Members of the Ukranian Parliament have requested that the Ukrainian Constitutional Court rule on the legality of President Viktor Yushchenko's dismissal of three judges from its bench, according to the court's information office Tuesday. The request came after last Friday's dismissal of Volodymyr Ivashchenko, the third Constitutional Court judge removed for alleged oath and ethics violations.

The court is currently considering the constitutionality of Yushchenko's April 2 decree dissolving parliament and calling for new elections. He has since issued a second decree, which is also under review by the court, moving the elections to late June. A majority of legislators objected to the initial decree, filing an appeal with the 18-judge Constitutional Court.

Yushchenko has insisted that his dissolution decree was proper under the Ukrainian constitution and has said that officials who refuse to comply with his decree could face criminal prosecution.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger submitted a capital punishment proposal Tuesday in an effort to persuade US District Judge Jeremy Fogel to lift a moratorium on executions in the state. The proposal includes the construction of a new execution chamber and a revised protocol on the procedure for lethal injections in the state. Speaking on the plan, Schwarzenegger said that he is "committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure that the lethal injection process is constitutional so the will of the people is upheld."

In December, Schwarzenegger ordered his administration to "correct court-identified deficiencies in California's lethal injection protocol to ensure the death penalty procedure is constitutional" after a federal court issued a memorandum of intended decision concluding that California's lethal injection  procedure creates "an undue and unnecessary risk" of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution. The memorandum came after the execution of Michael Morales was postponed indefinitely in February 2006 when a court ruling held that medical professionals must monitor executions by lethal injection to be sure that the inmate feels no pain. The ruling imposed a virtual moratorium on executions in California as anesthesiologists refused to take part in the execution.

The appeals court upheld Vang's convictions for six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and three counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide, agreeing with his attorneys that there was no merit to an appeal.

The fatal shootings occurred in November 2004 after a group of deer hunters in Sawyer County confronted Vang, 38, of St. Paul, Minn., over trespassing in a tree stand.

Vang, a Hmong immigrant and experienced hunter, testified during his trial that he shot the six white hunters and wounded two more in self-defense, claiming one of them fired a shot in his direction after they shouted racial epithets and cursed at him.

The two survivors testified that Vang had begun walking away from the confrontation when he turned and opened fire.

Prosecutors convinced a jury that Vang reacted in an angry outburst, feeling disrespected by the hunters, and then tried to kill everyone so there would be no eyewitnesses.

Vang, who came to the United States from Laos more than 20 years ago, was sentenced to six consecutive life terms plus 165 years in prison. He is being in kept in an undisclosed prison outside of Wisconsin, according to the state Department of Corrections.

The US Supreme Court refused to review the decision of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

A 2005 law, however, allows the detainees to ask the appeals court to check whether the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, created by the Defense Department in 2004, had followed procedures.

During the review tribunals, handcuffed detainees appear without an attorney before three military judges.

Only one person, called a recorder, has access to all elements of a case and presents the documents and witnesses that he or she deems pertinent for the review.

The detainee, meanwhile, can request under certain conditions documents and witnesses, but under such limitations most requests have been rejected.

The government argues that the appeals court can only have access to minutes of the review board hearings and documents presented to the panel.

But detainee attorneys want the court to be able to determine whether the recorder indeed presented all relevant documents for a case and if the military judges were right to reject certain witnesses or documents requested by the detainee.

President George W. Bush's administration has argued that unlawful enemy combatants captured in the "war on terror" do not have the same rights as US criminals or prisoners of war, arguing the detainees are not associated with conventional armies.

Security plans implemented since February by the Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I) have contributed to overcrowding in Iraqi prisons, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. A UN report released in April estimated 20,000 detainees were held in Iraq-run facilities during the month of March, indicating an increase of over 3,500 detainees from the end of January.

Estimates of the number of detainees held in Iraqi-operated facilities are difficult to verify because various ministries operate multiple facilities with little coordination. Deputy Justice Minister Pusho Ibrahim Ali Daza Yei told the Washington Post that the Justice Ministry, which operates prisons for convicted criminals, have provided detention space for untried detainees under the custody of the Iraqi Army and that the military detainees account for over 15 percent of the Justice Ministry's prison population.

An anonymous source told the Washington Post that the "tidal wave of cases" generated by the security plans have overwhelmed the Iraqi justice system, which is mandated by Article 19 of the Iraq Constitution to submit preliminary investigations to "a competent judge in a period not to exceed twenty-four hours from the time the arrest has occurred."

Allegations of detainee abuse, particularly by the Interior Ministry, have also increased as officials have struggled to deal with the influx of detainees. The security plans, formally known as "Operation Law and Order" and commonly referred to as the "troop surge," are intended to increase security and stability in Baghdad and Al Anbar province, and were instituted shortly after Gen. David H. Petraeus assumed command of MNF-I.

An agreement by Tyco International Ltd. to settle shareholder lawsuits in a massive corporate fraud case puts the industrial conglomerate on firmer ground as it prepares to split into three companies.

Tyco said Tuesday it had agreed to set up a $2.975 billion cash fund to pay claims filed by shareholders against the company arising from actions by ex-chief executive L. Dennis Kozlowski and other top officers convicted of looting Tyco and inflating its value.

The company said it would take a charge of that amount during the current quarter. Tyco spokesman Paul Fitzhenry said the company also would pay interest on the $2.975 billion and turn over half of any money it recovers from ongoing lawsuits against Kozlowski, former Chief Operating Officer Mark Swartz and former board member Frank Walsh.

"With this settlement, we are taking an important step to resolve our most significant remaining legacy legal matter," Chairman and Chief Executive Ed Breen said in a statement. "Our balance sheet and cash flow remain strong and will allow us to readily absorb these costs while removing much of the uncertainty around legacy legal matters."

Investors, including union and state pension funds and Tyco retirees, were permitted last summer to proceed with a consolidated class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in New Hampshire, where Tyco was formerly headquartered. The settlement still must be approved by the largest shareholders and the court.

The settlement covers shareholders from December 1999 to June 2002 and, in some of the consolidated cases, investors who owned stock starting in October 1998, the company said.

Tyco's share price rose 19 cents to $32.38 Tuesday.

Tyco is breaking up into three publicly traded companies: Tyco Healthcare, which will be renamed Covidien and based in Mansfield, Mass.; Tyco Electronics, to be based in Berwyn, Pa., near Philadelphia; and Tyco International, which will remain in New Jersey and include the fire and security and engineered products units. The breakup has been delayed twice, but is now slated for the end of June. Each company will assume a portion of the settlement debt.

Lawyers for the shareholders said the settlement would top $3 billion with interest, making it the largest payout ever by a single corporate defendant in a securities fraud lawsuit.

"This is a fantastic resolution and closes a chapter on one of the largest and most appalling examples of corporate fraud in U.S. history," said Jay Eisenhofer, managing partner at Grant & Eisenhofer.

Total settlements involving securities fraud lawsuits against Enron Corp. ($7.1 billion) and WorldCom Inc. ($6.1 billion) were larger, but those companies are now bankrupt and the payments were made primarily by outside co-defendants including investment banks and auditors. Cendant Corp. agreed to settle a shareholder lawsuit for $2.83 billion in December 1999.

"This is a settlement of historic proportions for the investors who suffered significant financial losses and it also sends a strong message to those who would engage in this type of misconduct in the future," said Richard Schiffrin, of Schiffrin, Barroway, Topaz & Kessler.

Shareholder claims against the company's former auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, are still pending, so the total amount recovered by shareholders could be larger, Eisenhofer said. Tyco also has agreed to assign its claims against PricewaterhouseCoopers to the shareholders, who will pursue them "vigorously" alongside the shareholders' existing claims, Eisenhofer said.

"The fraud couldn't have taken place without them. They totally abdicated their responsibility as independent auditor, and had they performed as they should have, this fraud wouldn't have taken place," he said.

PricewaterhouseCoopers spokesman David Nestor declined to comment.

The portion of the settlement that will go toward attorneys' fees has not been determined yet because that portion of the lawsuit is still pending, Eisenhofer said.

Kozlowski and Swartz were convicted in a New York State court in 2005 of multiple counts of grand larceny, conspiracy, securities fraud and falsifying business records.

Prosecutors said the two conspired to defraud Tyco of $600 million to fund their extravagant lifestyles. They were sentenced in September 2006 to eight to 25 years in prison. A judge refused to release them on bail while they appeal.

The shareholders' lawsuits alleged the company misrepresented the value of Tyco and companies it acquired under Kozlowski's leadership in a giant accounting fraud scheme, causing losses estimated at $1 billion to $2 billion.

Tyco makes everything from telecommunications equipment to home alarm systems. The company, which is registered in Bermuda, was run from Exeter at the time of the alleged fraud. It now operates from West Windsor, N.J.