US Airways has asked a federal judge to resolve a seniority dispute involving its pilots.

Executives with the Tempe, Ariz.-based carrier said Monday's legal action in U.S. District Court in Phoenix is called a complaint for declaratory relief. They say the dispute has significantly stalled efforts to negotiate a joint contract covering the 4,000 pilots joined together by the merger of America West and US Airways five years ago.

The airline's pilots union says it will vigorously oppose the company's move. The US Airline Pilots Association says the court has no jurisdiction in labor contract negotiations.

Seniority is important to pilots and flight attendants because it dictates their schedules, pay, vacations and promotions.

A lawyer was accused of burglarizing the home of a client who filed a complaint against him with the Florida Bar. Albert Ford II was being held on charges of burglary to a structure causing damage, grand theft, criminal mischief and burglary to an occupied dwelling. The 43-year-old Longwood environmental and land use lawyer was arrested Thursday. He has his first court appearance Friday afternoon.

A person who answered the phone at Ford's law office declined to comment.

Lake Mary police said Ford went to the client's home, threw something into the pool and removed a tank and filter near the pool. He also took a flag from the front of the house.

A former New Hampshire high school teacher charged with e-mailing nude photographs of herself to a 15-year-old student faces a court hearing.

Forty-one-year-old Melinda Dennehy of Hampstead is scheduled to appear Monday in Derry District Court on a felony charge of indecent exposure. She was arrested in March after the photos were found circulating around Londonderry High School. She resigned three weeks later.

Police also allege Dennehy also text-messaged the student, offering sex.

Many Americans could be hit with a big tax increase in the next two or three years despite President Barack Obama's repeated promises to shield the middle class from higher rates.

Democrats are hedging about making Obama's pledge stick for more than a year or two, setting up a major battle on a super-sensitive subject just before the November elections.

With the most sweeping tax cuts in a generation due to expire in January, the Democrats are divided over whether the government can afford to make any of them permanent — especially with voters increasingly upset over the fast-rising federal budget deficit.

Party lines are clear on part of the issue: Most Republicans want to permanently extend all the tax cuts enacted during George W. Bush's presidency, nearly $3 trillion worth over the next decade. Democratic leaders want to let the cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire.

The Democrats want to extend them for everyone else, but perhaps only temporarily, out of concern for the rising red ink. That's where Democratic lawmakers are struggling to find agreement.

A National Weather Service employee and his British-born wife pleaded guilty Wednesday to domestic terrorism charges of lying to the FBI about a hit list of possible targets who the couple suspected were enemies of Islam.

Paul Rockwood Jr. and his wife, Nadia Rockwood, of King Salmon, Alaska, were charged with lying about the list and making false statements about domestic terrorism during interviews with FBI agents in May.

The FBI alleged that the list had about 15 targets. Its contents were not made public, but officials said none of those targeted lived in Alaska.

Under a plea deal, Paul Rockwood, 35, who worked as a meteorological technician for the weather service, will get eight years in prison, the maximum allowed. His 36-year-old wife, who is five months pregnant, will be allowed to return to the United Kingdom and serve five years of probation there.

Republican Sen. Richard Lugar says he'll vote to confirm Elena Kagan as a Supreme Court justice.

The Indiana Republican is the second in the GOP to announce he's breaking with his party to back President Barack Obama's nominee to succeed retired Justice John Paul Stevens.

Lugar says he's carefully followed Kagan's confirmation hearing testimony and the debate about her nomination, including recommendations from his constituents, and concluded that she is clearly qualified to serve on the high court.

Democrats have more than enough votes to confirm Kagan. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Tuesday became the first Republican to say he'll join them. A few others are expected to follow suit.