The owner of a Mason City home damaged in 2008 flooding has lost an appeal of his lawsuit against the city.

The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed a district court judgment for the city in the lawsuit filed by William Plymat. He alleged the city's negligence caused $28,500 damage to his property.

The Mason City Globe Gazette says the city had installed culvert pipes near Plymat's home so rainwater and snowmelt could drain through the city's levee into the Winnebago River.

Automatic culvert valves were installed to prevent floodwater from the river from reaching nearby land.

An appeals court says a man hit by a New York City bus shouldn't get a $1.8 million jury award because he stepped into a street without looking.

Tuesday's ruling orders a new trial in Claude Williams' case. His lawyer didn't immediately return a telephone call Tuesday evening. New York City Transit declined to comment.

Williams suffered a concussion and other injuries in the September 2003 incident in Harlem. He said the bus ran a red light and was traveling too close to the curb.

The appeals panel noted that no witness testified that the bus went through a red light. But the judges said evidence did show Williams stepped into the bus' path without looking and wasn't in a crosswalk.

A man boasted of his parenting skills to a judge more than two years before being investigated in the killings of two young children whose bodies were found stuffed in luggage and dumped into a canal and in the death of their mother.

Clem Beauchamp's testimony and that of his then-girlfriend, whose body was found months before those of her son and daughter, was enough to convince a judge to allow his children from a previous relationship to live with him, before changing his mind a year later.

Now those children are in the state's hands as authorities work toward charging Beauchamp in the deaths of 25-year-old Felicia Brown, and her children, 10-year-old Jermaine McNeil and 6-year-old Ju'tyra Allen.

He was due in court Wednesday on an unrelated firearms charge, which authorities are using to keep him in custody while they wrap up their investigation into the slayings.

The children's bodies were found in separate bags in a Delray Beach canal last week. Their mother's body was found last August in a landfill, but was unidentified until last week.

Years before, in an Aug. 26, 2008, hearing in West Palm Beach, Beauchamp, now 34, described himself as a hard-working, involved father who dropped his children off at school and helped them with their education.

A tri-state dispute threatening metro Atlanta's water supply is heading to an appeals court.

A three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta plans to hear arguments Wednesday as Georgia seeks to overturn a judge's order that severely restricted the ability of metro Atlanta to withdraw water from Lake Lanier.

U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson ruled in 2009 that Atlanta had little legal right to take water from Lake Lanier because the water body was built for hydroelectric power, not water supply. Magnuson signed an order that would severely restrict water withdrawals from the lake starting July 2012 unless Georgia strikes a political deal with Alabama and Florida.

Communities downstream from Atlanta want assurances they will have enough water for fisheries, farms, industry and towns.

The Supreme Court won't hear an atheist's latest challenge to the U.S. government's references to God.

The court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Michael Newdow, who says government references to God are unconstitutional and infringe on his religious beliefs.

This appeal dealt with the inscription of the national motto "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins and currency. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco says the phrase is ceremonial and patriotic and "has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion."

The court refused to hear Newdow's appeal of that decision.

"In God We Trust" was first put on U.S. coins in the 1860s and on paper currency in the 1950s.

The Arkansas Supreme Court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit that challenged the state Game and Fish Commission's authority to lease public land to natural gas companies so they can drill.

The Thursday ruling affirmed a circuit court ruling turned away James Dockery's claim that proceeds from the wells should go to the Legislature instead of the commission.

The commission voted in 2008 to lease drilling rights to Chesapeake Energy Corp. of Oklahoma City for $32.2 million. Dockery sued in Pulaski County the following year.

The leased areas include include more than 7,500 acres in the Petit Jean River Wildlife Management Area in Yell County and nearly 4,000 acres in the Gulf Mountain Wildlife Management Area in Van Buren County.