The law, approved by the Senate and the House just before Congress adjourned for its summer break, was deemed a priority by Bush and his chief intelligence officials.

Bush signed the bill into law on Sunday afternoon at his retreat at Camp David, Md.

"When our intelligence professionals have the legal tools to gather information about the intentions of our enemies, America is safer," Bush said. "And when these same legal tools also protect the civil liberties of Americans, then we can have the confidence to know that we can preserve our freedoms while making America safer."

The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States."

The law is designed to capture communications that pass through the United States.

Civil liberties groups and many Democrats say it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress.

The new law updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and it will expire in six months unless Congress renews it. Bush wants deeper, permanent changes.

"We must remember that our work is not done," Bush prodded. "This bill is a temporary, narrowly focused statute to deal with the most immediate shortcomings in the law."

The Protect America Act establishes legal guidelines on how the United States can conduct surveillance against foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States," and requires the director of national intelligence and the attorney general's authorization before surveillance against a specific target can begin. The surveillance will be subject to review by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court within 120 days.

Pamela Kincaid, 51, died Wednesday after friends said she fell four floors from a hospital stairwell.

The Fresno County Coroner's Office has called for an autopsy on Kincaid, who was also assaulted a few weeks before her death, said Dr. David Hadden, the county coroner. Kincaid was hospitalized after that attack with bruises on her head and abrasions on her body and face, according to police.

Kincaid was among a group of homeless people who sued the city last year for seizing and destroying their property during the raids. A federal judge granted the lawsuit class-action status Monday, which allows other homeless people who claim their personal property was taken and destroyed by the city to join the case.

In November, U.S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger ordered the city to stop taking homeless people's property while the lawsuit made its way through court.

He now faces as many as 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in November.

Uhl, who is being held at a jail in Lynchburg, was arrested May 21 after Campbell County authorities who searched the trunk of his car found five bombs that state police agents called "homemade napalm." Campbell authorities have said they do not believe Uhl intended to disrupt Falwell's funeral services or harm the Falwell family.

At a bond hearing in May, a federal agent said Uhl had other plans for violence, including a plot with a friend to disrupt a prom at his former high school in northern Virginia with pepper spray.

Caplan Law Firm principal attorney Allan Caplan has announced that the firm is currently offering a new BWI practice specialty, defending Boating While Intoxicated (BWI) cases during the Summer months. Boating While Intoxicated (BWI) is the act of operating under the influence any motorized craft that carries a person over water, usually motor boats and jet skis, or even things like water skis.

A principal of Caplan Law Firm, P.A., Allan Caplan spent six years prosecuting major felonies and white collar crimes as an Assistant Hennepin County Attorney During his 32-year career. In 1983, Mr. Caplan formed Caplan Law Firm, P.A., one of the largest criminal defense firms in the Midwest, with six lawyers representing clients in criminal law matters, both locally and nationally. A Minnesota DUI attorney, Mr. Caplan has achieved numerous acquittals and successful results for his clients in every type of case ranging from DWI and DUI to first-degree murder.

The Caplan Law Firm, P.A., recognized as a top criminal defense and Minnesota DUI law firm, has successfully represented numerous clients throughout Minnesota, the Minneapolis St. Paul area, Wisconsin, and the Federal Courts in a wide range of criminal matters.

Board of Trade members have long held special options-exchange rights, but the options exchange says the CME-CBOT merger wiped out those special rights.

The judge said Friday that Board of Trade members have a good case that the options exchange's new rule barring them from the trading floor does unfair damage to their economic interests. But he refused to issue the restraining order, saying money will be an adequate remedy if the rule is ultimately struck down after trial.

The Delaware judge also stayed action in a lawsuit filed by the Board of Trade against the options exchange last year, in which Board of Trade members claimed they are being cut out of a fair share of the option exchange's demutualization.

Board of Trade members argue that the contribution they made in creating the CBOE in 1973 entitles them to a share of the equity being distributed in the options exchange's demutualization. The options exchange has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to endorse its view that Board of Trade members aren't entitled to anything in that process.

Judge Noble said he wants to see what the SEC says about the dispute before court action moves forward.

But lawyers for nearly 160 men and women who have sued the Roman Catholic diocese for covering up sexual abuse by clergy members and others say the bishop is merely trying to duck the public specter of jury trials.

Meanwhile, weeks of closed mediation talks with a federal magistrate have failed to produce a settlement of the abuse claims, nearly all of which were filed in 2003.

A key question now is: What is likely to spur a settlement?

Veteran legal observers say to look no further than last month's record, $660 million agreement between Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony and attorneys for 508 plaintiffs to see the effect a looming trial has on settlement talks. The Los Angeles diocese settled on the eve of the first trial there.

The matter of how to value the abuse lawsuits is set to be debated before federal bankruptcy Judge Louise DeCarl Adler on Aug. 23. She will consider a motion by the victims' attorneys to send dozens of the lawsuits back to state court for trial dates.

The diocese wants to take the matter out of Adler's hands, however. Brom's attorneys, in a motion filed two weeks ago, are asking a U.S. District judge to estimate the value of the abuse lawsuits in a way that does not involve testimony in open court.

In a response filed yesterday, attorneys representing the sexual-abuse victims called that idea "forum shopping."

They said the diocese's action is about "fleeing a state court system that has resulted in average settlements well above the amount it wants to pay."

The diocese has offered $95 million, or about $600,000 per victim on average, to settle the abuse lawsuits and emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Diocese attorneys say that offer reflects Brom's goal of trying to fairly compensate the victims while protecting the church's mission of educating Catholic children and ministering to the spiritual needs of parishioners.

In court documents filed yesterday, plaintiffs' attorneys note that the Orange County diocese settled more than 90 abuse suits in 2004 for an average of $1.15 million apiece, and that the Los Angeles cases settled for $1.3 million on average.

In March, on the first day of the bankruptcy case, Adler made it clear that she would "not be deciding the merits of the abuse cases."

She said the value of the abuse claims will be resolved in one of three ways: They will be settled before a mediator, arbitrator or settlement judge; they may be estimated by the U.S. District Court; or they will be tried.

Closed mediation talks continue before Magistrate Judge Leo Papas. An intense week of mediation is scheduled beginning Aug. 13, in advance of Adler's ruling on whether to release the cases for state court trials.

The diocese's request to have the case-valuation issue decided by a U.S. District judge – whose power supersedes that of bankruptcy court judges – is expected to be considered soon. No hearing date has been set. One reason diocese attorneys give for wanting the matter placed before a U.S. District judge is that they hope to again argue that the 2002 California law allowing lawsuits regarding decades-old abuse incidents is unconstitutional.

The diocese has raised that issue twice before in state court and once in federal court. It lost each time.

A man with long experience mediating and deciding such complex and high-stakes issues is retired U.S. District Judge Lawrence Irving.

"I've handled a lot of mass tort (personal-injury) cases, and one thing is typical of all of them: They never go to trial," Irving said.

"What will force the diocese to settle these cases is to set them for trial immediately. And remember, both the bankruptcy judge and a U.S. District judge have the power to remand these cases for trial."