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.

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.

"The evidence is overwhelming that when voters do not have access to technology that notifies them of ballot errors, many more ballots are left uncounted," said Meredith Bell-Platts, a voting-rights attorney with the ACLU.

Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland and has more than 1 million registered voters, plans to send all paper ballots from precincts to a central location to be scanned and counted.

The ACLU alleges that the optical-scan system and centralized vote tabulation would not give voters notice of ballot errors — such as voting for two candidates for one office.

Opponents of the system say scanning should be done immediately at the precinct level to alert voters to such errors and allow them to correct invalid ballots.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen O'Malley set a deadline of Feb. 4 for the Ohio secretary of state and the county elections board to respond to the ACLU and a hearing for the next day on the request for a preliminary injunction.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's top elections official, said the thrust of the ACLU's request would rule out the use of absentee ballots because those voters wouldn't know whether they had made an error or get a chance to correct it.

Brunner said it would difficult to go back to the prior touch-screen voting system in time for the primary because of staff training and system testing requirements.

"The ACLU is too late," she said.

Messages seeking comment were left for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, whose office handles legal matters for the elections board. Jane Platten, director of the Cuyahoga County elections board, referred requests for comment to Mason's office.

When the lawsuit was filed, Mason said he would challenge its contentions. Mason said the optical-scan system is permitted under the Help America Vote Act passed by Congress in 2002 in response to the disputed 2000 presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson was expected to rule Monday on whether to send federal marshals to close the encampment and evict its residents. Larson took an extensive tour of the park last month to see the conditions firsthand.

At a hearing earlier this month, Larson indicated he would shutter the park unless its owner, Harvey Duro Sr., presented a detailed plan to fix electricity, water and sewage systems by Monday's hearing. The judge could order the park closed immediately or he could give residents several weeks or months to find other housing.

But closing the park, which is in the fertile Coachella Valley about 130 miles southeast of Los Angeles, would flood an already overwhelmed affordable housing market in surrounding Riverside County.

The county currently has a 40,000-person waiting list for subsidized or low-income housing, with no new units expected before 2010. The only other affordable apartments are at least 90 minutes away, according to papers filed Friday.

Cheap housing is key for the 4,000 migrant workers who live in the Desert Mobile Home Park during peak harvest season and for the region's economy. The migrants, who make as little as $15,000 annually, pick some of the nearly $1 billion worth of table grapes, dates, chili peppers and other crops that the region yields each year.

Last summer, a fire displaced 120 residents, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs paid for an independent inspection that launched the government's latest drive to shut the park down.

That inspection found sewage wastewater several inches deep, dead rodents, swarms of flies and animal feces at the encampment, as well as inadequate drinking water, a dangerous electrical system, severe overcrowding and fire hazards, according to court papers.

The father, James Boldt, converted to Judaism in 2004 and wants the boy to be circumcised as part of the faith. The mother, Lia Boldt, appealed to the high court, saying the operation could harm her son physically and psychologically.

The state Supreme Court ruled that earlier court decisions failed to determine whether the boy wanted the circumcision, as his father contended, or opposed it, as his mother alleged.

The Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial court to answer that question.

If the trial court finds the child agrees to be circumcised, the Supreme Court said, it should deny the mother's requests. But if the trial court finds the child opposes the circumcision, the court has to determine if it will affect the father's ability to care for the child.

The custody dispute began when the child was 4 and the circumcision issue began three years ago when he was 9.

James Boldt, a lawyer, is representing himself, had no comment, his office said. The attorney for both sides also declined to comment.

The case has drawn attention from Jewish groups concerned that the Oregon court might restrict the practice. A group called Doctors Opposing Circumcision backs the mother.

The courts have steered clear of religious or medical issues, focusing on the questions of custody and care of the child.

One constitutional law professor who has been following the case called it "a reasonable ruling."

"I think what may be delicate and tricky is ... how much we can trust what the 12-year-old says, given the circumstances," said Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond. "He likely feels some pressure from (his parents)."

More than a million U.S. infants are circumcised each year, but circumcising adults or teens remains relatively rare. A urologist who met with the boy submitted an affidavit that said the procedure would cause him minor discomfort for about three days but not interfere with his normal activities, the Supreme Court's decision said.

When Marco Carrillo, a naturalized American and a high school valedictorian, went to meet with his college counselor, her major worry about his future had little to do with his SAT scores or essay or extracurricular activities.

It had to do with his citizenship.

"The very first question she asked me was whether I was a legal resident here," said Mr. Carrillo, 20, now an electrical engineering student at Arizona State University in Tempe. "And I said, ‘Yeah, I am.' And she said, ‘Oh good, that makes things easier.' "

Such questions have become commonplace in Arizona, where voters passed a 2006 referendum, Proposition 300, that forbids college students who cannot prove they are legal residents from receiving state financial assistance.

One of several recent immigration statutes passed by Arizona voters and legislators frustrated by federal inaction, the law also prohibits in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Administrators at several campuses fear that the provision has priced some out of their classes, particularly at the state's popular community colleges.

"When we look at the fall semester that just ended, we saw significant drops in enrollment in English acquisition classes," said Steven R. Helfgot, vice chancellor for student and community affairs at Maricopa Community Colleges. "And we think that some of that at least is due to Prop 300."

A report to the Legislature in December found that about 1,700 students had been denied in-state tuition at the Maricopa colleges because they were not able to prove their legal status, though it was unclear how many had dropped out.

Officials at the University of Arizona in Tucson said that some of the 200 to 300 dropouts from last fall were also illegal immigrants. Pima Community College, estimated that as many as 1,000 students may have been affected by the law.

More than enrollment declines, however, what worries some educators here is that nonlegal residents — some of whom have lived in the United States since infancy and attended American high schools — will be afraid to pursue any form of higher education.

"The most frightening thing about the policy in place isn't necessarily its measurable effect, it's the immeasurable effect," said Paul R. Kohn, the vice provost for enrollment management and dean of admission at the University of Arizona.

"It's likely that there are hundreds of high school senior or college-age students whose plans for college have been compromised," Dr. Kohn said. "And it's likely there are thousands in K-12 who will no longer make those plans because the cost of university is now out of reach or they fear deportation if they attempt to attend school."

The law does not forbid nonlegal residents from attending college or require colleges to report them to the authorities, something the colleges have worked hard to convey. Still, supporters said the law would save the state millions of dollars and provide a powerful disincentive to prospective border-jumpers.

"Arizona has been overwhelmed with illegal immigration and all the negative things that follow — crime, increased public service costs, especially education, and depression of our wages — and the federal government seems barely capable of doing much," said State Representative John Kavanagh, a Republican from Fountain Hills, east of Phoenix. "Denying the in-state tuition, besides being fair to residents, also deters illegal immigrants from coming here."

Arizona lawmakers have been increasingly active on the issue of immigration, moving National Guard troops to the border and passing a law that threatens businesses with the loss of licenses if they hire illegal immigrants.

The moves have disappointed many college-age Mexican-Americans.

"I see it as a very cruel law," said Teresa Guerra, 26, a fourth-generation Mexican-American who is studying history at Phoenix College, a part of the Maricopa system. "A lot of people I've grown up with have gone through that whole thing. They're raised in the American educational system, and now they have no future. These are people who have basically lived in America their whole lives, know nothing else, and now their shot at the American dream is gone."

For students who cannot prove legal residency, the difference in cost can be stark. At Phoenix College, for example, a part of the Maricopa system, in-state tuition runs $65 a credit hour. For out-of-state students taking a full course load, the cost is $280.

The difference can be even more jarring at the state's four-year institutions. Maria Elena Coronado, a student counselor at Arizona State, said out-of-state students could expect to pay $4,000 to $5,000 more a semester than those who proved legal residency.

"I had a girl come in yesterday, who doesn't have papers, but did really well and carried good grades into college," Ms. Coronado said. "But now she could only afford to take one class."

Representative Kavanagh said the law's intent was not to rob young, assimilated Mexicans of the opportunity to go to college, but merely to try to tame a problem Washington had not solved.

"I would be more than happy to take care of those kids who came here at a young age — they are as American as my kids and would be totally lost if they were deported," he said, challenging Democrats in Arizona to draft a bill that "doesn't have amnesty attached to it."

Mr. Carrillo, the Arizona State student, said he knew of several nonlegal residents considering returning to Mexico for college.

"It's expensive going to school in Mexico over there because there's no such thing as financial aid," he said. "You pretty much have to scrape it. But at least you're not worried that you're going to get deported."

In the lawsuit, filed Wednesday on behalf of "John Doe" in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the cyclist claims USADA broke its own rules and damaged him by outing him as a doping suspect. His identity was sealed in the suit to prevent his name circulating more widely.

Two people with direct knowledge of the case told the AP on Friday that Leogrande was the unnamed cyclist, and that sworn affidavits about Leogrande had been provided to USADA, which was using them in building a case against the 30-year-old.

The cyclist claims USADA planned to test his backup urine sample even though the original 'A' sample test came back negative, and the lawsuit seeks an injunction to prevent USADA from ever testing the 'B' sample.

USADA general counsel Bill Bock would not confirm the name, citing agency rules that forbid him from discussing specific cases.

A message left by AP on Leogrande's cell phone was returned from that cell phone. The angry caller said: "Lose my phone number. Don't call me again. ... I don't know how you got my phone number, but lose it," then hung up.

Plaintiff attorney Maurice Suh did not immediately return messages left at his office by AP.

The samples in question were taken during the International Cycling Classic last July, the two people familiar with the case said. Leogrande won three events, finished second at three more and finished second overall at the event, also known as Superweek.

Leogrande is a member of the Rock Racing team, which is owned by Michael Ball, the CEO of jeans-maker Rock & Republic. His bio on the team Web site said using the "same signature aggressive approach, he now plans to change the face of the racing world."

He most notably has hired Tyler Hamilton, who served a two-year suspension for doping, and had been in conversations with Floyd Landis, who is fighting doping charges of his own, to work in some management capacity for the team.

But Landis, who's serving a two-year suspension while his appeal is pending at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, is prohibited from working for a cycling team.

Landis said Ball was "someone who is going to speak his mind and not always be politically correct about it."

"But he's not out there to break the rules," Landis said. "He sees it the same way I do. If a guy is going to ride, he wants them to follow the rules."

Landis said he didn't know Leogrande and wasn't familiar with the case. The plaintiff's attorneys in this case, Suh and Howard Jacobs, are the same team that represent Landis.

On Thursday, when asked about the lawsuit, Bock called it "utterly frivolous and morally bankrupt."

The lawsuit calls for a jury trial and seeks to recoup damages the plaintiff claims were incurred when the anti-doping agency revealed the case to race organizers and the UCLA testing lab.

The suit alleges USADA notified the plaintiff last Nov. 15 that the 'A' sample came back negative. Despite that negative finding, the agency directed the UCLA testing lab to test the 'B' sample, "thereby violating the applicable rules and regulations governing anti-doping control and testing."