A same-sex Iowa couple will be allowed to wed as soon as Monday after a judge allowed them to bypass the state's three-day waiting period.

Melisa Keeton and Shelley Wolfe of Des Moines received their waiver by 9 a.m.

Same-sex couples in Iowa began applying for marriage license Monday after a state Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay unions took effect.

The high court issued an order early in the day confirming that the appeals process in the case has officially concluded.

The Iowa Supreme Court's unanimous and emphatic decision on April 3 made Iowa the third state to allow same-sex marriage, joining Massachusetts and Connecticut. Vermont has passed a law that will take effect in September.

A federal judge tentatively ordered the Department of Homeland Security to reopen the cases of 22 people who were denied green cards because their American spouses died during the application process.

U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder ruled the so-called widow penalty doesn't necessarily require that immigrants' permanent residency applications be denied when their American spouses die. Citing a 2006 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Snyder ruled this week that applicants don't lose their status as spouses of U.S. citizens if the death occurs before the government rules on their applications.

The decision, if made final, would be a victory for more than 200 people across the country who have been affected by the widow penalty, said attorney Brent Renison, who filed the class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles.

"This case is very significant because it's the first that follows the circuit court decision and gives guidance to the agency on what it can and cannot do in these situations," Renison told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has argued the law requires that residency applications be rejected for immigrants whose American spouses die within two years of being married.

The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that it would decide whether a federal law that makes it a crime to sell videos of animals being tortured or killed violates constitutional free-speech rights.

The high court agreed to hear a U.S. Justice Department appeal defending the 1999 animal cruelty law after it was struck down for infringing free-speech protections.

A U.S. appeals court declared the law unconstitutional and overturned the conviction of a Virginia man, Robert Stevens, who sold three videos of pit bulls fighting each other and attacking hogs and wild boars.

His conviction in 2005 was the first in the country under the law. Stevens had been sentenced to 37 months in prison.

By a 10-3 vote, the appeals court rejected the government's argument that, for the first time in more than 25 years, there was a new category of speech not covered by constitutional free-speech protections. Usually, videos and other depictions are protected as free speech, even if they show abhorrent conduct.

Thayer Learning Center and its successor the Teen Life Skills Center abused children at its "Christian boot camp," hog tying them naked and spraying them with a hose, duct-taping children together overnight, throwing ice water on them as they shivered naked on a concrete floor, putting them in solitary confinement for a month, and forcing a girl to eat her own vomit, one girl's mother claims in Federal Court.
The mother, Ruth Romer, claims that Teen Life Center, of Kidder, Mo., "is a mere continuation of the predecessor Thayer Learning Center and that the creation of the successor for in whole or in part for the purpose of escaping liability for the tortious acts of Thayer Learning Center."
Teen Life is a Utah corporation. Also sued are Dorothy Steele, Willa Bundy and John Bundy, all of Springerville, Utah.
Romer also claims her daughter was provided with inadequate medical care. She says Thayer and its staff tells kids to "suck up your drama," denies them medical attention, and "terminates employees who report abuse to public agencies and law enforcement."
She says the defendants screen mail to and from children, "routinely misrepresent the physical and emotional status of children in their care when speaking to the parents of said children," and "misrepresent to parents the level, or lack thereof, of qualified medical training for staff at Defendant Thayer.'
She claims that "children at Defendant Thayer were routinely 'taken down,' meaning physically incapacitated and taken to the ground through 'choke holds' and other means."
She claims that "when a child was 'taken down' the 'drill instructor' or staff involved, would yell 'grenade,' meaning all other 'cadets' must get on the ground face down with their hands over their eyes and head, so as not to be witnesses to the event."
She claims that "children at Defendant Thayer were routinely 'smoked' meaning that they were forced to perform physical exercise and exertion until they collapsed from physical exhaustion."
She claims that "Some children have spent thirty days or more in solitary confinement, during which time they are forced to hear 'motivational' tapes over and over.
"Children have been restrained with zip ties around their ankles and wrists.
"Children have been restrained and attached to furniture.
"Male children have been stripped to their underwear, 'hog tied' and sprayed with a hose. ...
"A child was thrown into a barbed-wire bundle and told to get himself out.
"During the summer, for punishment, children have been placed in a 'hot box' which is an outside, rubber-sealed tent.
"For punishment, children have been duct taped and/or belted together for an entire day and sometimes overnight.
"For punishment, a child has been forced to brush her teeth for a four hour, non-stop time period.
"Students were stripped down to their underwear, tied up, and laid on a concrete floor and ice cold water was poured on them every hour.
"Restroom breaks were so limited that students regularly soiled themselves.
"The restricted bathroom breaks led to various urinary tract infections and bladder infections.
"One girl was forced to sit in a plastic tub containing urine for at least two and one-half hours. ...
"A female student vegetarian was forced to eat meatballs. The student got sick and vomited in her hands. 'The girl was then forced to eat the vomit.'"
And so on.
Here are the defendants: Thayer Learning Center LLC, Teen Life Skills Center Inc., Parent Help LLC, 2B Enterprises Holdings LLC, A 2B Enterprises LLC, Dorothy Steele, Willa Bundy, and John Bundy.
The Romers seek punitive damages. They are represented by James Thompson with Edelman & Thompson of Kansas City, Mo.

Microsoft got rid of the class-action status in the Vista Capable lawsuit, but the plaintiffs might retaliate and appeal the recent ruling. Although they had no immediate comments to make after the ruling, one of the partners in the law firm representing the plaintiffs confirmed that they will take action.
Computerworld quoted Jeffrey Tilden, partner in the Seattle law firm Gordon Tilden Thomas & Cordell LLP, as saying: We anticipate further motion practice in the trial court, followed by -- if unsuccessful –an appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

The plaintiffs argued in the court filling that Microsoft was unfair and deceptive in the Vista Capable matter, creating artificial demand, at artificially maintained prices, for PCs that were not Vista ready. Furthermore, consumers paid (more) for the Vista capability, but did not receive the real Vista capability.

A series of emails revealed in court showed how Microsoft representatives were doubtful about tagging some PCs as Vista Capable, as they would deceive consumers. The plaintiffs said consumers bought Vista Capable PCs only to discover that they were able to run just a basic version of the operating system, and were unable to run Vista’s core feature, the Aero interface.

But U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman granted Microsoft the motion for the class decertification of the lawsuit, while also rejecting its demand for summary judgment. This doesn’t absolve Microsoft from coming back to court though, where 6 individual claims are still standing.

Microsoft will still have a hard time proving that consumers have not been deceived when purchasing Vista Capable PCs, but dealing with individual claims is likely to cost them less than it would have under a class-action lawsuit.

The owner of a Long Island investment firm accused of cheating people out of more than $100 million is expected to appear in court Tuesday.

FBI spokesman Jim Margolin says Nicholas Cosmo surrendered at a U.S. Postal Inspection Service office in Hicksville on Monday night.

Cosmo runs Agape World Inc. in Hauppauge (HAW'-pawg). He's accused of taking in $300 million from investors and cheating them out of about $140 million.

A letter hanging in Cosmo's office window denies there was any Ponzi scheme, the type of fraud Bernard Madoff (MAY'-dawf) is accused of committing. A Ponzi, or pyramid, scheme promises unusually high returns and pays early investors with money from later investors.

Defense attorneys at the Herrick Feinstein law firm haven't returned telephone calls seeking comment.