Seven states sued the Obama administration Thursday over its requirement that employers cover contraception in workers' health plans.

The lawsuit, led by Nebraska's attorney general, contends that the proposed rule violates Roman Catholic institutions' rights under the First Amendment to express their beliefs and practice their religion.

The move is the first legal action by state attorneys general in the heated debate over the requirement. It follows lawsuits brought by three religiously affiliated universities and a Catholic television network, as well as actions in some state legislatures to try to avoid the federal requirement.

"The federal government's regulation is an unprecedented invasion of the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, and free association," the legal complaint says.

All seven attorneys general behind the lawsuit - from Nebraska, South Carolina, Michigan, Texas, Florida, Ohio and Oklahoma - are Republicans.

A White House spokesman declined to comment because the lawsuit is pending.

Alaska State Representative Sharon Cissna has introduced a bill to criminalize TSA pat-downs and naked-body scans, adding The Last Frontier to a growing list of states battling the intrusive screening procedures of the Transportation Security Administration.

Cissna has suffered her own negative experience with the federal agency. Last year at the Seattle-area Sea-Tac International Airport, after a naked-body scan revealed her breast-cancer surgery scars, the TSA insisted on putting her through an intrusive pat-down. She refused.

"Facing the agent, I began to remember what my husband and I'd decided after the previous intensive physical search," she related. "That I never had to submit to that horror again! It would be difficult, we agreed, but I had the choice to say no; this twisted policy did not have to be the price of flying to Juneau."

The TSA responded by barring her from her flight.

Cissna's bill, HB 262, states:

A person commits the offense of interference with access to public buildings or transportation facilities if the person, as a condition for access to a public building or transportation facility, requires another person to consent or otherwise submit to

(1) physical contact by any person touching directly or through clothing the genitals, buttocks, or female breast of the person seeking access; or

(2) any electronic process that produces an electronic image of the genitals, anus, or female breast or otherwise creates an electronic image of the person seeking access that exposes or reveals a physical characteristic that is normally hidden by clothing and is not normally visible to the public.

Twitter co-founder Christopher Isaac "Biz" Stone has a message for those followers who stare at the stream of tweets on the social networking site for hours on end - don't do it.

"To me, that sounds unhealthy," Stone told a Montreal business luncheon, recounting how some people have said they're so engaged, they'll log onto Twitter for 12 hours straight.

"I like the kind of engagement where you go to the website and you leave because you've found what you are looking for or you found something very interesting and you learned something.

"I think that's a much healthier engagement. Obviously, we want you to come frequently."

Stone, who stood out in a casual black shirt and jeans in the sea of corporate suits and ties, waxed about his philosophy of business in a speech that vastly exceeded the 140-character limit of a Twitter posting.

He said even he's amazed at the reach of the website, which he says he and his partner Evan Williams figured would never be useful for more than fun.

A Toronto police officer has been charged with second-degree murder - the first time a member of the force has faced a murder charge for actions taken while on duty.

Crown prosecutors announced the charge against Const. David Cavanagh in a Toronto courtroom Thursday, after an investigation involving Ontario's police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit.

Cavanagh had originally been charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of 26-year-old Eric Osawe in late 2010.

Osawe was shot in the early hours of Sept. 29, 2010, during a police search at a third-floor Etobicoke apartment near Dundas Street West and Kipling Avenue that led to the arrest of Osawe's younger brother, Ebony, on firearms-related offences.

The SIU alleges Cavanagh fatally shot Eric Osawe during that search, which was carried out by at least 15 officers from the Emergency Task Force and the guns and gangs squad. Osawe was taken to St. Michael's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A young woman whose life was upended after graphic photos depicting her alleged rape at a British Columbia rave party were spread over the Internet two years ago says she's devastated and repulsed that a sex assault charge in the case has been stayed.

The teen took the rare step of sitting before cameras on Wednesday to publicly plead for spectators to come forward who have maintained a "code of silence" and held back from telling police what they know and witnessed.

"No one in their right state of mind, including myself, would let something like that happen to them willingly," the teen told reporters, as her father sat next to her in a small community centre in Pitt Meadows, B.C., a bedroom community east of Vancouver.

"I've often wondered why women never reported when they were sexually assaulted, and now I know. It's a 'he-said, she-said' thing."

The teen was 16 years old when she went to the party in the rural area east of Vancouver on Sept. 11, 2010, where police said she was drugged and repeatedly raped while bystanders clicked photographs.

Character actor Daniel von Bargen, who has appeared in dozens of movies and television shows including Seinfeld and Malcolm in the Middle, was hospitalized after shooting himself in the head at his Cincinnati-area condominium, authorities said Wednesday.

Von Bargen, 61, told a Cincinnati-area emergency dispatcher on Monday that he had shot himself in the temple with a .38-caliber pistol at his home and could not open his left eye.

"I shot myself in the head and I need help," von Bargen told the emergency dispatcher in a call from his home in Montgomery, Ohio, northeast of Cincinnati.

The Cincinnati-born actor told the dispatcher he was diabetic and had a scheduled hospital appointment later on Monday where at least a few toes could be amputated. He said he was lying on a bed with his head propped on a pillow.

"I was supposed to go to the hospital today and I didn't want to," von Bargen said.

Once the domain of big and tall shops and companies hawking weight-loss products and services, the plus-size business is expanding about as rapidly as Americans' waist lines. Companies selling all manner of lifestyle and home products aimed at making life easier for overweight consumers are selling everything from super sturdy folding chairs to oversized toilets, sunglasses and caskets. Here are seven companies that are cashing in on America's obesity epidemic.

Big John

One California company is making a business out of helping those who are overweight do their business. Big John Products offers a specialty line of toilet seats and supports for plus-size customers. At 19 inches wide, the Big John Toilet Seat is 5 inches larger than a standard seat and can hold more than 500 extra pounds. Big John also offers specially designed supports for wall-mounted toilets that increase the weight capacity from the usual 350 pounds to more than 1,000 pounds.

"Our products are ideal for the oversize market," Big John Products President Scott Kramer told BusinessNewsDaily.

Over the last four years, Big John Products has increased distribution all over the world, reaching customers in countries including Europe, Australia and Canada, Kramer said.

"We have grown it by five times its size, which shows there is a significant demand for our products," Kramer said.

Kramer equates the demand to the general population becoming more accepting of large people.

"Overweight is no longer niche," he said. "It is quite mainstream."

The Big John toilet seats and supports are sold in a variety of retailers nationwide and on the Big John website. The toilet seats are sold for between $100 and $168; the toilet supports cost $200 each.

Authorities in the Flint area say they believe that a man sexually assaulted his infant daughter while his wife took pictures.

The 25-year-old Daniel Hall and 26-year-old Alisha Hall of Mount Morris were arraigned Tuesday in Genesee District Court on first-degree criminal sexual assault and child pornography charges.

Mount Morris police Chief Keith Becker said an investigation that began in Saginaw County last year led to police finding 745 child pornography images on computers at the couple's home.

Becker said 13 images showed Daniel Hall engaging in sexual acts with the infant, who was 6-months-old when the photos were taken several months ago.

Half a million Afghans displaced by war have been left homeless and struggling to survive because of government and international neglect, Amnesty International said Thursday.

Around 400 people join makeshift shelters around the country every day, Amnesty said in a report entitled "Fleeing war, finding misery", based on three years of research.

The Afghan government estimates that more than 40 people froze to death this winter, the harshest in 15 years, with at least 28 children dying in camps around Kabul.

The government is "not only looking the other way but even preventing help from reaching them" in an attempt to avoid making the settlements permanent, Amnesty researcher Horia Mosadiq said.

"Local officials restrict aid efforts because they want to pretend that these people are going to go away. This is a largely hidden but horrific humanitarian and human rights crisis," she said.

Early Monday morning neighbors found 86-year-old John Morgan, a retired Flint autoworker, dead in his truck parked outside in his driveway on Parkway Avenue. Morgan died a few days after the local utility company shut off his electricity for a bill of $291.

Flint is a city where the autoworkers union made history 75 years ago in its struggle against the largest company in the world at that time, General Motors. Today, it is a ghost town, with many areas blighted, including the street Morgan lived on, because of the massive job cuts carried out by the automaker in the 1980s and 1990s.

Officials say they are awaiting autopsy reports to determine the exact cause of death, as Morgan had various health problems. However, there was immediate widespread anger that another elderly worker has died because he was trying to stay warm.