A Connecticut man has been charged with hacking into GeneSimmons.com, the website of the KISS rock band’s bassist. Authorities said Kevin George Poe has been linked to Anonymous, the activist Internet collective that has launched cyberattacks on Visa, MasterCard and the Church of Scientology.

California’s judicial disciplinary panel has charged a judge with willful misconduct for allegedly fixing tickets over a seven-year period for relatives and acquaintances, including his court clerk and his church pastor.

With the judges split into unusual voting blocs, the 9th Circuit on Friday issued an 8-3 ruling in an Establishment Clause case that is thought to be prime for Supreme Court review. A majority of judges, for differing reasons, rejected a suit by a Catholic group against the city of San Francisco over a 2003 resolution the city passed denouncing the church’s ban on gay adoptions

While expressing disdain for the virulent protests staged at military funerals by members of a Kansas church, some Supreme Court justices on Wednesday seemed reluctant to upset First Amendment precedents that protect even the most obnoxious speech from punishment. Protests by members of the church — who demonstrate at funerals and other events to promote their message that God is punishing America for its acceptance of homosexuality — have triggered lawsuits and legislation in 43 states to restrict funeral protests.

A Westchester County, N.Y., town violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act barring religious discrimination in land use, by putting one obstacle after another in the path of a Pentecostal congregation’s plans to build a new church. Southern District Judge Stephen C.