Broadcasters anticipating a major constitutional ruling on the government's authority to regulate what can be shown and said on the airwaves instead won only the smallest of Supreme Court victories Thursday.

The justices unanimously threw out fines and other penalties against Fox and ABC television stations that violated the Federal Communications Commission policy regulating curse words and nudity on television airwaves.

Forgoing a broader constitutional ruling, however, the court concluded only that broadcasters could not have known in advance that obscenities uttered during awards show programs on Fox stations and a brief display of nudity on an episode of ABC's "NYPD Blue" could give rise to penalties. ABC and 45 affiliates had been hit with proposed fines totaling nearly $1.24 million.

A jury should decide whether Nicollette Sheridan's character was unfairly written out of the hit show "Desperate Housewives," a judge ruled Tuesday.

With the actress looking on, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White tossed a couple of Sheridan's claims but said there was enough of a dispute about what led to her ouster for the case to go to trial next month.

Sheridan sued ABC and "Housewives" creator and executive producer Marc Cherry in April 2010, claiming he struck her during a fight in September 2008 and subjected her to sexual and other harassment.

Adam Levin, an attorney for the network and Cherry, argued Tuesday that the decision to kill off Sheridan's character, Edie Britt, was made months before her argument with the show executive. He said the decision was made by Cherry and a small group in May 2008 and kept from others on the show to avoid ruining the surprise.

Sheridan's attorney, Mark Baute, disagreed and said the network's justification that it was a cost-cutting move didn't make sense since Sheridan's character was killed off in a car accident in the middle of the season and she was still owed hundreds of thousands of dollars on her contract.

Michael Jackson's father was "grievously wronged" by a probate court that decided last year not to let him try to replace the administrators of his son's estate, an attorney argued Wednesday.

The arguments by attorney Brian Oxman, who represents Joe Jackson, were heard by a three-judge panel of the California Second District Court of Appeal after a probate judge ruled last November that Joe Jackson did not have standing to intervene in the matter.

The appeals panel did not issue a ruling but did question the legal steps Joe Jackson had taken after being left out of his son's will and whether the moves warranted revisiting the challenge to the administrators.

Associate Justice Laurie D. Zelon asked why Joe Jackson had withdrawn a petition to receive a monthly stipend from the estate before the probate court had a chance to rule on the request.

Oxman said the petition had seemed duplicative after Joe Jackson filed a wrongful death lawsuit in June against a doctor who has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of the pop star.

The author of a children's cookbook cannot copyright ideas for slipping vegetables into children's food, a federal appeals court said in upholding a ruling in favor of the wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld in a copyright infringement case.

Jessica Seinfeld wrote a cookbook, "Deceptively Delicious," offering tips that were similar to those of author Missy Chase Lapine, author of "The Sneaky Chef." Lapine sued, claiming that Seinfeld had stolen the ideas.

In a ruling announced Wednesday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's judgment there was no copyright infringement.

"Stockpiling vegetable purees for covert use in children's food is an idea that cannot be copyrighted," the court said in its decision.

A California appeals court has denied Roman Polanski's bid to have a special counsel review his decades-old sex case.

Records show the Second District Court of Appeal denied Polanski's petition on Thursday without comment.

The court's decision not to revisit Polanski's case came hours after it denied a request by the Oscar-winning director's victim to have the case dismissed.

Swiss authorities have said they were awaiting the decision by the court on Polanski's appeal before deciding whether to extradite the "Rosemary's Baby" director. He is under house arrest in that country.

Polanski was accused in 1977 of having sex with Samantha Geimer, then 13. He was indicted on six felony counts, but later pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse.

The surviving members of Pink Floyd have won their court case against record label EMI. As reported in Spinner, the prog supergroup where forced to take EMI to court over a dispute relating to download royalties and whether the label had the right or not to sell Pink Floyd's catalogue online as individual tracks and not complete albums.

In a landmark ruling, the court found in favour of Pink Floyd and ordered EMI to pay £40,000 ($60,000) in costs. The judge has yet to rule how much the beleaguered label is to pay in fines. In a further ruling, EMI has also been banned from selling Pink Floyd's music online.

The case came to court over a dispute about a clause in Pink Floyd's 1999 contract. Signed five years before the advent of legal downloads, EMI argued that clause allowed them to sell the band's music in any way that it saw fit. Pink Floyd's argument rested on the assertion that the clause -- "there are no rights to sell any or all of the records as single records other than with permission" -- included digital as well as physical formats.

Pink Floyd has begun legal action against music label EMI Group Ltd. over the way royalty payments are calculated in the digital era.

The group's lawyer, Robert Howe, told the High Court that the band was disputing the way royalties for online sales are worked out.

He said the group also wants a ruling on whether EMI can sell tracks "unbundled" from their original albums.

Howe said the band's contract prohibits selling tracks "otherwise than in the original configuration of the Pink Floyd albums." EMI claims the rule applies only to physical albums, not the Internet.

Pink Floyd signed with EMI in 1967 and became one of its most lucrative acts.

Tuesday's hearing was the start of what is expected to be a lengthy legal battle.