The Supreme Court won't hear a challenge to part of Vermont's campaign finance laws that impose contribution limits on political action committees.

The justices on Monday declined to hear an appeal from the Vermont Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion group. The group argued that Vermont's campaign finance registration, reporting and disclosure requirements for PACs were too broad and unconstitutional.

The group argued that a subcommittee it created should not be subject to Vermont's $2,000 limit on contributions to PACs because the subcommittee does not give money directly to candidates and makes only independent expenditures.

But a federal judge rejected those arguments, finding that there was no clear accounting between the two committees. A federal appeals court agreed.

For the first time since it declared California's gay marriage ban unconstitutional, the federal appeals court in San Francisco is readying to hear arguments over same-sex weddings in a political and legal climate that's vastly different than when it overturned Proposition 8 in 2012.

State and federal court judges have been striking down bans in more than a dozen states at a rapid rate since a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year.

Now, three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — all appointed by Democrats and one of whom wrote the opinion overturning Proposition 8 — are set to hear arguments Monday on gay marriage bans in Idaho, Nevada and Hawaii.

"It seemed like such an uphill battle when I started," said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. "I really couldn't imagine then that we would be where we are now."

Minter has been fighting for gay marriage for 21 years, was instrumental in challenging bans in California and Utah and is representing gay couples seeking to overturn Idaho's prohibition.

North Carolina's highest court is examining whether state utilities regulators correctly weighed the consumer impact of two rate increases for a Duke Energy operating unit.

The state Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments Monday in two lawsuits in which Attorney General Roy Cooper argues regulators didn't sufficiently consider the size of rate increases. The two rate cases involve Duke Energy Carolinas, a Duke Energy subsidiary serving customers in Durham and western North Carolina.

One case involves a 4.5 percent average increase approved last year for two years, growing to a 5.1 percent increase thereafter. The second involves a 7.2 percent rate increase originally approved in 2012. Consumers are already paying the higher rates.

Cooper appealed the 2012 rate increase and the Supreme Court last year ordered the North Carolina Utilities Commission to reconsider its size in light of its effect on customers. The commission did, but came to the same conclusion.

Cooper's staff attorneys argued in court filings that regulators didn't really make the findings of fact about the effect of changing economic conditions on customers required by the Supreme Court in last year's ruling.

A divided federal appeals court on Thursday threw out claims potentially worth billions of dollars against produce giant Chiquita Brands International made by relatives of thousands of Colombians killed during years of bloody civil war.

A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that federal courts have no jurisdiction over the Colombian claims. The lawsuits accused Chiquita of assisting in the killings by paying $1.7 million to a violent right-wing paramilitary group known as the AUC, the Spanish acronym for United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.

Chiquita, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, formerly operated large banana plantations in Colombia through its Banadex subsidiary. Chiquita insists it was the victim of extortion and was forced to pay the AUC or face violence directed at its employees and assets in Colombia.

The majority cited a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling known as Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum that imposed limits on attempts by foreigners to use U.S. courts to seek damages against corporations for human rights abuses abroad. Chiquita had insisted that ruling meant the Colombians' lawsuit had to be tossed out.

"We are gratified that the U.S. Court of Appeals has now agreed with us and the claims have been dismissed," said Chiquita spokesman Ed Loyd in an email statement. "The decision reinforces what Chiquita has maintained from the beginning — that Chiquita is not responsible for the tragic violence that has plagued Colombia."

When Edward Lane testified about corruption at a community college program he headed in Alabama, he was fired.

The Supreme Court on Monday considered whether the First Amendment protects Lane and millions of other public employees from job retaliation when they offer testimony about government misconduct in court.

The high court has previously ruled that the constitutional right to free speech protects public workers only when they speak out as citizens, not when they act in their official roles.

Most justices appeared to side with Lane's view that court testimony revealing official misconduct should be constitutionally protected even if it covers facts a government employee learned at work.

But the justices struggled over whether that protection should automatically cover all public workers, even police officials or criminal investigators whose job duties require them to testify in court about specific cases.

The attorney for a 16-year-old accused of stabbing 21 other students and a security guard at their high school said Thursday he wants to have a mental health expert evaluate the boy and hopes to have the case moved to juvenile court.

For now, Alex Hribal is charged as an adult with four counts of attempted homicide, 21 counts of aggravated assault and a weapons charge, and is being held without bond in the Westmoreland County juvenile detention center.

In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America," attorney Patrick Thomassey acknowledged that his client stabbed the victims, and said any defense he offers will likely be based on the boy's psychological state, which he hopes to have an expert evaluate soon.

"I would assume so, yes, depending on what the mental health experts tell me," Thomassey said.

He said that, under Pennsylvania law, he will have to convince a judge that Hribal can be rehabilitated in juvenile court, which would have jurisdiction over him until he's 21. If convicted as an adult, Hribal faces likely decades in prison.

The attorney told several media outlets that Hribal was remorseful, though he acknowledged his client did not appear to appreciate the gravity of his actions. Thomassey said he is still getting to know his client, saying he spoke with Hribal only for about 20 minutes before his arraignment late Wednesday.