The Supreme Court will consider throwing out a human rights lawsuit against a former prime minister of Somalia who is accused of overseeing killings and other atrocities.

The court said Wednesday it would review an appeals court ruling allowing Somalis to sue Mohamed Ali Samantar of Fairfax, Va., who was defense minister and prime minister of Somalia in the 1980s and early 1990s under dictator Siad Barre.

The lawsuit alleges that Samantar was responsible for killings, rapes and torture, including waterboarding, of his own people while in power, particularly against disfavored clans. The lawsuit was filed in 2004 at federal court in Alexandria under the Torture Victim Protection Act.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema tossed out the case in 2007, ruling that Samantar was entitled to immunity under a separate U.S. law, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

But the appellate court ruled that the law does not extend immunity to individuals, only to foreign states themselves and their agencies.

The high court will consider whether Samantar is immune from the lawsuit. The case will be argued early next year.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has reinstated a ban on exit polls, surveys taken of people as they leave their voting places.

It also has kept in place a ban on distributing leaflets or other materials within 100 feet of polling places. It said Wednesday prohibiting such activities will ensure voters feel no obstructions to casting their ballots.

The ban on approaching voters was created in 1972. It was changed in 2007 by the state attorney general to allow for exit polling by journalists.

The state branch of the American Civil Liberties Union argued it also should be allowed to approach voters so it could give them cards explaining their rights and telling them how to report problems.

But the state said if the ACLU were allowed past the 100-foot border, other groups would be permitted also.

The EU was entitled to cap roaming rates in 2007 as network operators pocketed huge profits but resisted less drastic ways to cut the sky-high costs of using mobile phones in Europe, the EU advocate general said Thursday.

The opinion by Advocate General Miguel Poiares Maduro now goes to the European Court of Justice, which often follows that advice.

The opinion is a setback for mobile phone operators Vodafone, Telefonica O2, T-Mobile and Orange. They had challenged the validity of the EU roaming law in a British court, which referred the case to the European court.

But it is boost for the European Commission, which cites the roaming law as an example of how the European Union works to help consumers from the Azores to Lapland.

Poiares Maduro said the EU was entitled to set maximum roaming rates for a three-year period to ensure uniform prices and conditions across the 27 EU nations.

He noted that if pricing been left to the bloc's 27 national regulators it would have taken a very long time for Europeans to see roaming rates decline. Poiares Maduro said the European Commission failed repeatedly to get network operators to lower their rates, which varied widely and earned them profits of up to 400 percent.

A former top aide to Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas has pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to smuggle contraband into a prison.

Betsey Wright is accused of trying to smuggle tattoo needles, a box cutter, a knife and tweezers into the Varner Supermax Unit while visiting a death row inmate in May.

The 66-year-old Wright entered the plea Wednesday in a court filing in Lincoln County Circuit Court.

The filing by defense attorney Jeff Rosenzweig also waives her arraignment, which had been set for next week, and asks for a jury trial.

Rosenzweig declined to comment on Wright's defense other than to say she's not guilty.

Wright was Clinton's chief of staff for seven years and worked on many of his campaigns.

The U.S. Senate, without opposition, on Tuesday night confirmed Seattle attorney Jenny Durkan as U.S. attorney for Western Washington, the Northwest's most important job in federal law enforcement.

"She will do a great job and make us very proud in that job," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

A member of a prominent Irish-American political clan - her father ran twice for governor - Durkan has for years been deeply involved in the intersection of politics and law in the region.

Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, she has co-chaired a
bipartisan panel that screens candidates for federal judicial vacancies, and sends suggested finalists to the state's U.S. Senators.

Durkan was lead legal counsel for Gov. Chris Gregoire in the 2005 Chelan County Superior Court trial that threw out a Republican legal challenge and confirmed Gregoire's narrow election. In fact, it expanded Gregoire's victory margin from 129 votes to 133 votes.

In Wenatchee, on the night before a crucial cross-examination, Durkan learned that her father, former state Sen. Martin J. Durkan, had died.

A co-counsel offered to take over in court the next day. Durkan excused herself, went for a long nocturnal walk, came back . . . and performed a stellar cross-examination the next day.

A Notre Dame alumnus, Durkan once worked for Washington, D.C.'s famed Williams & Connolly criminal law firm. She served as legal counsel to Gov. Mike Lowry in the 1990's.

A former investigator involved in the Jayson Williams manslaughter case on Tuesday described how he used a racial slur to describe the former NBA star, while his boss explained why he chose not to disclose the incident before Williams' 2004 trial.

The testimony occurred during a hearing in state Superior Court, where Williams' defense team is attempting to show that racial bias tainted the investigation and prosecution.

Williams, who retired in 2000 after nine seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter in 2004 in the shooting two years earlier of hired driver Costas "Gus" Christofi at Williams' central New Jersey mansion.

He was convicted on four counts of attempting to cover up the crime, and a jury deadlocked on a reckless manslaughter count for which Williams faces a retrial scheduled for January.

Tuesday's hearing, and another scheduled for Wednesday, were prompted by Hunterdon County Prosecutor J. Patrick Barnes' disclosure of the racial epithet in 2007, more than three years after the trial.

Barnes said Tuesday he was notified about the slur in early 2003 from an employee who had been in the room when Hunt, who is white, said it in 2002. Barnes said although he reacted with "anger and disappointment," he chose not to inform the trial judge or Williams' defense team.