Euless officials say the sacrifices would violate ordinances against animal cruelty, keeping livestock and disposal of animal waste.

The background

In May 2006, Merced and 10 other church members were at his house a day before a planned ceremony when a Euless police officer and an animal control officer knocked on his door.

A resident had tipped off police that Merced, president of Templo Yoruba Omo Orisha Texas, and his group would sacrifice goats, according to police reports and court documents.

The officer did not see any goats, and Merced said he would not sacrifice any animals.

A month later, Merced and a priest from Puerto Rico met with Euless officials, who told him that the city would not issue a permit for their ceremonies. Merced sued in December 2006.

In 2007, the city offered Merced a compromise to help settle the lawsuit -- he could kill chickens, which city law allows, but not goats. The city would still enforce its animal cruelty ordinance and its ban against killing livestock. Merced declined.

The House Revenue and Taxation Committee voted Tuesday to debate a bill that would phase out the taxes over five years as long as state revenue grows 4 percent in each of those years.

The proposal, which would reimburse local governments for the lost property tax revenue, would not kick in until the 2010 fiscal year. Equipment bought after Jan. 1, 2008, would qualify retroactively.

Supporters say the measure, which has 32 co-sponsors including two members of House leadership and two Democrats, could be funded without relying on additional revenue from other sources or programs, a source of contention that killed a proposal last year.

"We would be paying for the bill with growth in government," committee Chairman Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot and one of the co-sponsors, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Idaho businesses now pay personal property tax each year on everything from forklifts to office equipment. Companies such as J.R. Simplot, the agriculture giant, and TableRock BrewPub & Grill in Boise have demanded a repeal of the tax, saying it's hard to calculate and stunts economic growth.

Last year, the House passed a bill to eliminate as much as $100 million of the taxes, but Senate lawmakers blocked it.

That seemed to be a likely fate again for any personal property tax bill this year after the House tax committee in January rejected five measures that would have repealed millions of dollars in Idaho sales tax exemptions.

Senate lawmakers who killed last year's bill suggested that elimination of the personal property tax should depend on dumping some of those tax exemptions, thus creating additional revenue. They also favored a discussion of the personal property tax bill within the broader context of Idaho's complicated system of tax breaks.

Sen. Brent Hill, R-Rexburg and chairman of the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee, said this year's personal property tax proposal seems to be well crafted, since it puts the plan on hold if the economy is not strong enough to bring in sufficient revenue to pay for the phaseout.

"If it gets through the House, I think there's a good chance it'll get through the committee," Hill said.

In a Friday night ruling rushed into print ahead of the next scheduled exercise on Monday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a federal judge's decision that no emergency existed that would justify Bush's intervention.

The Navy is engaged in "long-planned, routine training exercises" and has had ample time to take the steps that the law requires - conduct a thorough review of the environmental consequences and propose effective measures to minimize the harm to whales and other marine mammals, the three-judge panel said.

The court noted that the Navy has been conducting similar exercises for years, has agreed in the past to restrictions like the ones it is now challenging, and was sued by environmental groups in the current case nearly a year ago. The lower-court judge reviewed the evidence and found nothing to support the Navy's claim that the protective measures would interfere with vital training or hamper national security, the court said.

Past rulings have established that "there is no 'national defense exception' " to the National Environmental Policy Act, the court said. That law requires government agencies to review projects that might harm the environment and propose reasonable protective measures.

Lawyers are asking an appeals court in Virginia to toss out Moussaoui's guilty plea. They say the strict rules about what classified information could be discussed made it impossible for attorneys to properly advise him. They say that violated Moussaoui's constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court said on Monday it would decide whether police officers can search a vehicle without a warrant once the suspect has been arrested and the scene secured.

The justices agreed to hear an appeal by Arizona officials of a ruling declaring such searches unconstitutional when the scene has been secured and the suspect has been handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car under police supervision.

The high court's conservative majority in recent years has generally sided with the police while cutting back on the rights of criminal suspects in car cases.

The U.S. Constitution protects suspects against unreasonable searches and seizures of evidence.

The Arizona case will require the Supreme Court to reexamine its 1981 ruling that risks to officer safety and the preservation of evidence justify a warrantless car search as part of the arrest.

Arizona officials said the state Supreme Court effectively overruled the 1981 ruling in requiring that the police show that inherent dangers actually existed at the time of the search.

The case began in 1999 when the police in Tucson received a tip of drug activity at a house. Two officers went to the house, and when Rodney Gant answered the door he told them the owner was not home, but would return later in the day.

The officers left, but then discovered Gant had a suspended driver's license and an outstanding warrant for driving on a suspended license.

The Supreme Court yesterday protected the makers of medical devices that have passed the most rigorous federal review standards from lawsuits by consumers who allege that the devices caused them harm.

The court ruled 8 to 1 against the estate of a New York man who was seriously injured when a balloon catheter manufactured by Medtronic burst during an angioplasty in 1996. Charles Riegel, who died three years ago, and his wife sued under New York law, alleging that the device's design was faulty and its labeling deficient.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said federal law preempts the imposition of liability under state laws for devices that have undergone the Food and Drug Administration's pre-market approval process, the most rigorous of the FDA's testing procedures.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the lone dissenter. Congress did not intend the preemption clause, Ginsburg wrote, "to effect a radical curtailment of state common-law suits seeking compensation for injuries caused by defectively designed or labeled medical devices."

Courts are filled with lawsuits over preemption, which New York University law professor Catherine M. Sharkey called "the fiercest battle in products liability litigation today."

The Supreme Court this year took several cases that invoke federal preemption. Cases still to be heard include lawsuits in state courts that seek to punish cigarette makers and drug manufacturers.

The court ruled in 1996 that devices approved by the FDA under a less-rigorous process were not protected from state lawsuits. The agency agreed with that.

In 2004 the government reversed its position, and when the case decided yesterday was argued in December, the government said such suits undermine the FDA's authority.

Montana wants the court to rule that Wyoming is using too much water from the Tongue and Powder Rivers, while Montana residents are not getting enough water in some dry years.

Disputes between states often are decided by the Supreme Court.

The disagreement is over the Yellowstone River Compact, an agreement the states and North Dakota signed in 1950 spelling out how to share water.

Montana argues the compact should require Wyoming to limit water use — including from groundwater pumping. Montana argues that coal-bed methane production in Wyoming, which requires pumping huge quantities of groundwater, makes the situation worse.

Wyoming says in response that Montana has failed to show it has been harmed by Wyoming's water use, which is in line with the 1950 agreement.