The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to reverse the Ninth Circuit's decision in the case. The majority wrote:

In cases where an applicant for federal habeas relief is not barred from obtaining an evidentiary hearing by 28 U. S. C. §2254(e)(2), the decision to grant such a hearing rests in the discretion of the district court. Here, the District Court determined that respondent could not make out a colorable claim of ineffective assistance of counsel and therefore was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing. It did so after reviewing the state-court record and expanding the record to include additional evidence offered by the respondent. The Court of Appeals held that the District Court abused its discretion in refusing to grant the hearing. We hold that it did not.

Read the Court's opinion per Justice Thomas, along with a dissent from Justice Stevens.

The Laporte teen accused of shooting his ex-girlfriend and himself last month was at the center of an emotionally charged court appearance this morning.

Nineteen year-old Timothy Schaub was crying as he entered the courtroom, wearing a helmet because of recent surgeries.

He was not the only emotional one Schaub's father went after the media for taking pictures and video of his son. The shooting happened April 9th but timothy Schaub's ex-girlfriend, Katherine Perkins, is still in the hospital, her condition is not being released.

Goodling resigned from her position as White House liaison at the DOJ in April and the DOJ has since opened an investigation into whether she considered the political affiliations of candidates for career prosecutor positions in the DOJ, contrary to federal law and longstanding departmental practice.

Giba, said to be in his 40s, is alleged to be the man recorded on a business surveillance system walking around partially clothed.  KRQE News 13 broadcast photos from the business, first with the face obscured at the request of police, and then today with his face visible.

Police said they received several calls about the identity of the man in the photos.

Giba works in a law firm in Santa Fe, possibly as a receptionist, and that's where he was arrested late this morning.  At this point he has not been charged with any of the seven attacks on women.

“We are not prepared to call him a suspect at this point,” Capt. Gary Johnson of the Santa Fe Police Department said.  “However he is a strong person of interest, and we are going to compare him to these other assaults and see if we develop any other information."

Police are hoping to compare Giba’s DNA with DNA collected at crime scenes.

In addition Johnson said Giba is believed to be a registered sex offender in Oregon although requirements in Oregon don't meet guidelines for registration in New Mexico.

Planned Parenthood (PP), Southwest Ohio Region, and its representatives were without comment on Wednesday, May 9, 2007, when they were named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Warren County Ohio, alleging that they violated Ohio law by their failure to report the sexual abuse of minors.  The suit alleges that on November 15, 2004, 16 year-old Denise Fairbanks, was brought to PP by her father, who had been sexually assaulting her since she was 13. He sought an abortion for his daughter at PP's Auburn Avenue facility in order to cover up the sexual abuse and resulting pregnancy. 

"If the allegations are true, then PP is complicit in the abuse of Ms. Fairbanks when they should have protected her," says Dana Cody of Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF).    "Our children deserve better."   

Attorney Brian E. Hurley of Cincinnati based law firm Crabbe, Brown and James, who is representing Ms. Fairbanks, stated in the complaint that PP's "don't ask, don't tell policy" resulted in another one and one-half years of abuse of Ms. Fairbanks.  It wasn't until a basketball coach reported the abuse that Ms. Fairbanks's father was tried and convicted of sexual assault. 

The suit also alleges the failure to report abuse of another unnamed minor as proof of PP's pattern and practice of non-reporting of sexual abuse of minors.

In addition to the failure to protect Ms. Fairbanks by not reporting the abuse in violation of the law, the suit calls into question PP's policies and procedures as well as the training and supervision of clinic employees.  

A copy of the complaint is available at www.lldf.org.  LLDF is helping to fund a similar case, also in Ohio, Roe v. Planned Parenthood.  That suit seeks damages against PP for performing an abortion on a minor in violation of  Ohio law, including laws mandating reporting of suspected sexual abuse of minors .  There is a hearing in that case next week, wherein PP has objected to producing records requested by "Roe," who is making allegations similar to those of Ms. Fairbanks.  "Roe" is also being represented by Mr. Hurley.

Currently, Vermont, Connecticut, California, New Jersey, Maine and Washington are the only states that recognize civil unions or domestic partnerships. The Washington State Senate passed a domestic partnership bill in March. Late last month, the New Hampshire Senate voted in favor of a bill already passed by the state House allowing same-sex civil unions. Also in late April, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer introduced a bill to legalize gay marriage in New York.

The Food and Drug Administration would have to establish a system to monitor the safety of new drugs after they hit the market and the pharmaceutical industry would be required to register clinical trials of new medicines in a publicly available database under legislation approved yesterday by the Senate.

The provisions are part of a sweeping bill, approved by a 93-to-1 vote, that would reauthorize the federal practice of charging drug makers hundreds of millions of dollars in fees each year to speed up FDA review approval of new drugs. The system of fees will expire Sept. 30 unless Congress reauthorizes it before then. The House has not yet taken up similar legislation.

The Senate bill also would enable the FDA to fine companies that fail to report contaminated food and require the government to establish labeling standards for pet food and to create a system to detect tainted pet food and notify the public of recalls.

It would provide for fines of up to $2 million for pharmaceutical companies that do not comply with the new system to measure the risks of new and high risk drugs in the first few years after they become available in the marketplace.

"This legislation is going to make the prescription drugs that families take safer and our food safer, and it's going to ensure that the agency has the resources to do follow-on reviews and continue to be the gold standard for safety," said Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and a lead sponsor of the bill.

Senator Mike Enzi, Republican of Wyoming , the chief Republican sponsor of the bill, said: "The changes made in the drug safety components of this legislation are critical to restoring peace of mind to Americans who want to be assured that the drugs they purchase to treat illnesses and chronic medical conditions can be relied upon and trusted."

Peter Lurie, deputy director of the health research group at the nonpartisan advocacy organization Public Citizen, agreed that the bill improves drug safety, but said lawmakers failed to address the core issue: that the FDA user fee system requires a regulated industry to fund its regulators.

"It is a fundamental conflict of interest to have an industry be able to dictate to an agency the speed at which reviews will take place," Lurie said. "And yet that's exactly what happens and nobody challenged that in a fundamental way."

The Senate legislation was shaped in part by an analysis by the Institute of Medicine last year that concluded the federal system for approving and regulating drugs is in serious disrepair. That report, requested by the FDA, followed two years of controversy over drug safety after the 2004 withdrawal of the arthritis drug Vioxx because of the risk of heart attacks.

Much of the institute report focused on a key gap in drug regulation: While the FDA requires stricter data on the safety and effectiveness from clinical trials before approving a new drug, less attention is paid after the drug reaches the market.

The Senate bill requires stepped up monitoring of new drugs for dangerous side effects and gives the FDA new authority to limit the sale of medicines if problems are found.

Drug makers could be required to undertake new studies of drugs after approval, and physicians who prescribe certain high-risk drugs would have to undergo special training.