"In a blow to the Bush administration," reports The Washington Post, "the Senate Judiciary Committee's top Democrat and Republican expressed reluctance yesterday to granting blanket immunity to telecommunications carriers sued for assisting the government's warrantless surveillance program." According to the report, "Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and the ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), had said that before even considering such a proposal, they would need to see the legal documents underpinning the program, which began after Sept. 11, 2001, and were put under court oversight in January."

"Sectarian prayers, including those to Jesus Christ, could return to the front of the Indiana House chamber after a court ruling Tuesday, but opponents warned of a legal challenge if that happens," reports The Indianapolis Star. According to the report, "In its 2-1 opinion, the court ruled there were no expenditures directly tied to the prayers. Therefore, as taxpayers, the plaintiffs had no standing to sue."

"Several Supreme Court justices yesterday seemed to be looking for ways to save Congress's latest attempt to prosecute those who would promote child pornography, even though a lower court said the federal law violates free speech," reports The Washington Post. The report explains, "The justices struggled with whether the prohibitions Congress set up to try to stop the spread of child pornography, particularly on the Internet, were so broad that they could also apply to movie reviewers who wrote about depictions of teen sex in movies such as 'American Beauty' and 'Traffic,' or to documentarians recording abuse in Third World countries."

USA Today reports, "The Supreme Court blocked the execution of a Mississippi prisoner minutes before he was scheduled to die Tuesday night." According to the report, "The action marked the clearest indication yet that the nation is unlikely to see many, if any, executions until the court rules next year in a dispute over the lethal injection method."