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.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that state adoption laws were not followed in terminating the parental rights of a Guatemalan woman who was caught up in a 2007 immigration raid and allowing her son to be adopted by an American couple.

But the decision doesn't automatically return the now 4-year-old child to his birth mother, Encarnacion Bail Romero. The court instead ordered the completion of mandatory reports about Romero, the adoptive parents and the boy, and a new trial regarding Romero's parental rights.

Judge Patricia Breckenridge, who wrote the majority opinion for the seven-member court, said another hearing would be required because the evidence in the case suggested abandonment. In a footnote, Breckenridge expressed concern about how the case played out, and three other judges indicated they would have reversed the adoption.

"Every member of this court agrees that this case is a travesty in its egregious procedural errors, its long duration and its impact on mother, adoptive parents and, most importantly, child," Breckenridge wrote.

Romero was arrested during an immigration sweep at a poultry plant, and sentenced to two years in a federal prison after pleading guilty to aggravated identity theft. Since leaving prison last year, she has been seeking to regain custody of her son, Carlos, who has lived with Seth and Melinda Moser, of Carthage, since he was about 1 year old.

Another couple who had been helping Romero's family care for Carlos after his mother's arrest had contacted the Mosers about adopting him. The boy was born in the U.S. and is a U.S. citizen. Romero was not immediately deported after serving her sentence so she could challenge the adoption, according to her attorneys.

The Supreme Court won't stop the class-action certification of a lawsuit against Pella Corp. over a purported defect in one of its windows.

The high court on Tuesday refused to hear an appeal from the window-maker.

The lower courts have certified a class-action lawsuit against Pella. The lawsuit alleges that Pella's aluminum clad wood "Proline" casement windows have a design defect that allows water to seep behind the aluminum cladding. They claim that allows the wood to rot at an accelerated rate, and that Pella committed consumer fraud by not declaring publicly the role that the purported design flaw had in the rot.

But Pella fought the class-action certification, saying consumer fraud claims are inappropriate for class treatment.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Black has approved a previously disclosed $179 million settlement and entered a final judgment in a dispute between AK Steel and retirees at its Butler, Pa., steel plant.

The AK Steel retirees had filed a class-action lawsuit in June 2009 to stop the company from making changes to their health insurance benefits. It had started making retirees pay a portion of their premiums in January 2010.

West Chester-based AK Steel is the largest Dayton-area company, with more than $4 billion in revenue.

Under the terms of the settlement, AK Steel will continue to pay for the benefits through 2014 and also pay $91 million to two trusts to cover future benefits for hourly and salaries retirees.

In return, the company has been relieved of liability for any benefits after 2014, and the lawsuit was dismissed.

An Iowa couple cannot have access to their adult child's physical and mental health records after being denied visitation with their grandson, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The court issued its ruling in the Plymouth County case between Jerry and Susan Ashenfelter and their daughter, Amy Mulligan. The Ashenfelters sought their daughter's records after she decided it was in her 6-year-old son's best interest not to have contact with them.

A district court ordered Mulligan to produce her physical and mental health records to her parents, because the Ashenfelters had to prove their daughter was unfit to make a decision regarding grandparent visitation.

Mulligan appealed and the Supreme Court reversed the district court's decision, deciding that the records were protected by Mulligan's constitutional right to privacy.

"The district court abused its discretion in ordering Amy to produce her medical and mental health records to the Ashenfelters," the court wrote.

The high court's ruling refers to the Ashenfelters' request for a 2008 commitment court file, notes, records and reports from counseling sessions at a sexual assault and domestic violence center but does not elaborate. But no commitment file existed because Mulligan was hospitalized voluntarily, the court said.

The Montana Supreme Court is considering restrictions to public access of certain information now available throughout the court system, including a proposal to seal all documents filed in family law cases except for final orders.

Freedom of information advocates say the proposals are unnecessary and would run counter to the right-to-know provisions in the state constitution.

The Supreme Court put the recommendations out for public comment on Dec. 7. The comment period will last for 90 days.

State Law Librarian Judith Meadows, one of the authors of the proposals, said a change is needed because the court system's existing privacy rules aren't being applied evenly and people not represented by lawyers don't understand them.

That means sensitive information about children involved a custody dispute, divorce or another court proceeding could find its way to the Internet, where it could be gathered by child predators or be used to bully a child, Meadows said.

The target of their manhunt was Lance Leeroy Arellano, 40, who officials believe may be wounded and in need of medical help after the shootout late Friday. Authorities have recovered a rifle, backpack and a tattered, bloody T-shirt while searching for Arellano over the weekend in a canyon along the Colorado River.

The ranger, Brody Young, 34, suffered injuries to an arm, leg and his stomach area, and underwent surgery over the weekend, Grand County Sheriff Jim Nyland said. A spokeswoman for St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., said Monday that Young is listed in serious condition.

The shootout occurred after Young stopped a vehicle near the Poison Spider Mesa Trail southwest of Moab near the Colorado River. The scenic trail, among Utah's best-known biking runs, rises more than 1,000 feet into the surrounding countryside.

Authorities have not yet been able to interview Young, and it remained unclear what sparked the violence.

More than 160 law enforcement officers spent the weekend searching a 15-square mile area near eastern Utah's Dead Horse State Park. Nyland has said the area's rugged terrain likely has given Arellano the "upper hand" in avoiding capture.

"He pretty much knows where we are at all times because of the number of people we have," Nyland said at a press conference.