The Supreme Court is questioning a massive sex discrimination lawsuit on behalf of at least 500,000 women claiming that Wal-Mart favors men over women in pay and promotions.

The justices suggested that they are troubled by lower court decisions allowing the class-action lawsuit to proceed against the world's largest retailer.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a key vote on the high court, said he is unsure "what the unlawful policy is" that Wal-Mart engaged in to deprive women of pay increases and promotions comparable to men.

Billions of dollars are at stake in the case. Class actions create pressure on businesses to settle claims and create the potential for large judgments.

Wal-Mart denies it discriminates against its female employees.

A western Colorado family has filed a lawsuit saying that negligence by oil and gas drilling companies contaminated their drinking water and air and forced them from their home.

Beth and Bill Strudley and their sons, ages 11 and 13, moved in 2005 outside Silt but said they started living in Glenwood Springs this year to escape the effects of work by Antero Resources Corp. and subcontractors Frontier Drilling and Calfrac Well Services. The Strudleys still own the home outside Silt. Their lawsuit in Denver District Court accuses all three firms of negligence.

Denver-based Antero said it doesn't comment on pending litigation. Calfrac had no immediate comment, and a phone message for Frontier Drilling wasn't returned.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates oil and gas development, has said it has found no scientific data that the water quality in the family's well was contaminated by drilling, but the Strudleys said they have conducted their own tests. They and their lawyers declined to disclose the results Thursday, saying only that they were "abnormal."

The family said they started getting sick after drilling started within a mile of their home in August. They wouldn't discuss details at a news conference Thursday, but Beth Strudley, 46, told The Post Independent of Glenwood Springs in January that they have suffered rashes and nosebleeds.

Wisconsin Republicans insist that the anti-union law that sparked weeks of protests at the state Capitol and that is being challenged in court takes effect Saturday because a state office decided to post it online. The head of the office that posted it and a court order temporarily blocking the law's implementation suggest otherwise.

The saga surrounding Gov. Scott Walker's push to strip most public employees of nearly all of their collective bargaining rights took another unexpected, and confusing, turn Friday when the Legislative Reference Bureau posted the law online, despite a court order blocking its publication while challenges to the law are considered.

That order specifically bars Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the law, which is the last step before a law takes effect. This is typically done by the Reference Bureau within 10 working days after it's signed by the governor, on a date set by the secretary of state. Walker signed the collective bargaining measure March 11 and La Follette initially designated Friday as the date of publication. But after the restraining order was issued, La Follette notified the Reference Bureau that he was rescinding that publication date.

La Follette said Friday that he didn't know what the law's online publication meant, and that he's not taking any action because of the court order.

Ultimately, the state Supreme Court will likely decide the law's fate. A state appeals court earlier in the week asked the Supreme Court to take up one of several lawsuits challenging its approval.

An appeals court has thrown out a verdict that awarded $5 million to a former New York City police officer who accidentally shot himself in the knee.

Anderson Alexander had sued the city, claiming he accidentally shot himself in 2002 while leaning back in a faulty chair in Brooklyn's 73rd Precinct. He retired from the force after undergoing several surgeries.

A jury in 2008 awarded him $5 million in damages. It found the city was negligent despite testimony that nothing broke on the chair.

A Supreme Court justice declined to throw out the verdict. But last week, the Appellate Division overruled the judge, saying there was no evidence to show the city knew the chair was defective.

Alexander's lawyer, Matthew Naparty, said his client is evaluating his options.

The Supreme Court will decide whether a teacher at a church-run school is a religious or secular worker when it comes to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The high court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School of Redford, Mich.

Cheryl Perich, a teacher and commissioned minister, got sick in 2004 but tried to return to work from disability leave despite being diagnosed with narcolepsy. She taught third and fourth graders

The school said she couldn't return because they had hired a substitute for that year. They fired her after she showed up anyway and threatened to sue to get her job back.

Perich complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which sued the church.

The church wanted the case thrown out. Courts have recognized a "ministerial exception" to the ADA which prevents government involvement in the employee-employer relationship between churches and ministerial employees.

But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said Perich's job as a teacher was secular, not religious, so the exception blocking the lawsuit didn't count. The church wants that decision overturned.

Federal authorities plan to file a sex-offender charge against a 78-year-old man who was recently acquitted of killing a blind woman in upstate New York in 1972.

A state prosecutor revealed in court Monday that Willie James Kimble will be arraigned in U.S. District Court next week on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender in Florida. If convicted, he could draw up to 10 years in prison.

Kimble was acquitted March 10 of bludgeoning to death Annie Mae Cray at her home in Rochester on Oct. 29, 1972.

After his trial, the twice-convicted sexual predator was ordered held on state charges he violated his sexual-offender status by skipping town in 2009 while the murder was being re-examined. Police tracked down Kimble in his native Sarasota, Fla.