A Florida millionaire accused of walking out on a $1.2 million gambling debt is fighting Mohegan Sun in court, arguing that the state judicial system cannot decide the case because the casino is run by a sovereign American Indian tribe.

Jerome Powers, chief executive of the cable television network Plum TV, asked the state Appellate Court this week to throw out a lower court's ruling that would allow Mohegan Sun to seize his assets ahead of a potential final judgment against him. It's not clear when the Appellate Court will take up the case.

Powers, 64, of Miami Beach, Fla., gambled away $1.2 million in credit that Mohegan Sun loaned him in May 2009, according to a lawsuit the casino filed against Powers in November 2009. Court documents filed by Powers say the casino solicited him to open a line of credit and to travel to the facility in Uncasville in eastern Connecticut, where he played blackjack.

Powers wrote six checks to the casino to pay his debt, but they were not honored by his bank, court documents say. Payment was stopped on a $465,000 check, and the others were returned because the accounts were closed, according to copies of the returned checks.

In fighting the casino's lawsuit, Powers contends that the credit agreement was an illegal gambling contract under state law and that state courts have no jurisdiction because the casino is run by the sovereign Mohegan Tribe.

A federal court in Mississippi has permanently dismissed a 1971 lawsuit filed against the state over prison conditions.

The case found that a range of corporal punishment practices used against prisoners at Parchman violated the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment.

"Conditions for confinement were atrocious in 1970 and that was especially true of the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman," Mississippi corrections commissioner Christopher Epps said in a news release Wednesday. "The MDOC has worked for 40 years to alleviate these conditions with a special emphasis during the last nine years."

The court said that Mississippi has reformed its prison system to make facilities more humane and to protect inmates from such systemic abuses, according to a March 10 order.

"The final dismissal of the suit is the result of 40 years of improvements within the culture of the state prison system and good faith cooperation among the state, the federal government, and plaintiffs," Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, said Wednesday.

Thirteen Somalis and a man from Yemen pleaded not guilty to piracy, kidnapping and firearms charges Tuesday in the February hijacking of a yacht that left four Americans dead.

They entered their pleas in federal court in Norfolk, where five other men convicted of piracy in a separate case last year had been sentenced to life in prison a day earlier.

"There's nothing I know about these charges. I do not admit that I was a pirate," Mohamud Salad Ali said through an interpreter Tuesday.

Each of the men requested a jury trial and all were ordered to remain jailed until then by Magistrate Judge Tommy Miller, who said they are a threat to society and a flight risk.

A trial has been set for May 17, although prosecutors want it pushed back because trying such cases is complicated.

Pirates have rarely been charged in the U.S. The case against the five Somalis sentenced Monday for attacking the USS Nicholas was the first to go to trial since the Civil War, when a New York jury deadlocked on charges against 13 Southern privateers.

A mayor in Utah says misdemeanor charges against the police chief appear to stem from a dog slaying last summer.

Parowan Mayor Donald Landes tells the Deseret News of Salt Lake City he believes the charges against Chief Preston Griffiths related to the shooting last July.

Griffiths was served Friday with a summons to appear March 22 in 5th District Court in Iron County on official misconduct and obstruction of justice charges. The case is being handled by Millard County prosecutors.

The 43-year-old Griffiths has been police chief since July 2003. The mayor says he's still on the job.

Griffiths hasn't commented on the charges.

Parowan animal control policies have been a hot topic since a resident shot two dogs he said were harassing his sheep in January 2010.

A California appeals court has sided with environmentalists in a decision that blames Los Angeles County and its flood control district for sending polluted runoff into the Pacific Ocean.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the county is responsible for the heavily polluted storm water flowing untreated each year down the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica Baykeeper environmental groups say the ruling is a turning point in the battle for clean water. Council attorney Aaron Colangelo says the county must now eliminate the flow of pollutants.

The Los Angeles Times says the Flood Control District argued its channels were simply conduits for upstream polluters, but the court says the district controls the flow to the ocean.

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.