A federal appeals court has upheld the conclusion of a judge and jury that officials of Colorado City unconstitutionally used their power to discriminate against those who were not members of a certain religious sect.

Nearly 200 children from a polygamous sect had to work long hours in the cold, sometimes with little food, as they picked pecans for a Utah contracting company with ties to the group, a federal judge found in a decision that marks the latest blow to the group.

Two polygamous towns in Arizona and Utah violated the constitutional rights of nonbelievers by denying them basic services such as police protection, building permits and water hookups, a jury said Monday.

Mohave County's sheriff says he'll cast a critical eye on a polygamous community on the Arizona-Utah line.

The Attorney General’s Office said it will continue funding patrols by Mohave County deputies of the polygamous enclave of Colorado City, despite Gov. Jan Brewer’s decision to line-item veto a $500,000 appropriation for those patrols.

The issue of exactly when the U.S. Department of Justice learned of an alleged pattern of housing discrimination against non-members of Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect is the focal point of the latest development in a civil rights lawsuit aimed at polygamous towns on the Arizona-Utah border.

The House passed a new version on March 6 of a bill stimulated by corruption in Colorado City.

A bill spawned by police corruption in a polygamist town received unanimous approval Tuesday in the House Government Committee.

And while the bill passed easily and has support of police unions, sparks flew when a Utah civil rights attorney who spoke against the measure suggested the U.S. Department of Justice and Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board could address corrupt police departments.

Law enforcement in a town dominated by one of the nation's largest polygamous sects has been preventing women from leaving, leading to a criminal probe of the church run by its jailed leader Warren Jeffs, Arizona's attorney general said Tuesday.

Flora Jessop, an escaped former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Colorado City, promised today that change is coming to the small community that straddles the Arizona-Utah border.