The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the subject of who pays for workers who gather valuable data aboard commercial fishing boats.

Justices announced Monday that they will take the case, which stems from a lawsuit by a group of fishermen who want to stop the federal government from making them pay for the workers. The workers are tasked with collecting data on board fishing vessels to help inform rules and regulations.

The fishermen involved in the lawsuit harvest Atlantic herring, which is a major fishery off the East Coast that supplies both food and bait. Lead plaintiff Loper Bright Enterprises of New Jersey and other fishing groups have said federal rules unfairly require them to pay hundreds of dollars per day to contractors.

“Our way of life is in the hands of these justices, and we hope they will keep our families and our community in mind as they weigh their decision,” said Bill Bright, a New Jersey fisherman and plaintiff in the case.

The high court announced its decision to take the case via an order list that made no comment on the merits of the lawsuit. The fishermen previously lost in lower court rulings. Their lawsuit over fishing monitors is part of a long-standing fight between commercial fishing groups and the federal government over who pays for data collection and regulatory compliance.

Fishermen have argued that Congress never gave federal regulators authority to require the expense of paying for monitors.

Fisheries in the U.S. are regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A representative for NOAA declined to comment on the case. The agency does not typically comment on pending litigation.

Attorneys for the fishermen have said the case will directly confront the future of so-called “Chevron deference,” which is a legal principle that compels courts to defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of an unclear law. Conservative groups have long sought to challenge Chevron deference at the Supreme Court level.

The plaintiffs are represented by Cause of Action Institute, which advocates for limited government. They said in their petition to the high court that the monitors “take up valuable space on their vessels and oversee their operations,” and the payments make commercial fishing unsustainably expensive.

Israel’s Supreme Court on Sunday threw out four legal challenges to a landmark maritime agreement between Israel and Lebanon, clearing a major hurdle for the deal that could mark a major breakthrough in relations between the two countries.

The court did not immediately release its reasons for rejecting the challenges, which were submitted by an influential conservative policy group and an ultranationalist Israeli politician, among others. The court’s ruling paves the way for the agreement to be given final approval by Israel’s the government, a step expected later this week.

Lebanon and Israel both claim some 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea. At stake are rights over exploiting undersea natural gas reserves. Lebanon hopes gas exploration will help lift its country out of its spiraling economic crisis. Israel also hopes to exploit gas reserves while also easing tensions with its northern neighbor.

Critics of the deal who had appealed to the court said the current interim government should not be allowed to change Israel’s maritime border or make such weighty, strategic decisions without an electoral mandate.

“Israel has crossed a fundamental democratic line, with a lame duck government agreeing to give up the country’s sovereign territory to an enemy state days before an election,” said Eugene Kontorovich, of the Kohelet Policy Forum, the conservative think tank that had petitioned the court. Israel heads to the polls for the fifth time in less than four years next week.

Israel and Lebanon and formally have been at war since Israel’s establishment in 1948. In 2006, Israel and the Shiite militant group Hezbollah fought a monthlong, inconclusive war and tensions with the group remain high.

Israel says the deal will bolster its security, help stabilize the northern frontier and boost the economy with billions in revenue from any gas discovered.

The owner of a tugboat that collided with a ship last month, dumping nearly 170,000 gallons of oil into the Houston Ship Channel, claims in court filings the ship was speeding and being operated in a reckless manner.

Houston-based Kirby Inland Marine alleges in court documents filed earlier this month that the March 22 collision, which occurred after the ship struck a barge the tugboat had been pulling, was caused by gross negligence on the part of the ship's owner, Sea Galaxy Marine based in Liberia in West Africa. In its own court filings, Sea Galaxy says the collision was not its fault.

The U.S. Coast Guard, which is still investigating the cause of the accident, did not immediately return a call Thursday seeking comment on the claims being made by the companies.

Two barges that were being pulled by the Kirby Inland-owned tugboat Miss Susan had been leaving Texas City and heading for the Intracoastal Waterway while a Sea Galaxy-owned inbound ship, the Summer Wind, was traveling through the Houston Ship Channel. The collision happened when the barges made a left turn to enter the Intracoastal Waterway and were crossing the ship channel.

But Kirby Inland alleged in court documents filed earlier this month that the tugboat had broadcast its position to let all vessels in the vicinity know its position. At the time, the Houston Ship Channel was under a fog advisory.

A theater in Italy turned into a courtroom Monday, providing extra space for all those who needed to hear the evidence against the captain of a shipwrecked cruise ship.

The case of Francesco Schettino, 51, has generated such interest that the Tuscan city of Grosseto chose the larger space to accommodate all those who had a legitimate claim to be at the closed-door hearing.

Thirty-two people died after Schettino, in a stunt, took the Costa Concordia cruise ship off course and brought it close to the Tuscan island of Giglio on Jan 13. The ship then ran aground and capsized. Schettino himself became a lightning rod for international disdain for having left the ship before everyone was evacuated.

Schettino appeared at the hearing Monday, as well as passengers who survived the deadly shipwreck, the families of those who died in it and scores of lawyers trying to get more compensation for them.

A California man has pleaded guilty to dropping an anchor on a Tampa-bound cruise ship.

Federal prosecutors in Tampa said Friday that 45-year-old Rick Ehlert pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to damage a maritime facility. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

Authorities say the MS Ryndam was traveling from Costa Maya, Mexico, to Tampa on Nov. 27, 2010. A surveillance video shows Ehlert entering a restricted area and dropping the 18-ton stern anchor.

When confronted by authorities, Ehlert told them he was drunk at the time. He also said the cruise ship's anchor system was similar to the system on his own 50-foot boat. Investigators say the Holland America ship avoided damage because the anchor didn't hit the sea floor.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday slashed the $2.5 billion punitive damages award in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster to $500 million.

The court ruled that victims of the worst oil spill in U.S. history may collect punitive damages from Exxon Mobil Corp., but not as much as a federal appeals court determined.

Justice David Souter wrote for the court that punitive damages may not exceed what the company already paid to compensate victims for economic losses, about $500 million compensation.

Souter said a penalty should be "reasonably predictable" in its severity.

Exxon asked the high court to reject the punitive damages judgment, saying it already has spent $3.4 billion in response to the accident that fouled 1,200 miles of Alaska coastline.

A jury decided Exxon should pay $5 billion in punitive damages. A federal appeals court cut that verdict in half in 1994.

The Supreme Court divided on its decision, 5-3, with Justice Samuel Alito taking no part in the case because he owns Exxon stock.

Exxon has fought vigorously to reduce or erase the punitive damages verdict by a jury in Alaska four years ago for the accident that dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound. The environmental disaster led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine animals.

Nearly 33,000 Alaskans are in line to share in the award, about $15,000 a person. They would have collected $75,000 each under the $2.5 billion judgment.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens supported the $2.5 billion figure for punitive damages, saying Congress has chosen not to impose restrictions in such circumstances.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also dissented, saying the court was engaging in "lawmaking" by concluding that punitive damages may not exceed what the company already paid to compensate victims for economic losses.

"The new law made by the court should have been left to Congress," wrote Ginsburg. Justice Stephen Breyer made a similar point, opposing a rigid 1 to 1 ratio of punitive damages to victim compensation.

Writing for the majority, Souter said that traditionally, courts have accepted primary responsibility for reviewing punitive damages and "it is hard to see how the judiciary can wash its hands" of the problem by pointing to Congress for a solution.

A jury decided that the company should pay $5 billion in punitive damages. A federal appeals court cut that verdict in half.

The problem for the people, businesses and governments who waged the lengthy legal fight against Exxon is that the Supreme Court in recent years has become more receptive to limiting punitive damages awards. The Exxon Valdez case differs from the others in that it involves issues peculiar to laws governing accidents on the water.

Overall, Exxon has paid $3.4 billion in fines, penalties, cleanup costs, claims and other expenses resulting from the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The commercial fishermen, Native Alaskans, landowners, businesses and local governments involved in the lawsuit have each received about $15,000 so far "for having their lives and livelihood destroyed and haven't received a dime of emotional-distress damages," their Supreme Court lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, said when the court heard arguments in February.

Exxon Mobil Corp urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to overturn the $2.5 billion in punitive damages for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, arguing it should not be punished for the mistakes of the ship's captain. But the lawyer for about 33,000 commercial fishermen and others harmed by the nation's worst tanker spill replied that Exxon Mobil for three years had overlooked numerous reports that Captain Joseph Hazelwood had a drinking problem.

The 90 minutes of arguments before the high court occurred just several weeks after the huge Texas-based oil company reported the highest-ever quarterly profit for a U.S. company of $11.7 billion.

Exxon Mobil's lawyer, Walter Dellinger, told the high court the company already has paid $3.4 billion for the spill and cannot be held liable for additional punitive damages under federal maritime law.

"Exxon gained nothing by what went wrong in this case and paid dearly for it," said Dellinger, who argued that the company had no malicious intent or improper profit motive.

A key issue in the case is whether the company can be held liable for the mistakes of Hazelwood, who violated company rules when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound in March 1989, spilling about 11 million gallons of crude oil.

The spill spread oil on more than 1,200 miles of coastline, closed fisheries and killed thousands of marine mammals and hundreds of thousands of sea birds.

The justices closely questioned both sides and gave no firm indication of how they would rule -- although in past cases they generally have imposed limits on huge awards of punitive damages imposed on corporate defendants.

President Bush, ever pushing for a Cuba without Fidel Castro, wants allies around the world to offer money and political support so the island can be ready to transform itself. It is Bush's vision for Cuban regime change: providing help on the outside, prodding change on the inside. Seizing on Castro's fading health as a rare opening, Bush was to ask other nations Wednesday to help Cuba become a free society.

In remarks prepared for delivery at the State Department — his first standalone address on Cuba in four years — Bush looks to the day when Castro is gone. Bush describes a nation in which Cuban people choose a representative government and enjoy basic freedoms, with support from a broad international coalition.

For now, though, Castro is still the island's unchallenged leader, as he has been for almost 50 years. And he remains a nemesis to Bush, whom he accuses of being obsessed with Cuba and of threatening humanity with nuclear war. At the age of 81, Castro is ailing and rarely seen in public. But life has changed little on the island under the authority of his brother, 76-year-old Raul Castro, who has been his elder brother's hand-picked successor for decades.

Bush was expected to tout peaceful, pro-democracy movements in Cuba and call on other countries to get behind them. In a direct appeal to ordinary citizens in Cuba, he was to tell them they have the power to change their country, but the White House says that is not meant to be a call for armed rebellion.

Bush proposes at least three initiatives: the creation of an international "freedom fund" to help Cuba's potential rebuilding of its country one day; a U.S. licensing of private groups to provide Internet access to Cuban students, and an invitation to Cuban youth to join a scholarship program.

The latter two offerings help the Bush administration underscore the kind of real-life limitations that Cubans now face, from blocked Internet access to restricted information about their leaders to denial of legal protections. The creation of the international fund is meant to speed up societal transformation.

"We all know that Cuba is going to face very significant requirements to rebuild itself," said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the president. "There's a whole set of challenges that Cuba is going to face. The United States will clearly want to help the Cubans as they define what it is they need, but we think the international community should be thinking that way as well."

Washington's decades-old economic embargo on Cuba prohibits U.S. tourists from visiting the island and chokes off nearly all trade between both countries. Bush will ask Congress to maintain the embargo, which has come under scrutiny and calls for reassessment from some lawmakers.

Cuba staged municipal elections on Sunday, the first step in a process that will determine whether Fidel Castro is re-elected or replaced next year. The Communist Party is the only one allowed, and while candidates do not have to be members, critics claim they are the only ones who ever win.

Bush, increasingly, is speaking of a Castro-free Cuba. As he put it earlier this month: "In Havana, the long rule of a cruel dictator is nearing an end."

The chief engineers of two American-flagged car-carrier ships based in Baltimore have pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the deliberate discharge of oil-contaminated bilge waste through “magic pipes” that bypassed required pollution prevention equipment, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew J. McKeown for the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.

Stephen Karas, the former chief engineer of the M/V Tanabata (renamed the M/V Resolve) pleaded guilty today to conspiracy and making false statements before U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson. Deniz Sharpe, the former chief engineer of the M/V Fidelio (renamed the M/V Patriot), pleaded guilty on March 7, 2007 to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution form Ships (APPS). Both Karas and Sharpe were employed by Pacific Gulf Marine Inc. (PGM), a vessel operator based in Gretna, La.

PGM pleaded guilty to charges related to its role in deliberately discharging hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil-contaminated bilge waste from four of its giant car-carrier ships used to transport vehicles, including the Tanabata and Fidelio. The shipping company was sentenced on Jan. 24, 2007, to pay $1 million criminal fines and $500,000 in community service, and serve three years of probation under the terms of an environmental compliance plan which will be audited by a court-appointed monitor.

According to documents filed in court, including a grand jury indictment and a factual statement signed by Karas, the Tanabata had a removable bypass pipe that was used repeatedly to discharge oil-contaminated bilge waste overboard in violation of the APPS. Karas admitted to the use of a bypass pipe and to concealing the pipe during port calls in the United States to prevent its discovery by the Coast Guard. Karas also admitted to concealing the unlawful discharges in a false oil record book, a required log regularly inspected by the Coast Guard. The log claimed the discharges were being made through the oily water separator, a required pollution prevention device, when in reality it was being bypassed entirely.

During a March 29, 2003, Coast Guard inspectors in Baltimore lifted a deckplate and found a permanently installed bypass pipe on the Fidelio that was part of the ship’s original construction. The Coast Guard directed the removal of the bypass pipe which was filled with black oil, according to papers filed in court. Sharpe, who was promoted to chief engineer sometime after the inspection, continued making unlawful discharges through a new method that involved the use of a fire pump which were concealed with a false oil record book for the ship.

Engine room operations on board large ocean-going vessels generate large amounts of waste oil and oil-contaminated bilge waste. International and U.S. law prohibit the discharge of waste containing more than 15 parts per million oil and without treatment by an oil water separator and oil sensing equipment. The regime, established by the MARPOL Convention (Annex I)—a treaty signed by more than 135 countries representing approximately 97.5 % of the world’s commercial tonnage and implemented into U.S. law by the APPS—also requires that overboard discharges be recorded in an oil record book. Another chief engineer of the Tanabata remains under indictment and the investigation is continuing. An indictment represents allegations brought by a grand jury. Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

This investigation was conducted by the Chesapeake Regional Office of the Coast Guard Investigative Service and the EPA Criminal Investigation Division. Additional assistance was provided by U.S. Coast Guard Sector Baltimore, U.S. Coast Guard Activities Europe, U.S. Coast Guard Fifth District Legal Office, Coast Guard Office of International and Maritime Law, and Coast Guard Headquarters Office of Investigations and Analysis. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice Environmental Crimes Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland.

Three companies that own and operate an oceangoing chemical tanker named the M/T Clipper Trojan were indicted today in connection with an attempt by crew members to cover up the illegal dumping of oily waste in international waters, the Justice Department announced.

The 11-count indictment named Clipper Wonsild Tankers Holding A/S and Clipper Marine Services A/S, both of which are Danish companies that operate and manage the M/T Clipper Trojan, and Trojan Shipping Co. Ltd., a Bahamas company that is the registered owner of the M/T Clipper Trojan, as defendants. All three companies are part of The Clipper Group A/S, a global shipping consortium based in Denmark.

According to the indictment, crew members of the tanker dumped oil sludge directly overboard on two occasions in May and June of 2006, and regularly dumped oil-contaminated bilge water overboard between March and June of 2006. Furthermore, crew members of the tanker attempted to prevent the U.S. Coast Guard from learning of the illegal discharges during an inspection of the ship at Port Newark on June 15, 2006.

Engine room operations on board large oceangoing vessels such as the M/T Clipper Trojan generate large amounts of waste oil. International and U.S. law prohibit the discharge of waste oil without treatment by an oily water separator. It is also required that all overboard discharges be recorded in an oil record book, a required log which is regularly inspected by the Coast Guard.

According to the indictment, the ship’s chief engineer failed to record discharges in the ship’s oil record book and included false entries in the book that were intended to mislead the Coast Guard. The chief engineer presented the false oil record book to the Coast Guard during the Coast Guard’s inspection. According to the indictment, the chief engineer made several false statements to Coast Guard inspectors and encouraged other crew members to lie to the Coast Guard as well.

The indictment alleges that the crew members acted as agents for the three corporate defendants in attempting to cover up the illegal discharges of oily waste. It also alleges that the three companies failed to provide sufficient training to the crew and failed to diligently enforce company policies concerning the handling of oily waste. The indictment further alleges that the companies caused some crew members to execute affidavits falsely stating that the crew members had received briefings on the MARPOL Protocol, an international treaty regulating the handling and disposal of oil waste at sea, and U.S. laws concerning oil pollution.

On Feb. 2, 2007, Fernando Magnaye, 45, of Quezon City, Philippines, who was the chief engineer on the M/T Clipper Trojan, pleaded guilty to charges of presenting a false document to the Coast Guard and attempting to obstruct a Coast Guard inspection. During his plea hearing before U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper, in Trenton, Magnaye admitted that he knew about illegal discharges of oil sludge and contaminated bilge waste but nonetheless failed to record those discharges in the M/T Clipper Trojan's Oil Record Book. Magnaye also admitted that he presented the false oil record book to the Coast Guard and falsely claimed to Coast Guard inspectors that the book was accurate. Mangaye further admitted that he asked the ship's fourth engineer to fabricate a pipe that would ensure that the Coast Guard would take a false reading of the contents of the ship's bilge sludge oil tank, in which oily waste was stored.

The indictment charges each of the companies with one count of conspiracy, one count of violation of the MARPOL Protocol, one count of making and using materially false writings and documents, seven counts of obstruction of justice, and one count of concealment of a tangible object to obstruct an investigation.

If convicted, the companies face statutory maximum fines of $500,000 on each count or, alternatively, twice the amount of any gain to the corporations that inured as a result of the criminal conduct.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley A. Harsch of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey and H. Claire Whitney, Senior Counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice Environmental Crimes Section. The investigation was conducted by U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 42,800 pounds of cocaine worth more than $300 million aboard a Panamanian motor vessel off the coast of Panama, the largest maritime drug seizure in U.S. history.

"This record-breaking seizure was the result of good actionable intelligence and the closest collaboration amongst our interagency partners through Operation Panama Express," Adm. Thad W. Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard, said yesterday in announcing the enforcement effort.

"Beyond that, our hardworking crews overcame significant challenges in maintaining a 40-year-old deep-water cutter to prosecute this mission far from U.S. shores, ultimately preventing nearly 20 tons of cocaine from reaching streets all across America in a single stroke," Adm. Allen said.

The seizure, carried out Sunday, was part of an ongoing multiagency operation known as Panama Express. The Panamanian-flagged motor vessel, known as the Gatun, was stopped off the coast of Panama by the San Diego-based Coast Guard cutter Hamilton and the Alameda, Calif.-based Coast Guard cutter Sherman.

DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said a Coast Guard C-130 maritime patrol aircraft spotted the Gatun about 20 miles southwest of Isla de Coiba, Panama, on Saturday. The Coast Guard obtained flag-state consent to board the vessel through a maritime agreement between the United States and Panama.

Mr. Payne said a Coast Guard boarding team conducted a search and discovered the cocaine hidden in two containers aboard the ship. The 14 Panamanian and Mexican crew members of the Gatun were arrested and transferred to the United States and Panama for prosecution.

"This record-breaking seizure denied the Mexican drug lords $300 million in drug revenue," DEA Administrator Karen P. Tandy said. "This lost drug revenue, combined with last week's unrelated record-breaking $205 million cash seizure by the government of Mexico working in partnership with DEA, dealt Mexican traffickers a one-two punch: They're down more than half a billion dollars in blood money in just 48 hours."

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said U.S. "engagement and increasing cooperation with our hemispheric neighbors" was crucial in efforts to stem the northern flow of narcotics from the region.

"A half-a-billion dollars taken from the drug lords is not a bad week's work for our law-enforcement agencies and their partners in Panama and Mexico," she said. "These spectacular results are further evidence of why we must remain actively engaged in the hemisphere."

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called the seizure "a prime example of interagency teamwork among the DEA, the Coast Guard, and other Homeland Security and Department of Justice components." He credited the combined efforts of U.S. Coast Guard and federal authorities, working with their international partners, for the seizure.

Previously, Mr. Payne said, the largest cocaine seizures by the Coast Guard were 30,109 pounds from the stateless-vessel Lina Maria, on Sept. 17, 2004; 26,397 pounds from the Cambodian-flagged vessel Svesda Maru on May 1, 2001; and 26,369 pounds from the Belize-flagged vessel San Jose on Sept. 23, 2004.

U.S. authorities seized 468,000 pounds of cocaine in 2005 but report no shortage in domestic drug supplies. In a report this month, the State Department said the movement of drugs from South America to the United States by way of Mexico has not abated or shifted to new routes or methods.

The U.S. Coast Guard announced the record-breaking seizure of twenty tons of cocaine or 42,845 pounds in a ship off the Pacific coast, most likely headed to a port in Mexico.

Authorities, who described the bust as the largest recorded maritime seizure in history, estimate the wholesale value of the drugs to be estimated at more than $275 million.

The vessel, which was located about 15 miles off the Panamanian coast when it was intercepted by a joint U.S. Coast Guard, Panamanian and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency group, is believed to have been headed to an unnamed port in Mexico.

Since January 2000, the joint task forces have seized 630 tons of cocaine, and led to the conviction of more than 1,100 drug-trafficking suspects.

In a statement, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said, "This operation is a prime example of interagency teamwork among the DEA, the Coast Guard, and other Homeland Security and Department of Justice components."

Commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Thad Allen, echoed Chertoff's sentiments, saying, "This record-breaking seizure was the result of good actionable intelligence and the closest collaboration amongst our interagency partners through Operation Panama Express....ultimately preventing nearly 20 tons of cocaine from reaching streets all across America in a single stroke."