The woman stands close to a mirror fingering her throat. Then, sweeping back a mane of red hair, she injects heroin into her jugular vein. A nurse keeps an eye on her from behind.

The scene unfolds in North America's first and only legal injection site, promoted by its founders as a safe, humane facility for drug abusers, now facing a court challenge from a government that sees it as a facilitator of drug abuse.

Defenders of the taxpayer-funded site, in a seedy, drug-infested district of Vancouver, British Columbia, say it is a providing a form of health care, and that health care is a provincial matter under Canada's constitution. The federal government counters that its writ trumps provincial rights because heroin is a federally banned substance.

The case opens before the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa on Thursday, and has drawn international attention. Insite, as the Vancouver center is called, is the only facility of its kind in Canada. More could open if the top court agrees Insite is legal.

As of 2009, there were 65 injection facilities in 27 cities in Canada, Australia, and western Europe, according to the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The World Health Organization has called them a "priority intervention" in slowing the spread of AIDS via infected needles.

California's attorney general has again come out against the state's same-sex marriage ban, this time telling the state Supreme Court the proponents of successful ballot initiatives do not have the right to defend their measures in court.

Kamala Harris, a Democrat who succeeded Gov. Jerry Brown in January as attorney general, submitted an amicus brief Monday in the ongoing legal dispute over the voter-approved ban known as Proposition 8.

In it, she argued that only public officials exercising the executive power of government have authority to represent the state when laws passed by voters or the Legislature are challenged.

"California law affords an initiative's proponents no right to defend the validity of a successful initiative measure based only on their role in launching an initiative process," Harris wrote.

The question of where the role of ballot measure backers ends is critical to the legal fight over California's ban on same-sex marriages. Both Brown and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to defend the 2008 constitutional amendment on appeal after a federal judge struck it down last summer as a violation of civil rights.

Proposition 8's sponsors asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow them to step in, but the court punted the question to the California Supreme Court earlier this year, saying it was a matter of state law.

A Massachusetts man known for his infomercials touting the purported health benefits of coral calcium and Supreme Greens has pleaded guilty to tax and consumer fraud charges.

Federal prosecutors say Donald Barrett of Plymouth pleaded guilty on Monday to failing to report $573,000 in income from one of the products he sold on television and for marketing a product touted as preventing cancer and arthritis without approval of the Food and Drug Administration.

The 36-year-old Barrett faces up to three years in prison at sentencing scheduled for July 27. The Salem News reports that he is only expected to receive a year under terms of a plea agreement.

Barrett and his lawyer declined to comment after court.

A California appeals court rejected music producer Phil Spector's bid to overturn his murder conviction on Monday, saying it was permissible for prosecutors to call a parade of women who said Spector had threatened them with guns in the past.

A three-member panel of the state 2nd District Court of Appeal affirmed Spector's conviction in a strongly worded, 81-page decision rejecting a number of claims made by defense attorney Dennis Riordan.

The judges also dismissed the contention that actress Lana Clarkson was despondent and might have killed herself with a gun at Spector's home. In making that ruling, the panel pointed to evidence from her mother that suggested Clarkson was hopeful about the future.

The panel also concluded the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence to prove "Clarkson did not die by her own hand."

In addition, the judges found there was neither judicial nor prosecutorial misconduct at the trial, and that the testimony of five women who claimed Spector threatened them with guns was properly admitted, even though some of the incidents dated back 30 years.

Spector was never charged in those instances. Still, the judges said the testimony showed a pattern of gun-related behavior.

A former Bush administration official charged with trying to kill his wife at their Connecticut home is headed toward a trial after plea negotiations with prosecutors failed.

The Connecticut Post reports the attempted murder case of John Michael Farren was put on the trial list at Stamford Superior Court on Thursday during a brief hearing. A date for jury selection wasn't set.

The 58-year-old Farren was deputy White House counsel during President George W. Bush's second term. He also served as undersecretary for international trade under Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush.

Farren has pleaded not guilty. He is accused of beating his wife with a flashlight and choking her at their New Canaan home after she served him with divorce papers. He's free on bail but under house arrest.