright could later be protected.

"Neither congressional practice nor our decisions treat the public domain, in any and all cases, as untouchable by copyright legislation. The First Amendment likewise provides no exceptional solicitude for works in the public domain," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her opinion for the court.

But Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for himself and Justice Samuel Alito, said that an important purpose of a copyright is to encourage an author or artist to produce new work. "The statute before us, however, does not encourage anyone to produce a single new work. By definition, it bestows monetary rewards only on owners of old works," Breyer said.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Sunday appealed a federal judge's refusal to add him and three other candidates to Virginia's Republican presidential primary ballot.

In a filing with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Perry's attorneys requested that the court order his name be placed on the ballot, or order that ballots not be printed or mailed before his appeal is considered.

Perry sued last month after failing to submit enough signatures to get on the Mach 6 ballot. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman joined Perry's lawsuit after also failing to qualify.

Only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul qualified for the primary ballot.

Virginia requires candidates to obtain the signatures of 10,000 registered voters, including 400 from each of the state's 11 congressional districts, to get on the ballot. State law also allows only Virginia residents to circulate petitions.

Attorneys for Credit Suisse told a federal judge in Idaho that a multi-billion dollar lawsuit brought by homeowners at four resorts should be tossed out because there's not enough factual evidence to support the claims.

The lawsuit from property owners at Idaho's Tamarack Resort, the Yellowstone Club in Montana, Nevada's Lake Las Vegas resort and the Ginn Sur Mer Resort in the Bahamas is backed by Yellowstone Club founder Tim Blixseth. The plaintiffs allege Credit Suisse inflated the value of the resorts and issued loans so large to developers that they could never be repaid in hopes of foreclosing on the properties as part of a so-called "loan to own" scheme.

Credit Suisse contends the lawsuit is baseless and that Blixseth is just trying to escape blame for the financial problems at the ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club.

Roughly two dozen attorneys representing the plaintiffs, Credit Suisse and real estate consultant Cushman & Wakefield gathered before U.S. District Judge Ronald Bush in Boise on Thursday to argue over several motions, including one to have the lawsuit dismissed and one to have Cushman & Wakefield reinstated as a defendant. The real estate consultancy was listed as a defendant when the case was originally filed in 2010, but last year U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge dismissed all the claims against the company.

One of Credit Suisse's attorneys, David Lender, told the court that the plaintiffs have never been able to show there was any misrepresentation made to the homeowners by the bank.