The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from opponents of same-sex marriage who want to overturn the District of Columbia's gay marriage law.

The court did not comment Tuesday in turning away a challenge from a Maryland pastor and others who are trying to get a measure on the ballot to allow Washingtonians to vote on a measure that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

Bishop Harry Jackson led a lawsuit against the district's Board of Elections and Ethics after it refused to put that initiative on the ballot. The board ruled that the ballot question would in effect authorize discrimination.

Last year, Washington began issuing marriage licenses for same-sex couples and in 2009, it began recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere.

Missing a plane connection cost Utah gun owner Greg Revell 10 days in jail after he was stranded in New Jersey with an unloaded firearm he had legally checked with his luggage in Salt Lake City.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court without comment refused on Tuesday to let Revell sue Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police for arresting him on illegal possession of a firearm in New Jersey and for not returning his gun and ammunition to him for more than three years.

Revell was flying from Salt Lake City to Allentown, Pa., on March 31, 2005, with connections in Minneapolis and Newark, N.J. He had checked his Utah-licensed gun and ammunition with his luggage in Salt Lake City and asked airport officials to deliver them both with his luggage in Allentown.

But the flight from Minneapolis to Newark was late, so Revell missed his connection to Allentown. The airline wanted to bus its passengers to Allentown, but Revell realized that his luggage had not made it onto the bus and got off. After finding his luggage had been given a final destination of Newark by mistake, Revell missed the bus. He collected his luggage, including his gun and ammunition, and decided to wait in a nearby hotel with his stuff until the next flight in the morning.

When Revell tried to check in for the morning flight, he again informed the airline officials about his gun and ammunition to have them checked through to Allentown. He was reported to the TSA, and then arrested by Port Authority police for having a gun in New Jersey without a New Jersey license.

The Supreme Court won't overturn the convictions of a suburban New York City couple convicted of enslaving two Indonesian housekeepers.

The high court on Tuesday refused to hear appeals from Mahender and Varsha Sabhnani that sought to overturn their forced-labor convictions.

The couple was convicted of enslaving two domestic servants the couple brought from Indonesia by keeping their travel documents and having them perform forced labor on their behalf.

Prosecutors said Varsha Sabhnani was primarily responsible for inflicting years of abuse on the poorly educated servants. They said her husband let the abuse take place and benefited from the work the women performed in their $2 million Long Island home.

Varsha Sabhnani says pre-trial publicity prevented her from getting a fair trial, while her husband argues that he shouldn't have been convicted for aiding and abetting because he didn't stop his wife.

The Securities Law Firm of Menzer & Hill, P.A. Files a $1.5 Million Whistleblower Claim Against Raymond James & Associates, Inc.

The Securities Law Firm of Menzer & Hill, P.A. www.suemyadvisor.com, announced today it filed an arbitration claim against Raymond James & Associates, Inc. (“RJA”), (NYSE: RJF) on behalf of a former Operations Manager.

The claim alleges that the Claimant, while serving as an Operations Manager for one of RJA’s California branch offices, consistently reported on a series of inappropriate and violative sales practices by the branch manager, and certain other financial advisors of the branch office to regional management,
senior management and home office compliance department. Some of the alleged violations included unsuitable trading and churning in accounts of elderly customers, failure to respond to exception reports, unapproved seminar speaking, misuse of marketing funds and mismarking trade confirmations.

Claimant was then terminated and allegedly defamed on his Form U5 in alleged retaliation for threatening to speak to regulators.

Michael Hill, Managing Partner with the Securities Law Firm of Menzer & Hill, P.A. says, “one would think that given Raymond James’ and its affiliates’ regulatory history of supervisory failures, according to FINRA’s BrokerCheck, that it would act on compliance reports from its field force and increase its compliance posture to protect the investing public.”

For a free case evaluation or to discuss this matter, please contact the Securities Law Firm of Menzer & Hill, P.A. at 888-923-9223, or visit us on the web at www.suemyadvisor.com.

Will former media mogul Conrad Black end up going back to prison?

A status hearing Thursday in Chicago isn't expected to answer that question definitively. But it could provide clues about what U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve's inclined to do.

After serving two years of a 6 1/2-year sentence, Black was released from a Florida prison last year pending appeal.

An appeals court in October reversed two of the 66-year-old's fraud convictions. It cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling curtailing "honest services."

But it let stand a fraud and obstruction of justice conviction. Judge St. Eve's options include resentencing Black or freeing him for good based on time served.

Among the steps she could take Thursday is scheduling a resentencing date.