The Supreme Court is trying to sort out whether drug companies can be sued for claims of serious side effects from childhood vaccines without driving vaccine makers from the market and risking a public health crisis.

The court heard argument Tuesday in an appeal filed by Pittsburgh area parents who want to sue Pfizer Inc.'s Wyeth for the serious health problems they say their 18-year-old daughter suffered from a vaccine she received in infancy.

Several justices appeared sympathetic to the parents' claims.

Wyeth, backed by the Obama administration and many public health groups, argued that Congress shielded drug companies from most vaccine lawsuits when it created a special vaccine court 24 years ago to handle the claims.

A former engineer for a New York commuter railroad has pleaded guilty to official misconduct after admitting he allowed a passenger into the control booth.

Ronald Cabrera entered the guilty plea Tuesday in Nassau County Court. He was fined $500 and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service.

The Long Island Rail Road fired Cabrera.

Officials say he allowed passenger William Kutsch drive a train carrying nearly 400 riders during rush hour in July 2009.

Cabrera was initially charged with reckless endangerment. His lawyer tells Newsday his client only admitted to the misconduct charge and does not concede that he let the passenger get behind the controls.

A man accused of killing nine people at a Buddhist temple near Phoenix as a juvenile will have the federal courts reconsider his overturned conviction.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the lower courts to re-examine the thrown-out murder conviction of Johnathan Doody.

Doody was convicted for the slayings of six priests, a nun and two helpers during a robbery at the Wat Promkunaram temple west of Phoenix.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the conviction, saying his Miranda warnings were inadequate. But the Supreme Court justices noted their February decision saying police only have to ensure that the Miranda warnings they read reasonably communicate to a suspect his rights.

The Supreme Court will decide whether an anti-terrorism law should have been used to prosecute a jealous woman who tried to harm her husband's mistress with deadly chemicals.

The high court on Tuesday agreed to hear an appeal from Carol Anne Bond of Lansdale, Pa. She was sentenced to six years in prison after admitting to trying to harm her husband's mistress, Myrlinda Haynes, with toxic chemicals that she stole from her workplace.

Bond has been in prison since her arrest in June 2007.

Prosecutors charged her with a federal chemical weapons violation, a law that Bond's lawyers said was intended to deal with rogue states and terrorists, not a woman in a love triangle. They want the court to throw out her conviction, saying Bond should have been prosecuted under state law instead of in federal court.

Bond, a laboratory technician, had stolen the chemical potassium dichromate — which is potentially deadly if ingested — from the company where she worked. Bond said she put the chemicals on Haynes' door handle and in the tailpipe of Haynes' car.

Haynes was not injured.

Bond's husband, Clifford, had a child with Haynes while married to Bond. Haynes had contacted police and postal authorities after finding the chemicals at her home.

A Pittsburgh woman has pleaded guilty to allegations she defrauded advertisers and exhibitors out of thousands of dollars with a fake bridal show in Boston.

Prosecutors are recommending a five-year prison sentence for Karen Tucker, who pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in U.S. District court in Boston. The defense is seeking a three-year prison term.

Tucker and an uncharged coconspirator allegedly posed as representatives of a business known as The Boston 411, which promoted a nonexistent home and bridal show at the Hynes Convention Center in March.

Tucker told a judge that she served in the Marines in the 1980s and has been treated for schizophrenia and a "social disorder."

Her attorney says she has taken responsibility for her actions.

A member of the pop group Girlicious has pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession and has received a deferred judgment that could result in the charge being dismissed.

Los Angeles district attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison says Natalie Mejia entered the plea Wednesday in a Pasadena courtroom.

A trial on a charge of possession with the intent to sell had been scheduled for this week. Mejia was arrested on March 9 in Glendale, Calif., after police said they found 13 bags of cocaine in her Gucci purse during a traffic stop.

Robison says Mejia will be required to undergo counseling and attend classes for the next 18 months.

If she completes the deferred judgment program, the felony charge will be dismissed.