A federal appeals court in Chicago has denied imprisoned former Illinois Gov. George Ryan's request to be freed on bail so he can spend more time with his terminally ill wife.

The court on Monday rejected the emergency motion filed by Ryan's attorneys last week after Lura Lynn Ryan was taken to intensive care suffering complications from chemotherapy.

Prison authorities did escort the 76-year-old to see his wife for two hours the same day she was admitted to the hospital. Prosecutors cited that clandestine visit as one reason judges shouldn't grant Ryan's release.

Former Gov. James Thompson, a Ryan attorney, says the defense now will ask Democratic President Barack Obama to commute Ryan's sentence from 6 1/2 years to the three years the Republican's already served for his 2006 corruption conviction.

A U.S. appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed against the city of Waverly and a Waverly police officer.

According to the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, two sisters, Maxine Veatch and Chris Price, say the Bartels Lutheran Retirement Community had retaliated against them when they raised questions about their mother's care.

Veatch had been arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor assault in September 2006. A Bartels staffer reported that she'd seen Veatch push her mother into a wheelchair. Veatch says her mother had collapsed and that she caught her mother before she hit the floor.

A North Carolina judge has struck down a 98-year-old state ban on public profanity.

Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour dismissed a misdemeanor charge against Chapel Hill resident Samantha Elabanjo on Wednesday. She had been convicted in July of using the word "damn" during a confrontation with police officers.

Baddour ruled the law against indecent or profane language within earshot of two or more people on any public road in North Carolina was unconstitutionally vague.

The case started Feb. 15 when Elabanjo stepped into the road as a police cruiser drove by. The two officers asked her to get back on the sidewalk. She did, but said: "You need to clean up your damn, dirty car" while still in the road. She then called the officers a vulgar name and she was arrested.

Appeals Court Judge Jane Markey of Grand Rapids says Gov. Rick Snyder should name her to the Michigan Supreme Court because she'd bring a west Michigan perspective.

Snyder could name a replacement as early as Monday for Justice Maura Corrigan, who steps down Friday to become Human Services director.

The 59-year-old Markey said in a release that current justices are from southeast Michigan or the Lansing area. She adds no one from Grand Rapids has been a justice since 1946.

Markey hoped to run for the high court in 2010, but Republicans nominated Wayne Circuit Court Judge Mary Beth Kelly, who beat Justice Alton Davis.

Lawmakers are weighing the benefit of accessibility with the necessity of security in the aftermath of a shooting at a political meet-and-greet outside an Arizona supermarket.

Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords remained in critical condition Sunday after being shot in the head at the event Saturday. The gunman killed six people, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, and wounded 14 others, authorities said. The suspected shooter is in custody.

There was no security at the political gathering, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said. At such events, "there's never security unless there's advance intelligence that there may be a problem of some kind," he said, noting that Giffords often attends as many as eight events in a single day.

"But it's not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, myself included. And that's the sad thing about what's going on in America. Pretty soon, we're not going to be able to find reasonable, decent people who are willing to subject themselves to serve in public office," Dupnik said.

The Federal Communications Commission cannot fine broadcasters for showing a woman's nude buttocks on a 2003 episode of "NYPD Blue," a federal court ruled Tuesday, citing its earlier decision to strike down FCC (News - Alert) rules regarding fleeting expletives uttered on live broadcasts as unconstitutionally vague.

The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan decided Tuesday to nullify a $27,500 penalty that the FCC imposed on ABC and 45 of its affiliate stations after the image was broadcast on the police drama for less than seven seconds in February 2003. The combined fine was greater than $1.2 million.

The appeals court said its finding was consistent with its decision last year that TV stations can no longer be fined for fleeting, unscripted profanities uttered during live broadcasts.

The FCC had created its fleeting–expletive policy after a January 2003 NBC broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards in which U2 lead singer Bono uttered the phrase "f****** brilliant." The FCC said that word in any context "inherently has a sexual connotation" and can lead to enforcement.

Fox Television Stations, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and other networks challenged the policy in 2006 after the FCC cited the use of profanity during awards programs that were aired in 2002 and 2003. The FCC has appealed that ruling.

In its Tuesday ruling, a three–judge 2nd Circuit panel wrote that there was "no significant distinction" between its decision in the expletives case and its findings in the "NYPD Blue" case.