The federal courts have already found that the prison system's delivery of health and mental health care is so negligent that it's a direct cause of inmate deaths.

A special three-judge panel reconvenes Tuesday and is prepared to decide whether crowding has become so bad that inmates cannot receive proper care. If they do, the panel will decide if lowering the inmate population is the only way to fix the problems.

That could result in an order to release tens of thousands of California inmates before their terms are finished, a move Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican lawmakers say would endanger public safety.

"The time has come: The extreme, pervasive and long-lasting overcrowding in California prisons must be addressed," attorney Michael Bien, representing inmates, told the judges during the opening of the trial.

Bien and other civil rights attorneys want the panel to order the prison population cut from 156,300 inmates to about 110,000. That still would be above the capacity of California's 33 state prisons, which were designed to hold fewer than 100,000 inmates.

Junk-bond king Michael Milken, media mogul Conrad Black and American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh have applied to the Justice Department seeking official forgiveness.

But with Bush's term ending Jan. 20, some lawyers are lobbying the White House directly to pardon their clients. That raises the possibility that the president could excuse scores of people, including some who have not been charged, to protect them from future accusations, such as former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or star baseball pitcher Roger Clemens.

Those who have worked with Bush predict that will not happen. The White House has declined to comment on upcoming pardons.

"I would expect the president's conservative approach to executive pardons to continue through the remainder of his term," said Helgi C. Walker, a former Bush associate White House counsel.

The state court in Hannover rejected a suit by Porsche — VW's biggest shareholder — which attempted to end a peculiarity under which Lower Saxony's stake at just over 20 percent gives it the ability to block decisions.

The state of Lower Saxony is where VW's Wolfsburg headquarters is located.

Stuttgart-based Porsche holds more than 40 percent and aims to build up its stake to 75 percent next year.

Porsche argued that the threshold for a blocking minority should be 25 percent, keeping in line with standard German securities laws.

However, a state court in Hannover upheld Lower Saxony's argument that a European court ruling which struck down a long-standing law protecting VW from hostile takeovers does not affect the blocking minority.

Porsche spokesman Albrecht Bamler said his company, which already has effective control over Volkswagen, would appeal.

Shares of Porsche Automobil Holding SE were up 2.8 percent euro54 ($70), while VW shares were down 2.5 percent at euro287 in Frankfurt trading.

The decision marks the first court ruling of its kind in South Korea.

The 76-year-old patient, identified only by her surname, Kim, has been in a permanent, vegetative coma since suffering brain damage in February.

Her family filed a lawsuit after doctors refused to end her life. Her children claim their mother had always opposed keeping people alive on machines when there is no chance of revival.

The court accepted the argument.

"Doctors have the obligation to comply with a patient's demand for the removal of a respirator in case it is meaningless to extend life, and if it serves more for the dignity and value as a human being (for the patient) to die spontaneously," Seoul Western District Court said in the ruling.

The court said there are enough indications to assume the patient would have wanted to be removed from the respirator if she knew of her condition. Doctors at major hospitals in Seoul agree that Kim has no chance of revival and could live as long as three or four months, the ruling said.

The court cautioned, however, that the ruling does not deal with "proactive euthanasia" and does not mean that family members have the right to independently ask to end medical treatment for loved ones.

Joseph Diekemper, 60, of Carlyle, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and mail fraud, making a false statement to the Department of Agriculture and perjuring himself during earlier bankruptcy proceedings.

His wife, Margaret Diekemper, 64, pleaded guilty last week to a federal charge of conspiring with her husband to commit bankruptcy fraud and agreed to help authorities.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Hudson would not comment after Wednesday's hearing. However, federal prosecutors have said Diekemper filed for bankruptcy in 2004, then hid farm equipment, allowed vehicle titles to be put under other people's names and fraudulently obtained agricultural subsidies on land that already had been turned over to a creditor.

As part of the scheme, authorities say, Diekemper stashed a tractor behind a false wall in an outbuilding on property rented by George and Linda Weedon.

The Weedons were found shot to death in April 2007, just days after George Weedon approached the FBI about the tractor and told an investigator he worried Joseph Diekemper would burn down his house if he ever found out, according to an FBI memo filed in the fraud case. When the couple's bodies were found, their rental home was ablaze.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the go-ahead for the lawsuit filed by three men who claim priests abused them as children. They allege the Vatican orchestrated a decades-long coverup of priests sexually abusing children throughout the U.S.

Louisville attorney William McMurry is seeking class-action status, saying there are thousands of victims nationally in the scandal that haunts the Roman Catholic Church. He is seeking unspecified damages from the Vatican.

"This is an enormously huge moment," McMurry said. "We're finally going to get to the root of the problem."

Jeffrey Lena, a Berkeley, Calif.-based attorney for the Vatican, said the appeals court's decision narrows the plaintiffs' case because the court upheld dismissing several issues.

"It's gratifying to see the hard work the judges put into the opinion," Lena said.

Lena declined to say if he would appeal the decision. McMurry said he expects the case to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Several lawsuits around the country have sought damages against the Vatican, but many have been bounced around in lower courts. Attorneys for both sides say the Louisville case is unique.

The International Organization of Securities Commissions has formed three task forces that will focus on short selling, unregulated financial products such as derivatives, and unregulated financial entities like hedge funds, the SEC said.

The Madrid, Spain-based organization's work is in response to recent calls by world leaders, meeting in Washington earlier this month, to better coordinate financial regulation.

The task forces will present reports at the next G-20 summit of world leaders in the spring of 2009, the SEC said. The G-20 includes wealthy nations as well as leading developing countries such as China, India and Brazil.