Claims

SAN FRANCISCO -- Dozens of law graduates across the nation have joined class-action lawsuits alleging that law schools lured them in with misleading reports of their graduates' success. Instead of working in the law, some of the graduates were toiling at hourly jobs in department stores and restaurants and struggling to pay back more than $100,000 in loans used to finance their education. Others were in temporary or part-time legal positions. Michael D. Lieberman decided to enroll at Southwestern Law School after reading that 97% of its graduates were employed within nine months.

The airline industry thinks it's just plain unfair that they have to disclose the total cost of a ticket to passengers. The U.S. Supreme Court begs to differ. The justices have left intact Transportation Department rules requiring airlines to prominently feature the total cost of air travel in ads and online, rather than lower -- and misleading -- pretax prices. The airlines had shamelessly argued that the rules violate their free-speech rights by preventing them from illustrating how fees and taxes drive up passenger costs.

Andy Murray erased a championship point Sunday and rallied past David Ferrer, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (1), in a grueling, dramatic final in the Sony Open at Key Biscayne, Fla. One point from defeat in the last set, Murray skipped a forehand off the baseline to stay in the match. He then dominated the tiebreaker, and Ferrer appeared to cramp and collapsed to the court after one long exchange. The match was filled with grinding baseline rallies, including at least a dozen of more than 20 strokes and one lasting 34. Murray and Ferrer dueled for 2 hours 45 minutes, and as a result, the 11:30 a.m. EDT start on Easter turned out not to be early enough for CBS. The network cut away from the final when it went to the tiebreaker, switching to the tipoff of the NCAA tournament game between Michigan and Florida.

It is shameful that veterans of the United States military have to wait months, and sometimes more than a year, to begin receiving the benefits they are owed after their years of service. Yet that is the case. Almost 900,000 veterans across the country currently have claims pending for disability, pension or education benefits; nearly 600,000 of those claims are considered backlogged by the Department of Veterans Affairs - meaning they have already taken more than 125 days to process.

What Congress giveth, Congress taketh away. And so it was that on Jan. 1 most wage earners found themselves a little light in the paycheck. The reason, of course, is that lawmakers late last year allowed the 2-percentage-point cut in the employee portion of the FICA tax to expire. That benefit was enacted in 2010 to put more cash in taxpayers' wallets during the tough economic downturn. But the greater tax burden doesn't mean would-be home buyers need to put off taking advantage of some of the lowest mortgage rates in eons.

ENCINITAS - A Vista man has been arrested in the shooting death of an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker best known for his work involving the plight of orphans in Romania. Michael Vilkin, 61, was booked Thursday into county jail on a charge of murder in the death of John Upton, 56. Though the San Diego County Sheriff's Department has not revealed a motive, the shooting may have resulted from a property dispute. Upton's body was found Thursday morning outside his home in the Olivenhain section of this upscale community.

Longtime Westside leader Barbara Broide said she quickly grew suspicious of a telephone call she received a few days ago. After giving his first name and that of an independent group supporting Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich's reelection, the caller dropped a political bombshell: Broide said he told her that former lawmaker Mike Feuer, Trutanich's opponent in the May 21 runoff, had promised to hire former City Councilman Jack Weiss - a hot-button figure to some Westside voters - as his chief of staff if Feuer won. That seemed preposterous to Broide and some others who heard similar rumors from the independent campaign group or in emails or phone calls from individuals backing Trutanich.

For five decades, Doheny Glatt Kosher meat market has been one of California's preeminent suppliers of food that meets the requirements of Jewish law, offering staples such as brisket and chicken as well as bison, prime steak and grass-fed beef. But on Friday, the esteemed butcher was at the center of an angry debate that had spread across L.A.'s Jewish community. The owner of Doheny faces accusations of selling meat that was not properly certified under kosher rules. Longtime customers doing their shopping before Shabbat were forced to decide how much they trusted their butcher.

WASHINGTON -- First-time jobless claims rose last week for the second straight week, but few analysts were worried that it signaled a shift in the recently improved labor market. The Labor Department said Thursday that 357,000 people filed initial claims for unemployment benefits in the week ended last Saturday. That was up from a revised 341,000 in the prior week and 334,000 in the one before that. Analysts were expecting the number of jobless claims to tick up after falling in recent weeks, but not by so much.

BEIRUT -- Syrian rebels claimed Thursday they downed an Iranian plane that was landing at Damascus Airport and suspected of carrying weapons and ammunition for the Syrian government. The statement came as about a dozen students at Damascus University's architecture college were killed in separate mortar attacks. The Iranian plane was hit Wednesday by the rebels' anti-aircraft weaponry, crashed at the airport and exploded, causing a fire at the main terminal, opposition activists said.