The website Backpage.com may not be immune from state liability law and a lawsuit filed by three young girls who said they were sold as prostitutes on the website can proceed to trial, the Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
 
In a 6-3 decision, the justices said the federal Communications Decency Act does not protect Backpage from state lawsuits because of allegations that the company didn't just host the ads, but helped develop the content.

"The plaintiffs before us have been the repeated victims of horrific acts committed in the shadows of the law," said Justice Steven Gonzalez, writing for the majority. "They brought this suit in part to bring light to some of those shadows: to show how children are bought and sold for sexual services online on Backpage.com in advertisements that, they allege, the defendants help develop."

The case should proceed because the girls have alleged facts that, if proved, would show that Backpage helped produce illegal content, the justices said.

A state death row inmate is going back to a north Mississippi courtroom to again fight for a new trial.

The Mississippi Supreme Court has ordered a Lowndes County judge to determine if the results of post-conviction DNA testing raise enough questions to justify a new trial for Eddie Lee Howard Jr. Howard, now 61, who was convicted and sentenced to death in the slaying of 84-year-old Georgia Kemp of Columbus. Evidence against him included bite marks on her body.

The Supreme Court, in the order signed Thursday by Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr., makes no specific mention of Howard's challenge to the bite mark evidence that the inmate argues is now widely discredited in legal circles.

Waller's order directs the trial court to hold a hearing to determine if Howard's arguments of newly discovered evidence including the results of DNA testing could "probably produce a different result or induce a different verdict if a new trial is granted."

The court's order does not disclose what the DNA testing revealed. Howard's attorneys argue in briefs that DNA results do not connect Howard to the crime.

Howard was convicted of raping and fatally stabbing Kemp in 1992. He was sentenced to death.

Two Zimbabweans arrested for illegally hunting a protected lion named Cecil were in court on Wednesday as anger at the kill by an American dentist escalated.

"If, as has been reported, this dentist and his guides lured Cecil out of the park with food so as to shoot him on private property ... he needs to be extradited, charged, and, preferably, hanged," People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said in a statement Wednesday. The statement, emailed to The Associated Press, came from Ingrid Newkirk, president of the animal rights organization.

Social media on the internet — for example on Twitter under #cecilthelion — were also filled with condemnation of the killing of the black-maned lion just outside Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwean men — a professional hunter and a farm owner — are accused of helping Walter James Palmer hunt the lion. Zimbabwean police said they are looking for Palmer, who reportedly paid $50,000 to track and kill the animal.

During a nighttime hunt, the men tied a dead animal to their car to lure the lion out of a national park, said Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force. The American is believed to have shot it with a crossbow, injuring the animal. The wounded lion was found 40 hours later, and Palmer shot it dead with a gun, Rodrigues said.

Palmer, a dentist living in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, said in a statement that he was unaware the lion was protected, relying on local guides to ensure a legal hunt.

The Texas Court of Criminal of Appeals halted the scheduled lethal injection of Clifton Lamar Williams until questions about some incorrect testimony at his 2006 trial can be resolved.

Williams, 31, had faced execution Thursday evening for the killing of Cecelia Schneider of Tyler, about 85 miles east of Dallas. Investigators determined she had been beaten and stabbed before her body and her bed were set on fire.

In a brief order, the court agreed to return the case to the trial court in Tyler to review an appeal from Williams' attorneys. They want to examine whether incorrect FBI statistics regarding DNA probabilities in population estimates cited by witnesses could have affected the outcome of Williams' trial.

"We need time to look at this," said Seth Kretzer, one of Williams' lawyers. "No way we can investigate this in five hours.

"It requires some time, and the CCA saw that."

The Texas Department of Public Safety sent a notice June 30 that the FBI-developed population database used by the crime lab in Texas and other states had errors for calculating DNA match statistics in criminal investigations. The Texas Attorney General's Office informed Williams' attorneys of the discrepancy on Wednesday.

Prosecutors in Tyler, in Smith County, had opposed Williams' appeal for a reprieve, telling the appeals court the state police agency insisted that corrected figures would have no impact. Williams is black, and prosecutors said the probability of another black person with the same DNA profile found in Schneider's missing car was one in 40 sextillion. Jurors in 2006 were told the probability was one in 43 sextillion. A sextillion is defined as a 1 followed by 21 zeros.

The United Arab Emirates on Monday put to death a woman with links to Islamic extremists who was convicted of murdering an American teacher with a butcher knife in an upscale Abu Dhabi mall.

The execution, carried out just two weeks after the country's top court delivered a guilty verdict, marked a swift end to a case that has rattled this Western-allied Gulf country, where violent crime is rare.

The Federal Supreme Court convicted Alaa Bader Abdullah al-Hashemi, a 30-year-old Emirati mother of six, of deliberately murdering 47-year-old schoolteacher Ibolya Ryan in a mall restroom stall on the capital's upscale Reem Island.

Authorities say the killer, shrouded in a traditional black garment and veil, later planted a homemade bomb outside the home of another American. It failed to explode.

Al-Hashemi also was found guilty of sending money to al-Qaida in Yemen and of publishing information aimed at harming the reputation of the Emirates, a seven-state federation that also includes the commercial hub of Dubai.

The verdict was not eligible for appeal.

Ahmed al-Dhanhani, attorney general for the state security prosecution, told state news agency WAM that al-Hashemi was executed Monday morning following the approval of the president, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Ryan had three children and had been living in Abu Dhabi with her 11 year-old twins. She previously worked at Palmer Elementary School in Denver.

Executions are rare in the Emirates, and are typically carried out using firing squads.

A Pakistan court granted bail Tuesday to a top model Ayaan Ali, who has been held since March after being caught trying to fly to Dubai with half a million dollars in cash stashed in her luggage, her lawyer said.

In a televised comment, defense lawyer Latif Khosa said the Lahore High Court granted bail to Ali after hearing arguments from both sides.

He said they had started the paperwork for the release of Ali, who has been the focus of Pakistani media's attention since authorities nabbed her at the VIP lounge of Islamabad's airport. Under Pakistani laws, no one can carry over $10,000 on a flight, but authorities found $506,800 tucked into her luggage.

It was unclear when the model would be freed. Ali is being held at a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Usually, lawyers take one to two days to complete paperwork to get their clients released.