Wednesday's ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans only revives part of the case that lawyers for a group of purported "whistleblowers" filed against eight insurers and six adjusting firms after the August 2005 storm.

A three-judge panel from the appeals court upheld a lower court's ruling that Allstate Insurance Co. and State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. must be dismissed from the Louisiana lawsuit because they already were defendants in a similar suit in Mississippi.

However, the 5th Circuit said U.S. District Judge Peter Beer erred in dismissing the other insurers and adjusting firms that aren't named in the Mississippi case.

Other defendants in the Louisiana case include Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Fidelity National Insurance Co., American National Property & Casualty Co., American Reliable Insurance Co., and Standard Fire Insurance Co.

David Tenenbaum and his wife, Madeline, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Detroit, calling the secrecy claim "frivolous" and an "abuse of power."

In addition to the government, the lawsuit names former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and several other individuals as defendants.

A spokesman for the Defense Department's inspector general declined comment Thursday on the Tenenbaums' lawsuit, their second since 1998 when they sued over religious discrimination.

The Pentagon put Tenenbaum on paid leave in 1997 while it investigated whether he was supplying secrets to Israel. Investigators cleared him, and he still works at the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command in Warren.

In a showdown over presidential power, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said a judge went too far last October in ordering the U.S. entry of the 17 men, known as Uighurs (WEE'-gurz), over the objections of the Bush administration.

The three-judge panel suggested the detainees might be able to seek entry by applying to the Homeland Security Department, which administers U.S. immigration laws. But the court bluntly concluded the detainees otherwise had no constitutional right to immediate freedom after being held in custody at the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without charges for nearly seven years.

"Such sentiments, however high-minded, do not represent a legal basis for upsetting settled law and overriding the prerogatives of the political branches," wrote Judge A. Raymond Randolph, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush.

Digital video recorder maker TiVo Inc and EchoStar Corp return to a Texas court on Tuesday in the latest round of a longstanding fight over a television recording technology patent.

The legal dispute dates back to 2004, when TiVo charged that satellite TV provider EchoStar Communications Corp's Dish network system violated TiVo's patent for "Time Warp" software, which allows users to record one TV program while watching another.

The court ruled in TiVo's favor in 2006, and Dish (DISH.O) and EchoStar Corp last year paid $104 million in damages after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Dish's appeal of the ruling.

Following the ruling, EchoStar continued to distribute its digital video recorders, and collect subscription fees for the DVRs, which had replaced the software with a "work-around" that it claimed did not infringe on TiVo's patented technology.

Arguments are expected to take place Tuesday and Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Texarkana, Texas, before Judge David Folsom. He will consider whether TiVo can prove EchoStar's new DVR software further infringed on TiVo's patent, and therefore owes TiVo more damages.

Analyst Spencer Wang of Credit Suisse said that a ruling in TiVo's favor, which could take months to come, could be rough for Dish, since the work-around software is deployed on the vast majority of its millions of DVRs.

A 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Tuesday rejected an appeal filed by a New York trade group representing 7,000 restaurants. It said the rule the city began enforcing last July is a reasonable attempt to curb obesity.

The panel rejected the New York State Restaurant Association's arguments that federal law gives restaurants discretion on whether to present nutritional information.

The new rule applies to restaurants that are part of chains with at least 15 outlets across the country.

The city and restaurant association didn't immediately comment on the ruling.

Supporters of both Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman see a winner influencing the balance of power in the Senate, even as the Democrats already firmly hold the chamber.

"The 59th vote in the Senate is very valuable, and that's obvious now," said Kathryn Pearson, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. "It's valuable for Democrats to add a vote, and it would be very valuable to Republicans to deny that vote."

For Democrats, the absence of Franken's vote has already made passing legislation more of a challenge. The $787 billion stimulus bill squeezed through the Senate late Friday night on the vote of Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who was flown back to Washington on a government plane from his home state, where he was mourning the death of his mother. Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who is suffering from a brain tumor, could not attend the vote.