A Tennessee court has ordered an Iraq war veteran reinstated to a police force, two years after he was dismissed for having post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Hamilton County Chancery Court ordered Chattanooga to give Mickel Hoback his job back with back pay. City attorneys have 30 days from Tuesday to file a response to Chancellor Jeffrey Atherton's decision.

Hoback, named the "Officer of the Year" in 2007, also has a $1.5 million federal lawsuit pending against Chattanooga for alleged violations of the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Act.

Hoback's attorney, Phillip Lawrence, told The Chattanooga Times Free Press that the suit could bring the U.S. Department of Labor into the case to prosecute Chattanooga.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan issued its 2-to-1 decision on Friday.

It came in the case of Dr. Rafiq Sabir. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he was convicted of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

The government said he had agreed to treat injured al-Qaida members so they could return to Iraq to fight Americans.

The resident of Boca Raton, Fla., had insisted throughout that he was innocent.

A federal judge on Wednesday questioned whether a key component of the landmark Voting Rights Act is outdated, expressing skepticism about using evidence of racial discrimination from 40 or 50 years ago to justify continued election monitoring for a group of mostly Southern states.

U.S. District Judge John Bates' comments came during oral arguments in an Alabama county's lawsuit targeting the law — a constitutional challenge that a number of legal observers predict could well reach the Supreme Court.

Shelby County, backed by conservative legal groups, maintains that it and other covered state, county and local governments should no longer be forced to get federal approval before changing even minor election procedures. They note that the Voting Rights Act — enacted in 1965 and extended by Congress for another 25 years in 2006 — relies heavily on past discrimination in determining which jurisdictions are covered by the "pre-clearance" requirement for election changes, such as moving a polling place or redrawing school district lines.

Bates posed sharp questions to the legal teams on both sides but at times appeared sympathetic to the county's argument.

Trenton's city attorney has found pay-to-play problems with a $50,000 contract that the city recently awarded to an Atlantic City law firm with ties to Mayor Tony Mack.

Acting Law Director Marc McKithen voided the contract because he says Cooper Levenson gave money to a political action committee that supported Mack.

The Times of Trenton reported the firm gave $7,200 to the Partners for Progress PAC in June, three days before the PAC gave $7,200 to Mack's election fund.

Under the city's campaign finance laws, anyone who receives a city contract cannot give more than $500 to local PACs up to one year before they begin bidding.

Cooper Levenson says it didn't break the law but asked for the return of the contribution out of caution.

With Rahm Emanuel back in the race for Chicago mayor thanks to a ruling from Illinois' highest court, the question now is what effect the legal dispute had on the race.

A lower court threw the former White House chief of staff off the ballot earlier in the week because he had not lived in Chicago for a full year before the Feb. 22 election. The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday ruled unanimously in Emanuel's favor.

It's unclear if the other contenders were able to attract some notice from voters who thought Emanuel might not make the ballot. And it's possible Emanuel garnered sympathy from voters.

Don Rose, a longtime analyst of Chicago politics, said the legal saga would bring Emanuel "even greater sympathy" and could lift him to victory.

An appeals court revived a class-action lawsuit Thursday for 160 residents of a Northern California town who claim an industrial plant's pollution severely sickened them.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a trial judge was wrong to dismiss the case on grounds that the statute of limitations had expired.

About 100 residents of Willits filed a lawsuit in 1999 claiming chemical disposals from Remco Hydraulics Inc. brought exposure to chromium and caused a wide-range of illnesses, from cancer to mental disorders.

The lawsuit ultimately included more than 1,000 residents, many of whom settled with the company, which closed the plant and filed for bankruptcy in 1995.