A U.S. appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed against the city of Waverly and a Waverly police officer.

According to the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, two sisters, Maxine Veatch and Chris Price, say the Bartels Lutheran Retirement Community had retaliated against them when they raised questions about their mother's care.

Veatch had been arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor assault in September 2006. A Bartels staffer reported that she'd seen Veatch push her mother into a wheelchair. Veatch says her mother had collapsed and that she caught her mother before she hit the floor.

Appeals Court Judge Jane Markey of Grand Rapids says Gov. Rick Snyder should name her to the Michigan Supreme Court because she'd bring a west Michigan perspective.

Snyder could name a replacement as early as Monday for Justice Maura Corrigan, who steps down Friday to become Human Services director.

The 59-year-old Markey said in a release that current justices are from southeast Michigan or the Lansing area. She adds no one from Grand Rapids has been a justice since 1946.

Markey hoped to run for the high court in 2010, but Republicans nominated Wayne Circuit Court Judge Mary Beth Kelly, who beat Justice Alton Davis.

Family members of imprisoned former Illinois Gov. George Ryan have gathered at the hospital bedside of his gravely ill wife while waiting for a federal appeals court to decide whether he should be allowed to join them.

Ryan's attorneys filed an emergency motion Wednesday asking that the 76-year-old former governor be let out of prison during daytime hours so he can be with his wife of 55 years, who they said was in intensive care suffering complications from chemotherapy.

One of Ryan's attorneys, former Gov. James Thompson, told The Associated Press that Lura Lynn Ryan's family was called to her side Wednesday morning. Family members did not address reporters who congregated outside Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee.

"Doctors have told the family that they have to go hour by hour," Thompson said.

An emergency motion filed with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago says Ryan's wife went into septic shock, a complication of her treatment for what the motion describes as incurable cancer of the lungs, back, pelvis, ribs and liver.

The California Supreme Court ruled in San Francisco on Monday that police are entitled to search text messages on the cell phones of arrestees without obtaining a warrant.

The court, ruling in a Ventura County case, said by a 5-2 vote that warrantless searches of text messages are permitted under precedents set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The panel upheld the drug conviction of Gregory Diaz, who was arrested for aiding in selling Ecstasy to a police informant during an undercover sting operation. 

Sheriff’s deputies seized Diaz’s cell phone along with six tabs of Ecstasy. One and one-half hours later, a detective, who did not have a search warrant, looked in the text message folder of the phone and discovered a coded message that referred to Ecstasy sales.

When confronted with the message, Diaz admitted to participating in the deal. He later pleaded guilty to transporting a controlled substance and was sentenced to probation, but he reserved his right to appeal the use of evidence from the text message.

The state high court majority said the search was permitted under U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have allowed warrantless searches of personal property such as clothing or a cigarette package that are “immediately associated” with a person who is arrested.

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from taking over greenhouse gas permits in Texas.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued the stay Thursday, pending further action by the court.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had asked the federal appeals court in Washington to block the EPA from taking over greenhouse gas permits starting Sunday until the court could review the case.

The appeals court noted that order issuing the stay "should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits" of Abbott's motion.

Earlier last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had declined to issue a stay that would delay the EPA's plans as Texas' lawsuit against the federal agency moved forward.

The California Supreme Court's refusal affirms a Bay Area Air Quality Management District limit on burning wood, fire logs or wood pellets on nights when air quality is expected to exceed public health standards.

The appeal was brought by Duraflame Inc., which argued that its logs burn cleaner than other fuel types and should be exempt from the ban.

Duraflame appealed to California's high court after losses in both Alameda County Superior Court and a state appeals court.