The Mexican-born Medellin, 33, faced lethal injection in a case that has drawn international attention after he raised arguments he wasn't allowed to consult the Mexican consulate for legal help after he was arrested in the girls' murders.

Late Monday, Medellin was moved from death row at a prison outside Livingston to Huntsville, where he would be the fifth Texas inmate executed this year. His transfer came after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected requests for clemency and a reprieve.

"The board's action is against the interests of the nation and risks the safety of thousands of American traveling and living abroad," said Donald Donovan, one of Medellin's lawyers, referring to the warning by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico of possible protests there Tuesday. "We must now rely on the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent Texas from breaking a commitment made by the president and Senate on behalf of the country as a whole."

The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, has said Medellin and some 50 other Mexicans on death row around the nation should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether a 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests. Medellin is the first among them who is set to die.

His attorneys contend he was denied the protections of the Vienna Convention, which calls for people arrested to have access to their home country's consular officials.

President Bush has asked states to review the cases, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that neither the president nor the international court can force Texas' hand. Medellin's supporters say Congress or the Texas Legislature should be given a chance to pass a law setting up procedures for new hearings before he is executed.

Congressional Democrats called the ruling a ringing endorsement of the principle that nobody is above the law. They swiftly announced that the Bush officials who have defied their subpoenas, including Bush's former top adviser Karl Rove, must appear as part of a probe of whether the White House directed the firings of nine federal prosecutors. Democrats announced plans to open hearings at the height of election season. The Bush administration was expected to appeal.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge John Bates said there's no legal basis for Bush's argument and that his former legal counsel, Harriet Miers, must appear before Congress. If she wants to refuse to testify, he said, she must do so in person. The committee also has sought to force testimony from White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten.

McCain's shift has come in stages, catching some Republicans by surprise. Speaking with reporters on his campaign bus on July 9, he cited a need to shore up Social Security. "I cannot tell you what I would do, except to put everything on the table," he said.

He went a step farther Sunday on ABC's "This Week," in response to a question about payroll tax increases.

"There is nothing that's off the table. I have my positions, and I'll articulate them. But nothing's off the table," McCain said. "I don't want tax increases. But that doesn't mean that anything is off the table."

That comment drew a strong response this week from the Club for Growth, a Washington anti-tax group. McCain's comments, the group said in a letter to the Arizona senator, are "shocking because you have been adamant in your opposition to raising taxes under any circumstances."

Indeed, McCain frequently has promised not to raise taxes.

At a July 7 town-hall meeting in Denver, he said voters faced a stark choice between him and Democrat Barack Obama.

President Bush on Thursday nominated Paul S. Diamond to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, withdrawing his earlier pick for the job after she drew opposition in the Senate.

If confirmed by the Senate, Diamond, a federal district judge in eastern Pennsylvania since 2004, would fill one of two open seats on the federal appellate bench, which covers Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and the Virgin Islands.

Bush withdrew his nomination of Gene E.K. Pratter after she was opposed by some lawmakers for her conservative judicial views.

If Diamond succeeds in being elevated to the appellate court, that will leave a total of four vacancies on the Eastern District of the Pennsylvania bench.

To fill those, Bush nominated Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Mitchell Goldberg, Philadelphia Common Pleas President Judge C. Darnell Jones II, Philadelphia attorney Carolyn Short and Philadelphia criminal defense attorney Joel H. Slomsky.

Diamond, 55, is a native of Brooklyn, N.Y. He went to Columbia University in the 1970s and earned his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1977.

He has worked as a former assistant district attorney, a law clerk at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, a partner in two law firms and as an adjunct professor at Temple University's Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia.

The California Supreme Court Wednesday rejected without comment a challenge seeking to remove a November ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage in the state. The petition, filed by Equality California, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the amendment would deprive same-sex couples of fundamental rights. If approved by voters, the California Marriage Protection Act would amend the state constitution to read, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The ballot initiative comes in reaction to a May 15 California Supreme Court decision overturning a ban on same-sex marriage in the state.

The approval of the ballot initiative came after the Attorneys General of ten states submitted a brief to the Supreme Court of California, asking it to stay its decision until after the November elections. They asserted that allowing same-sex marriages would cause citizens in their own states to become "marriage tourists" in California, and their own state courts would then face unfair, extensive, and burdensome litigation on whether to recognize the marriages. A conservative advocacy group filed a similar petition requesting a stay until November. In May, the California Office of Vital Records issued a memorandum setting June 17 as the start day for issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The three-member panel of judges threw out the government's appeal in the case in which a watchdog group is trying to find out how often prominent religious conservatives visited the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence.

Despite the ruling against the White House, the decision does not necessarily mean that visitor logs will be subject to public disclosure.

The White House can still raise a variety of legal arguments in an attempt to keep the identities of White House visitors secret.

But appeals court Judge David Tatel said the document request from the private group is narrowly drawn and can be processed.

The document request from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington would not require the president, Cheney or their staffs to sort through mountains of files, said Tatel.

The vote, planned for Wednesday, would end almost a year of wrangling between the House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, and Congress and the White House over the president's warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

A major issue was the Bush administration's insistence that the bill shield from civil lawsuits telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans without court permission after 9/11.

The White House had threatened to veto the bill unless it immunized companies like AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. from wiretapping lawsuits. About 40 such lawsuits have been filed. They are all pending before a single federal court.