RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ A federal judge ordered imprisoned quarterback Michael Vick to repay more than $2.4 million to a Canadian bank for defaulting on a loan. The Royal Bank of Canada sued Vick in September, arguing his guilty plea to a federal dogfighting charge _ and the resulting impact on his career _ prevented him from repaying the loan.

According to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Newport News, the loan’s terms specify that any employment change negatively impacting Vick’s income constitutes a default on the loan.

Vick is serving a 23-month prison sentence at the U.S. penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., after pleading guilty last year to bankrolling a dogfighting ring. He was subsequently suspended indefinitely without pay and lost all his major sponsors, including Nike. He also faces state charges related to dogfighting.

”The criminal charges, and resulting impact on the defendant’s employment … materially affect his ability to repay the term note,” the bank said in the lawsuit.

The order Wednesday from U.S. Magistrate F. Bradford Stillman requires Vick to pay $2.4 million, plus $499 in interest per day, starting Sept. 19, 2007, and the bank’s attorneys’ fees and costs of $11,950 plus interest.

Vick’s attorneys did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment.

After the plea, the Atlanta Falcons also tried to recover about $20 million in bonuses Vick earned from 2004 to 2007. But a federal judge held that Vick is entitled to keep all but $3.75 million of the money paid to him for playing football through the 2014 season.

A default judgment for $1.08 million also was entered in January against Vick and a business partner in a lawsuit brought by Wachovia Bank over a loan for an Atlanta-area wine shop and restaurant.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) _ An American Indian who shot a bald eagle for use in a tribal religious ceremony must stand trial, a federal appeals court has ruled.

A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Thursday reversed a 2006 lower court ruling that dismissed a criminal charge against Winslow Friday, a Northern Arapaho Indian who has acknowledged shooting a bald eagle in 2005 during the tribe’s Sun Dance.

In dismissing the charge, U.S. District Judge William Downes of Wyoming said the federal government has shown ”callous indifference” to American Indian religious beliefs. Eagle feathers are a key element of ceremonies of the Northern Arapaho and many other tribes.

The appeals court ruled that American Indians’ religious freedoms are not violated by federal law protecting eagles or the government’s policy requiring American Indians to get permits to kill the birds.

”Law accommodates religion,” the court said in its ruling. ”It cannot wholly exempt religion from the reach of the law.”

Friday declined to comment on the court’s ruling. If convicted, he faces up to one year in jail and a $100,000 fine.

Friday’s public defender, John T. Carlson, said the ruling ”reflects a failure to grasp the unique nature of the Northern Arapaho religious practice surrounding the eagle.”

Carlson said he and his client haven’t decided how to respond to the ruling. Their options are asking the full appeals court to hear the case, appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court or allowing the case against Friday to proceed to trial in Wyoming.

John Powell, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cheyenne, said the office planned to proceed with the prosecution.

Friday, who’s in his early 20s, said last year he didn’t know about a federal program that allows American Indians to apply for permits to kill eagles for religious purposes. Lawyers representing him and his tribe have argued that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did its best to keep the program secret and only grudgingly issued permits.

In his ruling, Downes said it was clear that Friday wouldn’t have received a federal permit to kill an eagle if he had applied for one.

The judge wrote that the Fish and Wildlife Service has encouraged American Indians to apply to receive eagle parts from a Colorado repository that holds the remains of birds killed by power lines and other causes. He said the agency makes no effort to encourage American Indians to apply for permits to kill birds of their own.

The bald eagle was removed last year from the list of threatened species. It had been reclassified from endangered to threatened in 1995. However, the species is still protected under the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

Kathryn E. Kovacs, a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice, told the federal appeals court in arguments in December that Friday had no standing to argue about shortcomings of the federal permitting process because he never applied for a permit before killing the eagle.

The appeals court agreed. It also rejected Friday’s argument that the federal Religious Freedom Restitution Act, which prohibits the government from placing undue burdens on religious practices, should block the federal government from prosecuting him for killing the eagle.

CHICAGO (AP) _ R. Kelly arrived at a Cook County courthouse Friday to face child pornography charges filed after a videotape allegedly showed him having sex with a girl as young as 13.

Jury selection was scheduled to start in the Grammy-winning R&B singer’s trial, which has been delayed for six years.

Another delay was possible after defense attorneys filed a motion Wednesday seeking to postpone the trial again. Judge Vincent Gaughan could rule on that request Friday.

The reasons for the motion were being kept secret, but it came as publicity surrounding the case heats up and some media speculated about who might testify.

Prosecutors will have to surmount several hurdles if they hope to prevail.

Chief among them is that the alleged victim, now 23, says it wasn’t her. And Kelly’s lawyers _ including prominent Chicago attorney Ed Genson _ haven’t admitted it’s Kelly in the video.

The 41-year-old Kelly, who has pleaded not guilty, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

The centerpiece of the trial is the video footage, which Gaughan ruled may be shown in open court.

Prosecutors claim the videotape was made sometime between Jan. 1, 1998, and Nov. 1 2000, and that the girl was born in September 1984. Kelly was indicted on pornography charges June 5, 2002, after the tape surfaced.

It is unclear whether prosecutors have asked _ or would be allowed _ to tell jurors about accusations that Kelly allegedly had sexual relations with other minors, because some of the trial proceedings have been kept secret by the judge.

Media outlets, including The Associated Press, have filed a motion seeking to get court records and hearing transcripts unsealed. Gaughan said Thursday he would rule on that motion May 16.

Once the trial gets under way, it is expected to last at least several weeks.

Although he won a Grammy in 1997 for the gospel-like song ”I Believe I Can Fly,” Kelly’s biggest hits are sexually charged songs like ”Bump N’ Grind,” ”Ignition” and his current single, ”Hair Braider.” He is due to release a new album in July.

First of all, ask your lawyer if going to court or if attempting to negotiate a settlement would be the best option for your case. While attorneys don’t have crystal balls, they can evaluate your case - the strengths, weaknesses, and likelihood of prevailing on the merits. Cost may also be a factor. Taking a case all the way through trial can be expensive in terms of attorneys fees. So, if the total value of the case is less than what it would cost to litigate it, then going to court may not make financial sense. Still, many people highly value their “day in court” and the judicial process, particularly when the parties have a strong desire for “justice” in the case.

If you go to court - no matter how strong of a case you present, there is no telling how a judge or a jury will respond. Predictions are made, don’t get me wrong. But, the ultimate decision-maker is not you, is not your attorney, is not opposing counsel. The final decision is out of your hands once the case is submitted to the trier of fact.

If you don’t go to court - would you always wonder “what if”? If you don’t go to court, you probably reached an early settlement. Depending on the case, some people wonder if they would have obtained a better outcome by going to court.

But, there it is again, nobody has a crystal ball. We just can’t see the future. We can only congratulate ourselves if we go to court and “win” or beat ourselves up if we loose by wishing we would have settled sooner. At the end of the day, its a risk either way. So, what does this bring me to? I guess what really matters is…. your reason for going to court, or not. Did you go for it? Did you risk it all in the pursuit of justice? If you won in court… great! If you lost…. well at least you went for it. You put yourself out there and stood up for something you believed in. That, my friends, is something most of us haven’t done.

The suspect, Andre Smith, struck up a conversation with a group of women at a bachelorette party at the Bensalem Township taproom early Sunday morning, the township’s public safety director, Fred Harran, said Wednesday. The women were taking photos of each other when Smith jumped in front of the camera, Harran said.

Smith later was ejected from the bar for allegedly harassing customers.

When two women in the group left the bar to go to a nearby convenience store, Smith robbed them of their purses, Harran said. The women recognized Smith _ who apparently didn’t recognize them _ and gave investigators a copy of their photo, Harran said.

Later Sunday, a detective went around to local apartment complexes looking for Smith and spotted him, Harran said.

Smith was arrested on robbery and theft charges and is being held on $50,000 bail. Electronic court records did not list an attorney for him.

NEW YORK (AP) _ Hundreds of demonstrators led by the Rev. Al Sharpton clogged intersections and snarled traffic across the city to protest the acquittal of three officers involved in the shooting death of an unarmed black man on his wedding day.

Protesters said Wednesday’s ”pray-in,” which led to the arrest of 216 people, was a preview of potential future demonstrations designed to paralyze the city until federal authorities investigate the shooting.

”We’re going to keep coming until we get federal indictments. It’s wrong,” said Frank Rodriguez, a military veteran who attended one of six rallies across the city.

U.S. attorney spokesman Robert Nardoza said the case was under review, but he declined further comment about a possible federal case.

Sharpton and relatives of Sean Bell, the groom killed in 2006 in a 50-bullet barrage, planned to meet privately with Gov. David Paterson on Thursday to talk about the case.

The demonstrators on Wednesday prayed, sang and chanted slogans including ”no justice, no peace!” as they converged on six locations, including heavily used bridges and tunnels that carry traffic to and from Manhattan.

Sharpton, two survivors of the shooting and the slain man’s fiancee lined up and peacefully put their hands behind their backs as police arrested them on disorderly conduct charges. They were released about four hours later, said Sharpton spokeswoman Rachel Noerdlinger.

The protests were carefully orchestrated: Organizers circulated sign-up sheets for those willing to be arrested and issued instructions on how to behave when arrested. They also were advised not to volunteer if they had warrants out for their arrests or other pending legal issues.

After marching to the New Jersey-bound Holland Tunnel behind a ”Stop the Brutality” banner, protesters blocked two entrances as some sang the civil rights anthem ”We Shall Overcome.” Demonstrators who moved to the sidewalk applauded each time one of their fellow protesters was arrested.

Drivers waited patiently. ”I disagree with doing anything illegal, but, hey, this is what makes America great,” said Aaron Hanson, a passenger in a car waiting to get into the tunnel. ”If this is what people really need to do to make a statement, it’s what they should do.”

A few miles uptown, some protesters were arrested after blocking traffic into midtown Manhattan on the Queensboro Bridge, while about 200 people rallied near the entrance to the Triborough Bridge in Harlem.

Sharpton, shooting survivors Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, and Bell’s fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, linked arms as they blocked a street at the Brooklyn Bridge’s base.

They were followed by at least 200 demonstrators who kneeled down in prayer in the road and counted from one to 50 in a stark reference to the 50 shots. Some carried signs proclaiming, ”We are all Sean Bell.”

A heavy police presence initially stood by during the demonstrations, allowing the protesters to march unimpeded to the bridges and tunnels. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had pledged to ”make sure that everybody’s rights are protected and that the law is obeyed.”

The racially polarizing case has raised questions about police use of deadly force in minority communities. Bell was black, as are two of his friends who were wounded in the shooting; the officers were black, Hispanic and white.

The three officers were acquitted of state charges last month. They testified that they feared for their lives after Bell and his friends got into a testy exchange with another patron outside a Queens strip club and appeared to be going to retrieve a gun; Bell’s friends testified the detectives fired wildly and without warning at Bell’s car. No gun was found with Bell or his friends.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday that the department was continuing to examine the possibility of disciplinary action against the detectives.

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Partners of Chinese women who were forced to have abortions are pressing the Supreme Court to make it easier to get asylum in the United States.

The Bush administration is resisting the male partners’ efforts to get asylum, even though the Republican congressman who wrote a 1996 asylum law said it was intended to cover men as well as women who are victims of China’s controversial family planning policy. There is no dispute that women can seek asylum under the law.

The justices will consider appeals by two men in the coming weeks.

U.S. courts have taken varying approaches to claims by Chinese men that they should be allowed to stay in the United States because they have suffered under a policy that generally limits couples to one child.

China prohibits marriage until the man is 22 and the woman is 20, but the government concedes that many people enter into traditional marriages at younger ages.

Still, authorities sometimes force abortions or sterilization on people who seek to have children even though they are not legally married or who want more than one child, according to the State Department’s most recent human rights report for China, issued in March.

U.S. immigration authorities and some courts have seized on the distinction between traditional and legal marriage to deny asylum claims.

Yi Qiang Yang was 20 when he married his 17-year-old wife in a traditional ceremony. More than a year later, Yang’s wife was eight months pregnant when Chinese authorities forced her to have an abortion.

Yang fled, fearing persecution for trying have a child outside China’s strict rules and eventually asked for asylum in the United States. Immigration officials and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta turned him down, in part because the marriage was not legal. ”Legal marriage reflects a sanctity and long-term commitment that other forms of cohabitation simply do not,” the appeals court said.

The administration, which has criticized China’s human rights practices, said the decision was correct. ”An applicant who participates in a traditional marriage ceremony, but is not legally married, is not automatically deemed eligible for asylum if his partner is forced to undergo an abortion,” wrote Solicitor General Paul Clement, the Justice Department lawyer who represents the administration at the Supreme Court.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a frequent critic of China’s human rights practices, said the administration is in essence blaming the victim. ”The Solicitor General is profoundly wrong and misguided in taking that view,” Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Smith authored a 1996 law that he said was designed to expand eligibility for asylum and erase uncertainty that both partners would be covered.

”Not to include both when both are harmed irreparably would be a gross miscarriage of justice,” Smith said. ”These are bona fide marriages. But even if this were boyfriend-girlfriend, what would happen if the couple defended their unborn child? She gets asylum and he doesn’t?”

A second case that the court could soon consider involves just such an arrangement. Zen Hua Dong contends his fiance was forced to have two abortions and he was threatened with sterilization by local officials.

But immigration judges denied his asylum application because he is not married.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York went further, however, saying that the law does not cover even spouses in legal marriages.

New York University law professor Samuel Estreicher, Dong’s lawyer at the Supreme Court, said the appeals court narrowed the law, despite substantial evidence that Congress intended to expand eligibility for asylum.

”The Chinese government is not just going after the pregnant woman, it is going after the unit, the couple,” Estreicher said.

Appeals courts in Chicago and San Francisco have sided with spouses seeking asylum.

The ruling in New York spurred the Justice Department to review its policy on the eligibility of spouses.

Smith and former Rep. Henry Hyde, who has since died, urged Attorney General Michael Mukasey to take an expansive position on who is eligible for asylum.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other faith-based groups also are calling on Mukasey to clarify that both spouses should be able to seek asylum because of ”the dramatic impact that forced abortions and sterilizations have on both spouses.”

The Justice Department has not said when the review will be completed.

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) _ The state that pioneered the quickie divorce is witnessing a potentially ugly breakup that has the governor of Nevada fighting to get back into his own mansion.

Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons filed for divorce last week after moving out of the 23-room official residence. With his wife, Dawn, now ensconced in the Governor’s Mansion, he has gone to court to have her evicted so that he can move back.

Entire sitcoms have been built on less. And many Nevadans are fascinated by the whole spectacle.

”This isn’t a tourist attraction, but it’s certainly an attraction,” said Michael Green, a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada.

A popular liberal blogger, Hugh Jackson of lasvegasgleaner.com, has gleefully declared, ”Gibbons vs. Gibbons: Let’s get ready to rumble!” and has taken the opportunity to re-post photos of Gibbons partying on a cruise with a crowd of women.

With a judge sealing most of the records Monday at the governor’s request, the blogosphere is full of rumors about why Gibbons, 63, wants a divorce. He is not talking publicly, and his 54-year-old wife has said she has no idea why he wants to end their marriage of nearly 22 years.

The divorce case _ and the potential political fallout _ are the latest in a series of difficulties for the first-term governor, including a corruption investigation by the FBI, still under way, and claims by a Las Vegas cocktail waitress that he assaulted her in a parking garage after she rebuffed his advances just before his 2006 election.

Police last year said they found insufficient evidence to support the waitress’ claim. But during the furor, Dawn Gibbons literally stood by her husband and resolutely defended him, lending critical support at a supremely perilous moment in his career.

Gibbons moved out of the mansion _ a 1908 structure with fluted white Ionic columns, wraparound verandas and a grand, Greek Revival-style portico _ sometime earlier this year and returned to the couple’s modest, four-bedroom house about 25 miles away in Reno, which is appropriate, given the way Nevada turned the phrase ”I’m going to Reno!” into a 1940s euphemism for divorce. He continues to conduct some official business at the mansion before driving back to Reno at night.

The move has raised questions about the governor’s compliance with an 1866 state law that says a governor must ”keep his office and reside at the seat of government.”

The Nevada Appeal in Carson City said in an editorial that the governor should be the one living in the mansion _ unless ”they change its name to the First Lady’s Mansion.”

”Dawn Gibbons should leave and let the taxpayers’ representative do our business in our mansion. If she wants to live there, she should get elected governor or live with the one we’ve got,” Sid Goodman of Las Vegas wrote in a letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

Gibbons press secretary Ben Kieckhefer has described the move to Reno as a temporary situation and said there is no violation of the law.

Dawn Gibbons told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that she didn’t ask Gibbons to move out, and that she has been trying to ”make sure my marriage works.” She also said she wants to continue performing her duties as first lady and needs to be in the mansion because that is her office and where her staff works.

Besides attending ceremonial functions, the first lady has led the state’s anti-methamphetamine effort and pushed for programs to help autistic children.

”I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she told the Las Vegas newspaper. ”I don’t know why he’s divorcing me. All I’m trying to do is keep it together.” She also complained: ”He won’t talk to me. I can’t get ahold of him.”

It has long been known that Gibbons and his wife have had problems in their marriage, and that has led to some awkward moments.

The governor and the first lady avoided each other at a ball held at the state Republican convention last month, arriving and leaving separately. During a gubernatorial news conference at the mansion in March, Gibbons’ wife walked through the room silently, unacknowledged by the governor. Gibbons responded with a denial when a reporter asked if he had a girlfriend.

At the GOP convention, an irate Gibbons told reporters it was ”a great disservice to our family” to see accounts of his marital problems in the newspapers. The couple have a college-age son, and the governor also has two grown children from a previous marriage.

Gibbons, a former airline and military combat pilot, was a state lawmaker and then served five terms in Congress before getting elected governor in 2006. While Gibbons was in Congress, his wife didn’t join him in Washington, and continued to live in Reno.

While he was serving with the Nevada Air Guard during the first Gulf War, she filled his Assembly seat. Later, she was elected in her own right and served three terms. Two years ago, she sought the congressional seat her husband was giving up, but lost in the primary.

In Gibbons’ divorce complaint, he cited incompatibility as grounds for ending the marriage. The complaint also said ”the cause of action for divorce” occurred in Reno, but offered no specifics.

Cal Dunlap, Dawn Gibbons’ attorney, said she would prefer that the proceedings be public, but under state law, either party in a divorce can ask for secrecy and a judge is required to grant it.

The divorce ”could hurt him if it’s messy,” said Green, the history professor. ”When you pile this on everything else that he’s been involved with, you have to question how much political capital he has. Has he become a lame duck or a crippled duck?”

SAN DIEGO (AP) _ San Diego State University has suspended six fraternities after a sweeping drug investigation that landed dozens of students in jail on suspicion of openly dealing drugs on campus.

The probe _ prompted by the cocaine overdose death last year of a freshman sorority member _ led to the arrests of 96 people, 75 of them San Diego State students. A second drug death occurred during the investigation.

Twenty-nine people were arrested early Tuesday in raids at nine locations including the Theta Chi fraternity, where agents found cocaine, Ecstasy and three guns, authorities said. Eighteen of those arrested were wanted on warrants for selling to undercover agents.

Theta Chi and five other fraternities have been suspended pending a hearing on evidence gathered during the investigation, dubbed Operation Sudden Fall.

All of the arrested students have been suspended and will be barred from attending classes or taking final exams until their cases are reviewed, San Diego State President Stephen Weber said in a statement. Those who live in university-owned housing were evicted, he added.

”If guilty, they have ruined an untold number of lives,” Weber said. ”We are determined to remove people from our community who have placed our students at risk.”

Authorities said some fraternity members openly dealt drugs, and that one sent a mass text message advertising special prices on cocaine. Two kilograms of cocaine were seized in all, along with 350 Ecstasy pills, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, hash oil, methamphetamine, illicit prescription drugs, several guns and at least $60,000 in cash, authorities said.

Profits may have been used to finance fraternity operations, according to an affidavit.

A member of Theta Chi sent out a mass text message to his ”faithful customers” stating that he and his ”associates” would be unable to sell cocaine while they were in Las Vegas for a fraternity formal, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The text promoted a cocaine ‘’sale” and listed the reduced prices on bulk quantities.

”Attn faithful customers both myself and my associates will be in Vegas this coming weekend,” the 19-year-old student wrote in the text message. ”So stock up, we will be back Sunday night.”

Those arrested included a student who was about to receive a criminal justice degree and another who was to receive a master’s degree in homeland security.

The Greek (fraternity and sorority) system at San Diego State has about 3,000 students, out of an enrollment of 34,000, but Fraternity Row plays an outsized role in campus life. It sits a block from Cox Arena, home to many college sporting events.

Dale Taylor, national executive director of Theta Chi, said he was ”obviously shocked and saddened” by the allegations. Theta Chi prohibited the San Diego chapter from group activities such as parties or sports activities and will investigate additional disciplinary measures, up to expulsion of members or the entire chapter.

The San Diego chapter, founded 61 years ago, was the first national fraternity on campus and has 65 members.

The chapter declined to comment. It occupies two low-slung homes a block off Fraternity Row, with large red and white Greek symbols propped on the roof.

Theta Chi has 131 chapters in the U.S. and Canada and more than 161,000 initiates. It was founded in 1856.

Besides Theta Chi, the other suspended fraternities are Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Kappa Psi, Phi Kappa Theta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Mu.

University police launched their investigation into drug sales on campus after Shirley Poliakoff, 19, died from a cocaine overdose in May 2007. Investigators discovered many students in fraternities were aware of organized drug dealing within their houses.

As the investigation continued, another student, from Mesa College, died of a cocaine overdose at an SDSU fraternity house on Feb. 26, the DEA said.

Some drugs bought and sold by students were traced to gangs linked to Mexican cartels, according to the DEA. Agents collected about $100,000 worth of drugs that were being advertised in ”resale quantities” between members of the fraternity and other students.

A spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter says the mayor stands behind the police department but his first glance of the video does appear to show the officers overstepping their authority.

The video was shot Monday night by WTXF-TV. It shows three police cars stopping a car on the side of a road.

The tape shows about a dozen officers gathering around the vehicle and pulling three men out. About a half-dozen officers hold two of the men on the ground. Both are kicked repeatedly, with one of the two apparently struck with a baton. Punches were also thrown.

The third man is also kicked and ends up on the ground.