The one-paragraph ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan came after the Obama administration asked the court to keep the pictures secret so it could appeal to the nation's highest court.

The administration last month said the disturbing photographs pose "a clear and grave risk of inciting violence and riots against American and coalition forces, as well as civilian personnel, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The appeals court stayed its order supporting a lower court judge's decision to order release of the photographs until the Supreme Court had a chance to consider the case.

The administration had indicated it was going to release the pictures until President Barack Obama reversed the decision.

To support its arguments, the government filed partially secret statements from two top U.S. generals, David Petraeus and Ray Odierno.

In the filings, Odierno, who commands the troops in Iraq, said the 2004 release of photos of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison "likely contributed to a spike in violence in Iraq" that year. Petraeus, who oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, said the images could also lead to more violence in Pakistan because it deals with Taliban attacks.

The American Civil Liberties Union had sought release of 21 pictures, saying the action would make the government more accountable and help bring an end to the abuse of prisoners.

During last year's campaign, President Barack Obama indicated that he supported eventually repealing the law, but he has made no specific move to do so since taking office in January. The White House has said it won't stop the military from dismissing gays and lesbians who admit their sexuality.

Democrats who control Congress also are not in a hurry to end the policy, which was made law in 1993. Easing the outright ban on gays in the military caused political trouble for President Bill Clinton and Democratic lawmakers that year, and Obama and his congressional allies want to avoid an issue that would roil the public just as they are seeking support for health care and other initiatives.

The justices said they will not get involved in the dispute between a half-dozen Western tribes and the Arizona Snowbowl ski area north of Flagstaff. The tribes wanted to block the expansion because the resort plans to use treated wastewater to make artificial snow on the mountain.

The tribes have argued that the proposal violates a federal law on religious freedom, but the federal appeals court in San Francisco last year disagreed.

The full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the treated sewage could be used on the ski slopes, reversing the decision of a three-judge panel on the same court. The panel had held earlier that using wastewater on a mountain sacred to the tribes would violate the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The full court, however, said the tribes will still have full use of the mountain for their ceremonies and the snowmaking would not affect that. No plants would be harmed, no ceremonies would be physically affected and no places of worship would be made inaccessible, the court said.

"I think she sounds like a very interesting and good nominee," Bush said of Sonia Sotomayor, the federal appeals judge Obama picked.

Mrs. Bush said in an interview broadcast Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America" that "as a woman, I'm proud that there might be another woman on the court. I wish her well." She was interviewed in Dallas, where the Bushes moved after their White House tenure.

On another subject, Mrs. Bush said her husband will have no comment on any Obama decisions. He feels that as a former president, "he owes President Obama his silence on issues and there's no reason to second-guess any decisions he makes," Mrs. Bush said.

The three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday the Second Amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms is not an adequate basis for lawsuits attacking local gun ordinances.

The National Rifle Associated argued the Second Amendment makes such ordinances unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court has ruled in a District of Columbia case that the Second Amendment entitles people to keep handguns at home for self protection. The appeals court upheld dismissal of the lawsuit on the ground that the District of Columbia, unlike Chicago and Oak Park, is a federal jurisdiction.

Barely a minute into oral arguments, justices challenged Coleman's attorneys on the adequacy of evidence they presented in an election trial and the legality of their suggested remedy: that more ballots be counted even if some absentee voters didn't fully comply with the law.

"It's possible there are statutory violations which do not rise to the level of constitutional violation," Justice Alan Page said, alluding to a threshold appeals courts often turn to before reversing a lower-court decision.

The state Supreme Court justices can confirm Franken as the victor or reopen the count as Coleman wants.

Franken hopes the court orders that he immediately receive the election certificate required to take office. Franken is the potential 60th vote for Democrats in the Senate, though two of those are independents.

The court's involvement is the latest but maybe not the final stop. If Coleman loses, he could file a new case in federal court or petition for review by the U.S. Supreme Court, which isn't certain to take the case. If Franken doesn't like the result, he could ask the Senate itself to weigh in.

The Supreme Court said on Monday it would hear the Bilski patent case, which would tell high tech and software companies how far they could go in patenting software, financial strategies and other abstract processes.

An appeals court which specializes in patent cases had ruled in October that the Patent Office was correct in refusing to allow Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw's company Weatherwise to patent a method for hedging against energy cost changes.

That court said the hedging method could not be patented because it was not tied to a machine and did not result in a transformation.

But this seemingly narrow case has implications for any company that hopes to patent a business method. One of the best known examples of a business method patent is Amazon.com Inc's one-click process to buy goods on the Internet.