The latest property rights battle before the U.S. Supreme Court started where the Gulf of Mexico laps at the crystalline white beaches of this seaside resort.

The justices will hear oral arguments Wednesday over whether a nearly seven-mile stretch of beach is public or private after the state of Florida poured more sand on the rapidly eroding shores. The new sand dumped in a project that ended in 2007 was designated public property by the state, angering residents who believe their property extends to the water, no matter how much sand is in between.

Six residents claim in a lawsuit they are due undetermined compensation, contending the state's action was a "taking" of their property.

"They have been trying to take our private beaches and make them public for years now," said Linda Cherry, head of the local Save Our Beaches group that supports the landowners. "In this case, they are taking our property without permission and without compensation. If the government can take our property like this, they can take anyone's property."

It's the first major property rights case to come before the high court since Justice Sonia Sotomayor took the bench. Perhaps the most famous and controversial "takings" case came in 2005, when the justices ruled 5-4 that cities had the right to use eminent domain powers to take property for private development.

The Iowa Court of Appeals has ruled a Washington County man convicted of shaking his 6-month-old daughter to death must be resentenced.

Jared York was found guilty of child endangerment with bodily injury and involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced in 2005 to the maximum on both counts for a total of 10 years in prison.

Under Iowa law, a defendant can be convicted of either a public offense or a lesser offense, but not both. The public offense in York's case was child endangerment. The court ruled it was impossible to commit the greater offense without also committing the lesser offense.

The court said the two offenses would merge and there's no clear indication the Legislature intended cumulative punishments, as were given to York.

Roman Polanski remained in jail Monday, despite visits from his lawyer and a French diplomat, and it was unclear if the director had met Switzerland's demand of a full bail payment of $4.5 million to be released.

The Swiss Justice Ministry declined to say what guarantees Polanski needed to give to be transferred from the jail near Zurich to house arrest at his chalet in the luxury resort of Gstaad.

In addition to bail, the 76-year-old filmmaker must surrender his identity papers and be fitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet. He would not be allowed to leave his property as he awaits a decision on whether he will be extradited to the U.S. for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

"The bail must be wired to a bank account, and the bank must then notify us that it has received the bail," ministry spokesman Folco Galli said. "Nothing happens before that."

The full bail payment is standard practice in Switzerland, Galli said.

That is different from other countries such as the United States, where bail bondsmen often post a percentage of the total payment required by a court.

Polanski has been in Swiss custody since being arrested Sept. 26 on a U.S. warrant as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award at a film festival. Authorities in Los Angeles want him returned to be sentenced after 31 years as a fugitive.

A federal court has ruled that an execution set for Dec. 8 can go forward due to a change in Ohio's lethal injection policies.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said Wednesday that the change renders moot Kenneth Biros' argument that the state's former policy using a three-drug vein injection is unconstitutional.

A U.S. District Court judge had temporarily delayed Biros' execution after the governor halted the lethal injection of another inmate in September because prison staff could not find suitable veins.

The state last week announced that it was changing its protocol, effective Nov. 30, to use a one-drug vein injection with a backup two-drug muscle injection.

A message seeking comment was left for Biros' attorney Wednesday morning.

The state-to-state march to legalize gay marriage across the left-leaning Northeast has lost more momentum since a major setback three weeks ago at the ballot box in Maine.

Since then, legislatures in New York and New Jersey have failed to schedule long-expected votes on bills to recognize the unions in those states.

"If they are unable to pass gay marriage in New York and New Jersey, combined with the loss in Maine, it will confirm that gay marriage is not the inevitable wave of the future," said Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which mobilizes social conservatives to fight against same-sex unions.

Gay rights activists insist that's not the case and say hope is still alive.

"In any civil rights struggle there are going to be periods of creeping and periods of leaping," said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry.

This decade has had some of both across the country. The most significant was the leap the issue made from abstraction to reality in 2003 when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that gay couples had the right to get married.

New York's top court ruled Tuesday that the state can use eminent domain to force homeowners and businesses to sell their properties for a massive development in Brooklyn that includes a new arena for the New Jersey Nets.

In a 6-1 ruling Tuesday, the Court of Appeals said the Empire State Development Corp.'s finding that the area was blighted was enough to justify taking the land.

A group of tenants and owners claim the seizure is unconstitutional. They argue that developer Bruce Ratner's proposed $4.9 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards project mainly enriches private interests, while the state constitution requires public use for taking land.

"The constitution accords government broad power to take and clear substandard and insanitary areas for redevelopment," Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman wrote for the majority. "In so doing, it commensurately deprives the judiciary of grounds to interfere with the exercise."

Ratner's proposed development includes office towers, apartments and a new arena for the NBA's Nets. A key element in his plan is selling majority team ownership to Russian entrepreneur Mikhail Prokhorov.

A Kentucky appeals court upheld a $6.1 million award to a former fast food worker who was forced to strip in a McDonald's restaurant office after someone called posing as a police officer.

The appellate court on Friday ruled that Illinois-based McDonald's Corp., knew about a series of hoax calls to restaurants around the country, but didn't warn employees before Louise Ogborn was strip searched and sexually assaulted as the result of such a call in 2004.

The appeals court ruled that to reverse the verdict would cut against the weight of the evidence.

Ogborn was 18 at the time of the call to the store about 20 miles south of Louisville. A Kentucky man, Walter Nix Jr., the fiance of a McDonald's assistant manager, served a prison sentence for sexually abusing Ogborn during the call. A Florida man, David Stewart, was acquitted of making the hoax call. Police have said similar calls stopped after Stewart's arrest.

McDonald's spokeswoman Danya Proud said the company doesn't dispute what happened to Ogborn, but is disappointed with the decision of the appeals court.

"However, it has been our position throughout these proceedings that she was the victim of a malicious hoax perpetrated by individuals not representing McDonald's," Proud said.