The justices offer no comment on their action Monday, rejecting appeals in three separate cases, in favor of Dow Chemical, Monsanto and other companies that made Agent Orange and other herbicides used by the military in Vietnam.

Agent Orange has been linked to cancer, diabetes and birth defects among Vietnamese soldiers and civilians and American veterans.

The American plaintiffs blame their cancer on exposure to Agent Orange during the military service in Vietnam. The Vietnamese said the U.S.' sustained program to prevent the enemy from using vegetation for cover and sustenance caused miscarriages, birth defects, breast cancer, ovarian tumors, lung cancer, Hodgkin's disease and prostate tumors.

All three cases had been dismissed by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

The appeals court said that lawsuit brought by the Vietnamese plaintiffs could not go forward because Agent Orange was used to protect U.S. troops against ambush and not as a weapon of war against human populations.

The other two suits were filed by U.S. veterans who got sick too late to claim a piece of the $180 million settlement with makers of the chemical in 1984. In 2006, the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 on whether those lawsuits could proceed.

Spansion Inc., the U.S. maker of memory chips for mobile phones, filed for bankruptcy protection to restructure its debt after failing to make an interest payment on $266 million of bonds.


The company listed debt of $2.4 billion and assets of $3.8 billion as of the end of the third quarter of 2008 in Chapter 11 documents filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware.

Spansion announced plans to cut 35 percent of its workforce on Feb. 23, after missing a second payment deadline on the notes. The Sunnyvale, California-based company hasn’t made a profit since it was spun off by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in 2005, and has been hurt by slackening demand for semiconductors.

Spansion continues to explore strategic opportunities while attempting to restructure debt and focusing on operations with profit-generating potential, the company said yesterday.

“Chapter 11 provides the most effective means for Spansion to preserve its business,” Chief Executive Officer John Kispert said in a statement. Four subsidiaries also sought protection.

The shares slumped 60 percent to 2 cents in Nasdaq Stock Market trading at 9:56 a.m. New York time. They have fallen 99 percent since reaching a 52-week high of $3.70 in May.

The 65 largest unsecured consolidated creditors are owed $951.1 million, court papers show.

In an order Monday, the justices are ending Marcus Borden's fight against the East Brunswick, N.J., school district's policy that forbids him and other staff members from joining in student-led prayer. The federal appeals court in Philadelphia sided with the district.

The high court declined to weigh in on whether Borden's desire to bow his head silently and "take a knee" with his football players violates the Constitution's prohibition on government endorsement of religion. Borden says such gestures are secular.

The school district says Borden, the East Brunswick coach since 1983, had a long history of leading prayers before he was ordered to stop. The district says the issue is whether its policy is constitutional, not Borden's actions.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia agreed that the school district policy is constitutional, but the judges differed on what exactly the coach should do when his team prays.

The case is Borden v. School District of the Township of East Brunswick, 08-482.

Either way, he says, the Constitution gives him the right to test the genetic evidence to find out.

The Supreme Court was to hear arguments Monday on Osborne's case and announcing whether it has accepted any new appeals.

More than 230 people have been exonerated based on DNA tests performed years after their convictions, according to the Innocence Project, a legal group that has sought genetic testing on behalf of hundreds of prison inmates and led the charge to free those who were wrongly convicted.

In many cases, eyewitnesses picked out the wrong man, often with the victim of one race incorrectly identifying someone of a different color. Among the exonerated were people who confessed to crimes, even though they were innocent.

The woman in Alaska was raped, beaten with an ax handle, shot in the head and left for dead in a snow bank near the Anchorage International Airport. The condom that was found nearby was used in the assault, the woman said.

The settlement came in a class-action lawsuit filed by the freelancers against publishers and database companies. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York had thrown the agreement out, but the high court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal of that decision.

The proposed settlement covers both freelancers who registered the copyright to their works and those who didn't. The appeals court said courts generally do not have authority over infringement claims on works that have not been copyrighted.

The lawsuit followed a Supreme Court ruling in 2001 that freelance writers have online rights to their work. The case largely applied to articles, photographs and illustrations that were produced 15 or more years ago, before freelance contracts provided for the material's electronic use.

The case is Reed Elsevier v. Pogebrin, 08-103.

Al-Marri has been held in a Navy brig outside Charleston, S.C. for more than 5 years since President George W. Bush declared him an enemy combatant.

He will now be transferred to Illinois to face trial in a civilian court on charges of providing material support to terrorism.

Before the indictment, the Al-Marri case was headed to the Supreme Court.

The court is considering whether the president has the authority to order the arrest of terror suspects in the United States and hold them indefinitely without bringing charges.

American-born Christopher Paul was to be sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost after pleading guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in terrorist attacks.

Paul, 44, was accused of joining al-Qaida in the early 1990s and helping teach fellow Muslim extremists how to bomb U.S. and European targets. Prosecutors agreed to drop charges of providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to provide support to terrorists.

The Justice Department accused Paul and two other men of discussing terrorist attacks during an August 2002 meeting at the Caribou Cafe coffee shop in Upper Arlington.

The other two also pleaded guilty: Nuradin Abdi in 2007 in connection with an alleged plot to blow up an Ohio shopping mall, and Iyman Faris in 2003 in connection with an alleged plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge.