Deputy FEMA Administrator Harvey E. Johnson Jr. said he intends to improve the help that the agency provides to Texans whose home were damaged or destroyed by the September hurricane. He said FEMA will deploy mobile homes to the hardest-hit areas more rapidly, review rules that might be causing premature denials of assistance and provide more resources to Texas.

He said Friday he has put more personnel into Texas housing assistance programs. He invited energy company officials into FEMA's Texas field offices to help provide electric power to mobile homes housing storm victims, and he has started a review of procedures that result in relatively few families being approved for assistance when they first apply.

Ike came ashore near Galveston on Sept. 13, causing at least $11 billion in damage to Texas.

Johnson met this past week with local officials in Galveston, the Beaumont-Port Arthur area and Houston.

The dispute between the broadcast networks and the Federal Communications Commission is the court's first major broadcast indecency case in 30 years.

At issue is the FCC's policy, adopted in 2004, that even a one-time use of profanity on live television is indecent because some words are so offensive that they always evoke sexual or excretory images. So-called fleeting expletives were not treated as indecent before then.

The words in question begin with the letters "F" and "S." The Associated Press typically does not use them.

Chief Justice John Roberts, the only justice with young children at home, suggested that the commission's policy is reasonable. The use of either word, Roberts said, "is associated with sexual or excretory activity. That's what gives it its force."

Justice John Paul Stevens, who appeared skeptical of the policy, doubted that the f-word always conveys a sexual image.

The justices declined, without comment, to consider the constitutionality of a voluntary program passed by the Legislature and that took effect in 2004.

The program provides campaign money for state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals candidates if they agree to fundraising restrictions leading up to the general election. The decision came on the eve of an election in which all but two of the 13 candidates for those seats Tuesday participated in the program.

The decision leaves a federal lower court ruling in effect that upheld the law, which has been a model for other states, including New Mexico.

"This gives supporters of judicial public financing and public financing in general confidence and assurance that the long line of decisions (supporting) public financing ... are still the law of the land," said Paul Ryan, an attorney with the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, whose group earlier filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the law.

Former Supreme Court candidate Rusty Duke and the North Carolina Right to Life Committee sued over the law in 2005, arguing it restricted free speech rights in cases where outside groups or nonparticipating candidates exceeded spending thresholds.

The qualifying candidates receive matching "rescue funds" to counter such injections of money.

Clemens Fred Tinnemeyer, 51, and a woman described as his companion, Terri Leavy, 42, have been held as material witnesses in California since their separate arrests in the kidnapping investigation. Cole Puffinburger was abducted Oct. 15 and found unharmed late on Oct. 18 on a Las Vegas street.

Tinnemeyer and Leavy were to appear before a federal magistrate on charges of interstate and foreign travel or transportation in aid of racketeering enterprises, said Natalie Collins, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Gregory Brower.

Las Vegas police have characterized the boy's abduction as a message from "Mexican nationals" and methamphetamine traffickers aimed at Tinnemeyer, who police alleged made off with millions of dollars in drug money. Police said two gunmen posing as police officers tied up the boy's mother and her boyfriend and ransacked their home before taking the boy.

Tinnemeyer was arrested Oct. 17 in Riverside, Calif. Leavy was arrested Oct. 19 in Fontana, Calif.

Several justices indicated that if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had clear information about the risks of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals' anti-nausea drug Phenergan, and approved its warning label anyway, then Wyeth probably would prevail in its court fight against Diana Levine of Vermont.

But there was considerable skepticism among the justices — and disagreement between the opposing lawyers — that the FDA had a clear picture of the disastrous consequences of improperly giving Phenergan by an intravenous method of injection known as IV push, the fastest way to bring relief to nauseated patients.

"How could the FDA have concluded that IV push was safe and effective," Justice Samuel Alito asked, given that Phenergan is not a lifesaving drug and gangrene can result from improper administration?

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg chimed in, "No matter what benefit there was, how could the benefit outweigh that substantial risk?"

Levine, a guitar- and piano-playing musician from Vermont, was in the courtroom for Monday's arguments in Wyeth's appeal of a $6.7 million verdict she won from a state jury.

The jury agreed with Levine's claim that Wyeth failed to provide a strong and clear warning about the risks of IV push, which include that gangrene is likely if the injection accidentally hits an artery. That is precisely what happened to Levine.

The company appealed and, backed by the Bush administration, argued that once a drug's warning label gets FDA approval, consumers cannot pursue state law claims that they were harmed.

Cheng Chui Ping, better known by her nickname, Sister Ping, was sentenced to 35 years in prison, for heading a large alien smuggling operation. The justices did not comment Monday in denying her appeal of her money laundering conviction.

The conspiracy came to light only after the Golden Venture ran aground in New York City in 1993 in an attempt to unload the 295 passengers crammed inside. The ship's captain deliberately ran aground when no one showed up to meet the passengers. Ten immigrants died trying to swim to shore, while dozens suffered hypothermia and other injuries.

Prosecutors said Sister Ping was a key player in the conspiracy that exploited and abused immigrants, in many cases charging them tens of thousands of dollars for the trips, to be collected from their wages once they arrived in the United States.

Levine, once a professional guitar player and pianist, now plays with one hand and sings. "It's about getting my glow back," she said recently as she was awaiting a hearing Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court, where Wyeth is appealing a $6.7 million verdict in her favor.

The outcome of Levine's case could have major ramifications for drug makers and consumers. The court is expected to decide whether people can sue under state law — or are pre-empted from doing so — for harm caused by a drug approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.