An employee at a yoga clothing shop in Bethesda makes her first court appearance since being charged in the death of a co-worker.

Brittany Norwood was arrested Friday and charged with first-degree murder in the death of 30-year-old Jayna Murray, her co-worker at the Lululemon Athletica shop. She's due in court in Montgomery County on Monday.

Norwood initially told police that two masked men entered the store on the night of March 11 and sexually assaulted her and Murray during a robbery attempt. But police say they've concluded that story was a lie and that Norwood killed Murray during a dispute.

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Bucking a national trend of raising cigarette taxes, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island have considered reducing theirs, hoping to draw smokers from other states and increase revenue.

Supporters argue reducing the tax by a dime would make New Hampshire more competitive with Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, while opponents say that even if the state experienced higher sales as a result it still would lose millions of dollars in revenue.

It's very unusual for states to lower the tax, University of Illinois at Chicago economics professor Frank Chaloupka says. The increase in sales isn't enough to offset the drop in state tax revenue, he says.

Instead of lowering the tax, states have enacted 100 increases over the past decade, he says.

"New Hampshire has been going in the same direction as the rest of the country, basically forever," Chaloupka said.

New Hampshire raised its tax repeatedly since Democratic Gov. John Lynch took office in 2006, increasing it from 52 cents per pack in 2005 to $1.78 currently.

That changed Thursday, when the state House passed a bill that would cut the rate 10 cents to $1.68 per pack in hopes of attracting smokers from surrounding states with higher taxes. Rhode Island's bill would cut its tax by $1, to $2.46 per pack. New Jersey last year considered reducing its tax 30 cents, to $2.40 per pack, but hasn't followed through on it.

New Hampshire Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Morse says he believes the Senate will support the cut.

New York City says it's fighting a $3 million lawsuit brought by a Brooklyn unicyclist who's taking issue with a technicality in city code.

Circus performer Kyle Peterson was issued a ticket in 2007 for violating an ordinance that prohibits riding a "two- or three-wheeled device" on sidewalks.

He filed the federal lawsuit against the city claiming his rights were violated because he was riding on one wheel.

Both summonses were dismissed in court but Peterson says he wants the freedom to ride his unicycle.

The Daily News says the city filed a motion to dismiss the suit this week, saying the law was intended to protect pedestrians.

The city says the difference between a bicycle and a unicycle "is negligible."

A Florida millionaire accused of walking out on a $1.2 million gambling debt is fighting Mohegan Sun in court, arguing that the state judicial system cannot decide the case because the casino is run by a sovereign American Indian tribe.

Jerome Powers, chief executive of the cable television network Plum TV, asked the state Appellate Court this week to throw out a lower court's ruling that would allow Mohegan Sun to seize his assets ahead of a potential final judgment against him. It's not clear when the Appellate Court will take up the case.

Powers, 64, of Miami Beach, Fla., gambled away $1.2 million in credit that Mohegan Sun loaned him in May 2009, according to a lawsuit the casino filed against Powers in November 2009. Court documents filed by Powers say the casino solicited him to open a line of credit and to travel to the facility in Uncasville in eastern Connecticut, where he played blackjack.

Powers wrote six checks to the casino to pay his debt, but they were not honored by his bank, court documents say. Payment was stopped on a $465,000 check, and the others were returned because the accounts were closed, according to copies of the returned checks.

In fighting the casino's lawsuit, Powers contends that the credit agreement was an illegal gambling contract under state law and that state courts have no jurisdiction because the casino is run by the sovereign Mohegan Tribe.

The ruling overturned a decision the court had reached in November 2009 in which it said the crucifix could be disturbing to non-Christian or atheist pupils. Led by Italy, several European countries appealed that ruling.

The case originated in Italy, and Friday's final verdict was immediately welcomed in Rome. "The popular sentiment in Europe has won today," said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

All 47 countries that are members of the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights watchdog, will be required to obey the ruling.

The European Court of Human Rights, which is based in Strasbourg, France, said Italian public schools did nothing wrong by hanging crucifixes in their classrooms, in a case that divided Europe's traditional Catholic countries and their more secular neighbors.

Friday's final decision by the court's Grand Chamber said it found no evidence "that the display of such a symbol on classroom walls might have an influence on pupils."

The case was brought by Soile Lautsi, a Finnish-born mother who said public schools in her Italian town refused to remove the Roman Catholic symbols from classrooms. She said the crucifix violates the secular principles the public schools are supposed to uphold.