Karen Williams, chief judge of the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the first female judge on the court, has retired because of illness. Her departure leaves five vacancies on the 15-judge court that covers the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and North and South Carolina. It is the last stop for most appeals except for the relative handful accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Don’t look to the Supreme Court to set school rules, only to clarify them when officials have abdicated that responsibility, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said yesterday. Roberts took part in a question-and-answer session with Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It came on the second day of the 4th Circuit Court’s conference at The Greenbrier resort.

A federal appeals court in Richmond voted yesterday to uphold Virginia’s 2003 law that bans a type of late-term abortion, which means the case might be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court. The 6-5 ruling reversed two 2-1 rulings by a panel of the appeals court. The panel had struck down the Virginia law, which prohibits what opponents of the procedure call “partial-birth abortion.“