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.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange has told operators of closed electronic bingo casinos that he has no problem with going to court to determine if their machines are legal.

Operators of casinos closed by former Gov. Bob Riley's gambling task force have said they would like to go to court to prove that their machines are legal according to local constitutional amendments. But the courts have ruled they can't do it unless machines are seized.

The new attorney general said Wednesday he has told the casino operators he would be willing to confiscate some machines and file charges saying the machines were operated illegally. Strange said he could confiscate the machines in a way that they would stay in place at the casino, but could not be operated.

Strange said the machines could be confiscated quietly and would not involve pre-dawn raids by law enforcement officers similar to those attempted by Riley's task force.

He said the result would be a ruling from a judge on the legality of the machines that could be appealed by either side to the Alabama Supreme Court.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Richard Allen said the proposal has been made to casino operators and the AG's office is waiting to get an answer.

An attorney for the closed Country Crossing casino in Dothan said the facility's operators appreciate that Strange is willing to discuss finding a way to get the issue into court.

"We are open to any discussion that might bring this to a resolution short of the midnight Gestapo-type raids," said Doug Jones, an attorney for Country Crossing.

With Chicago election officials printing mayoral ballots that include Rahm Emanuel's name, it's up to the Illinois Supreme Court to decide whether voters will actually see him among their choices during next month's election.

The state's highest court agreed Tuesday to decide whether Emanuel can run for mayor, and the justices ordered election officials not to print any ballots without his name until they can rule.

The action bought valuable time for the former White House chief of staff, who a day earlier was kicked off the ballot by an appeals court because he didn't live in the city for a year before the Feb. 22 election. The state Supreme Court said it would expedite the matter but gave no specific time frame.

With less than a week to go before the first early ballots are cast, a number of potential scenarios loomed, including the possibility that Emanuel would have to resort to a write-in campaign or wage a desperate bid to take the matter to federal court.

Emanuel, who had been the heavy favorite to lead the nation's third-largest city, pressed ahead with confidence and said he was doubling his campaign by adding more stops to his already busy schedule.

Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel asked Illinois' highest court Tuesday to overturn a ruling that knocked him off the ballot for Chicago mayor, calling the decision "squarely inconsistent" with previous rulings about the state's election law.

Emanuel's lawyers filed the request a day after an appeals court booted him off the Feb. 22 ballot because he did not live in Chicago for a year before the election.

In the appeal, Emanuel's attorneys called Monday's decision "one of the most far-reaching election law rulings ever" issued in Illinois. They said the ruling imposes "a new, significant limitation" on ballot access.

There was no immediate word on whether the high court would hear the case, or when the justices would decide whether to accept it.

Time was running short because the Chicago Board of Elections said it needed to begin printing ballots Tuesday to be prepared for early voting, which starts Monday.

Officials said they would start printing the ballots without Emanuel's name among the choices.

Just hours after Monday's ruling, the campaign to replace retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley began to look like an actual race.

For months, three of the main candidates struggled for attention while Emanuel outpolled and outraised them, blanketed the airwaves with television ads and gained the endorsement of former President Bill Clinton, who came to town to campaign for Emanuel.