Overturning a long-standing precedent it had reaffirmed only last year, the Alabama Supreme Court has allowed a wrongful death lawsuit that a judge had barred on grounds that the plaintiff waited too long to file.

The 5-4 decision handed down Friday will allow Alabamians exposed to toxic chemicals after Jan. 25, 2006, to sue the manufacturers if they become ill in the future, but it will not apply to thousands of people who were last exposed before then.

"That doesn't mean we're going to stop," said Birmingham lawyer Robert Palmer, who represents the plaintiff, a widow of a Tuscaloosa man who died from a rare form of leukemia. "Denial of justice to anyone is not justice. ... It's a victory, but it's not a complete victory."

Since 1979, the high court had enforced what amounted to a Catch-22. In most cases, people who claim to have been sickened by a toxic substance had to file a lawsuit within two years of their last exposure. But they also could not sue until they were sick.

Since symptoms caused by toxic chemicals often do not show up until years after the fact, the rulings effectively barred plaintiffs from seeking damages in court.

Alabama had been the only state to interpret its statute of limitations rules in that way.

Activists urging restrictions on lawsuits have argued that the state Legislature should address the issue. They also note that the statute of limitations is important because of the difficulty companies face trying to defend against alleged conduct that occurred many years ago.

"More people are potentially going to have claims now," said Mobile lawyer Matt McDonald, the general counsel of the Alabama Civil Justice Reform Committee. "Because it's not retroactive, I don't think it's going to open the floodgates, either."

In the case decided Friday, Brenda Sue Sanford Griffin sued in 2006 on behalf of her dead husband, claiming his death was the result of exposure to benzene and other toxic substances he came in contact with on the job at a tire manufacturing plant.

David Wayne Griffin worked at the Tuscaloosa plant from 1973 to 1993. He was diagnosed with a rare disease called acute myelogenous leukemia in 2003, 10 years after his last exposure.

The tax break has allowed developers and builders to save money on property taxes because it froze the taxable market value of the land at the time the land is bought. The tax on the land would remain the same until the land is developed and sold.

Since land values generally rise over time and especially if adjoining or nearby lots are sold for houses or businesses the developers and homebuilders will have to pay more property taxes.

The state Supreme Court says county assessors must redetermine the market value of land set for development every year - just like they do for land owned by other property owners.

A Brazilian doctor charged with manslaughter in an immigrant's liposuction death tried to plead guilty Wednesday, but the judge instead set the case for trial after the doctor contradicted prosecutors.

Luiz Carlos Ribeiro appeared in Superior Court to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in a case that exposed an underground cosmetic surgery network used by Brazilian immigrants.

Prosecutors were giving a standard recitation of the facts they could have proved at trial when Ribeiro, 51, told the judge he didn't agree with many of them, insisting he had a sterile surgical area and the proper resuscitation equipment when he performed the fat-removal surgery on Fabiola DePaula in the basement of a suburban condominium in July 2006.

DePaula, a 24-year-old Brazilian immigrant, died of complications from the surgery, including pulmonary fat emboli, or fat particles in the lungs.

Ribeiro insisted there was nothing that could have saved the woman.

"If I had 100 years, I would swear that I didn't kill anybody because I would never kill," Ribeiro told the judge. "Fabiola's death was sudden. I had no chance to do anything."

Prosecutors say Ribeiro performed liposuction, nose jobs and Botox injections for several years in the Framingham area, mostly for the town's large Brazilian immigrant population.

The procedures were performed on a massage table, under unsanitary conditions and without any emergency oxygen in place, authorities allege.

Judge Wendie Gershengorn scheduled the trial for April 3.

In September, Ribeiro's ex-wife, Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro, was sentenced to one year in prison when she pleaded guilty to manslaughter and admitted acting as a nurse for her husband.

Luiz Ribeiro was a licensed doctor in his native Brazil, but neither he nor his ex-wife was licensed to practice medicine in the United States, authorities said.

His lawyer, Jeanne Earley, said after the hearing she was stunned the plea was not accepted. She was going to ask for a 2- to 2 1/2-year prison term. Prosecutors had planned to seek 6 to 8 years. He's already served about 18 months since his arrest.

"He's horrified as any doctor would be about the death of somebody. But he is a good doctor, has practiced medicine for many years in Brazil," she said.

Prosecutors said if the procedure had been monitored in a hospital, DePaula's death could have been prevented.

"We are confident that we have a strong case against the defendant and intend to prove that case in court," District Attorney Gerry Leone said in a statement Wednesday.

Calls for a windfall tax on oil companies have been reignited after Royal Dutch Shell posted record UK company profits of almost £14 billion.

The Unite union said profits in the industry were "obscene" and urged the Government to take action, especially because of rising energy prices.

Royal Dutch Shell reported a surplus of 27.6 billion US dollars (£13.9bn) in 2007, equivalent to £1.5 million an hour and 9% higher than a year ago.

It benefited from rising crude oil prices of more than 90 US dollars, a factor which also left motorists with average petrol costs of more than £1 a litre.

Unite joint general secretary Tony Woodley said: "Shell shareholders are doing very nicely whilst the rest of us, the stakeholders, are paying the price and struggling.

He added: "This Government took the brave step of putting a windfall tax on the greedy privatised utilities to fund the New Deal. With pensions injustices still to be addressed, fortune should favour the brave again and the greedy oil companies should be asked to contribute for the common good."

Shell rejected the windfall tax calls, arguing that the profits figure is almost matched by the amount of money it spends on securing new energy sources. Most of its haul comes from exploration and production, rather than UK forecourts.

Chief executive Jeroen van der Veer said: "If you get additional taxation, in the end it means you can invest less. The money has to come from somewhere and over time it will impact on our production."

The oil firms, including Shell, insist they already pay high levels of tax to the Treasury. In 2005, Chancellor Gordon Brown increased a North Sea tax on energy companies from the 10% he introduced in 2002 to 20%.

Independent charity the RAC Foundation said anger over rising petrol costs needed to be directed towards the Government, adding that a flexible fuel duty would compensate for varying crude prices.

A U.S. official confirmed last week that waterboarding was used in the past but had not been used for several years.

"The interrogation techniques currently authorized in the CIA program comply with the law," Mukasey wrote Leahy. "A limited set of methods is currently authorized for use in that program. ... Waterboarding is not, and may not be, used in the current program."

Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, and other lawmakers repeatedly pressed Mukasey in his confirmation hearings last year and afterward to say whether he considered waterboarding an illegal form of torture, as do many human rights groups and other critics.

If Mukasey agreed, it could open the door to prosecution of officials involved in CIA's interrogation program launched after the Sept. 11 attacks. Mukasey, who had said in a letter to the committee before his confirmation that waterboarding is "repugnant to me," said he would review the interrogation program.

But Mukasey told Leahy on Tuesday that since waterboarding was not now in use, he did not feel it appropriate to give an opinion.

A panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled there was no basis to John Demjanjuk's challenge of a December 2005 ruling that he could be deported to his native Ukraine or to Germany or Poland.

The government initially claimed Demjanjuk was the notoriously sadistic guard at the Treblinka camp known as "Ivan the Terrible." Officials later concluded that he was not, but a judge ruled in 2002 that documents from World War II prove Demjanjuk was a Nazi guard at various death or forced labor camps.

Demjanjuk, 87, lives in the Cleveland suburb of Seven Hills. He has steadfastly denied that he ever helped the Nazis, arguing that he served in the Soviet Army and was captured by Germany in 1942 and became a prisoner of war.