A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a high-profile foreign bribery prosecution as he questioned the government's litigation tactics and legal theories underpinning the case. "This appears to be the end of a long and sad day in the annals of white-collar enforcement," U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said in court, several hours after prosecutors asked him to dismiss with prejudice the largest-ever Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case against individuals.

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday it would revisit the divisive issue of affirmative action in higher education. But it will do so without Justice Elena Kagan, who recused herself, and without Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who retired in 2006 after rescuing affirmative action from conservative attack three years earlier.

Instead of heading straight to the U.S. Supreme Court, backers of the Prop 8 ban on gay marriage are seeking rehearing by an en banc panel of the 9th Circuit, arguing that the court's holding in Perry v. Brown conflicts with the Supreme Court's Baker v. Nelson, which let Minnesota deny same-sex couples the right to marry, and other cases.

The D.C. Circuit on Tuesday rejected a suit that demanded the government pay damages to the representatives of two Guantanamo Bay detainees who died in custody. The panel did not reach the merits of the case but said the trial judge did not have jurisdiction to hear the dispute in the first place.

Companies that collect employee information to comply with U.S. laws may find themselves running afoul of European Union regulations that guard employee privacy even in the case of information stored on company devices. And a new E.U. data protection proposal may make that information even harder to obtain.