Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines are close to a deal that would create the world's largest carrier and could jump-start what is expected to be the biggest airline consolidation wave in decades.

The long-awaited pact between Delta, the nation's third-largest airline, and No. 5 Northwest could come as early as today, following an agreement by the airlines' pilots unions for a common contract.

The marriage - pending regulatory approval - would create a new and expanded Delta with a fleet of 1,115 planes and 85,000 employees. It would fly more than 130 million passengers annually to more than 1,100 cities. The combination would bring together two airlines that each emerged from bankruptcy only a year ago.

While the deal could mean higher fares for some passengers in some markets, widespread or prolonged increases are less likely, because the two airlines have fewer routes that overlap, analysts said. Also, the combined airline could face increased competition from low-cost carriers looking to move into markets left behind by the combined carrier.

"The impact on fares will be neutral," said Terry Trippler, an aviation consultant who runs TripplerTravel.com, a travel advice Web site. "I can't find too many places where these two airlines combining would create a monopoly."

A deal could still be delayed or even scuttled, particularly if pilots don't come to an agreement on meshing their seniority lists and other issues. Delta and Northwest don't want to repeat the expensive labor issues that have stymied the merger of US Airways and America West.

If a deal is struck, the new airline would retain the Delta name and base its headquarters in Atlanta, where Delta has its largest airport hub. In hope of winning political support in Minneapolis, Northwest's hometown, the combined airline is likely to keep major operations there, including maintaining Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport as a second hub.

The deal is expected to encounter significant scrutiny from regulators.

Analysts believe the next combination could involve United Airlines, the nation's fourth-largest airline, and No. 6 Continental Airlines.

"The orchestra is playing and the dance is beginning, so you better pick a partner or you'll lose out," Trippler said.

The prospective Delta-Northwest deal marks the latest attempt at a merger in an industry that has seen a number of failed deals in recent years, including last year's hostile bid for Delta by US Airways and an attempt by United and Continental to tie the knot in 2001.

One investor group estimated that the Delta-Northwest merger could result in cost savings of $1.5 billion a year. The airlines together posted more than $31 billion in revenue last year.

Luxembourg parliament adopted a law late on Tuesday to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, adding the Grand Duchy to a small group of countries that allow the terminally ill to end their lives.

The law, expected to come into force towards the summer, was passed by 30 votes to 26. Luxembourg's media said it was a symbolic defeat for Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker whose Christian Social Party opposed it.

"The Christian Social Party and the Catholic church were against the euthanasia law, calling it murder but we said no, it's just another way to go," said Jean Huss, a member of parliament of the Green Party and co-sponsor of the bill.

Huss said he expected that the legislative process needed for the law to come into force would take a few more months and would most likely be implemented towards the summer.

The Netherlands became the first country to permit assisted deaths for the terminally ill in April 2002.

Opponents there had drawn parallels with Nazi Germany, where authorities killed thousands of disabled children and mentally ill adults.

Huss said fears that old people would be pressured to commit suicide were groundless, given the checks and balances built into the law.

Euthanasia would be allowed for the terminally ill and those with incurable diseases or conditions, only when they asked to die repeatedly and with the consent of two doctors and a panel of experts.

Wilyum Henderson, 50, entered the plea Tuesday in federal court in Beaumont.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Henderson filed a fake claim with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for disaster housing and individual assistance for losses from the hurricane that hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. He received $2,000 in assistance.

Henderson could be sentenced to up to five years in prison and fined up to $250,000. A sentencing date hasn't been set.

The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday unanimously rejected provisions of a Maine law that restricts the shipment of tobacco products in the state.

"Despite the importance of the public health objective, we cannot agree with Maine that the federal law creates an exemption," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the court's majority opinion. "The act says nothing about a public health exception."

The ruling determines that federal trucking laws bar state regulation of tobacco shipments, despite Maine's concern that tobacco products might be shipped to minors.

The state law, passed by Maine in 2003, required shippers such as United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) to follow special handling procedures when delivering cigarettes or other tobacco products with the aim of keeping tobacco from being shipped illegally to minors. The industry challenged the provisions, arguing they were onerous, increased costs and ran afoul of the federal limit on state shipping regulations.

Major shipping companies, including UPS and FedEx Corp. (FDX), already have voluntarily agreed not to ship cigarettes in a settlement with New York over tobacco restrictions enacted in that state.

In previous legal action, the Maine law was struck down by a federal trial court. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston affirmed lower-court rulings that held federal shipping laws pre-empted the Maine law. The Supreme Court's opinion affirms the appeals court holding.

The order in the U.S. came after a Swiss bank, the Julius Baer Group, filed a complaint earlier this month against the site and San Mateo, Calif.-based Dynadot LLC, Wikileaks' domain name registry, for posting several hundred of the bank's documents.

Some of those documents allegedly reveal that the Julius Baer Group was involved in offshore money laundering and tax evasion in the Cayman Islands for customers in several countries, including the U.S.

The court ordered that "Dynadot shall immediately clear and remove all DNS-hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name," according to court documents. It also said that Dynadot should prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org Web site, or any other Web site or server other than a blank park page until further notice.

A spokesman for the Julius Baer Group could not be reached for comment Monday.

According to its Web site, the purpose of Wikileaks, founded in 2006, is to develop "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking and public analysis."

Wikileaks has been plagued by controversy since its inception, coming under fire from institutions whose confidential documents have been posted on the site and from critics who have questioned the motives of the site's founders. Still, others have praised the site for supporting the free dissemination of information.

Wikileaks posted a press statement on its site about the U.S. order, calling it "clearly unconstitutional" and said it "exceeds its jurisdiction."

In a subsequent search, the sheriff's department found methamphetamine in Herring's pockets and an unloaded gun under the front seat of his truck.

It turned out that the warrant for Herring's arrest had been recalled five months earlier.

Herring was sentenced to 27 months in prison after a jury convicted him on federal drug and gun charges.

Courts have ruled that as a deterrent to police misconduct, the fruits of an unlawful search and seizure may be excluded from evidence.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said that suppressing evidence in Herring's case would be unlikely to deter sloppy record keeping.

The cost of suppressing the evidence, the appeals court said, would fall on the county that arrested Herring, not on the county that was negligent in its record keeping.

Montana wants the court to rule that Wyoming is using too much water from the Tongue and Powder Rivers, while Montana residents are not getting enough water in some dry years.

Disputes between states often are decided by the Supreme Court.

The disagreement is over the Yellowstone River Compact, an agreement the states and North Dakota signed in 1950 spelling out how to share water.

Montana argues the compact should require Wyoming to limit water use — including from groundwater pumping. Montana argues that coal-bed methane production in Wyoming, which requires pumping huge quantities of groundwater, makes the situation worse.

Wyoming says in response that Montana has failed to show it has been harmed by Wyoming's water use, which is in line with the 1950 agreement.