However, the two added at a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee that official 2008 growth forecasts made late last year by the central bank and the president's Council of Economic Advisors are likely to be lowered in the coming months.

The Fed is currently predicting 1.8% growth for this year but Bernanke said a new forecast would be finalized next week. The Council of Economic Advisors' most recent estimate was for the economy to grow by 2.7% in 2008.

In their prepared testimony, the head of the central bank and the Bush administration's point man on the economy said steps taken already this year will be able to keep the economy moving forward despite the continued downturn in housing and troubles in credit markets.

"At present, my baseline outlook involves a period of sluggish growth, followed by a somewhat stronger pace of growth starting later this year as the effects of monetary and fiscal stimulus begin to be felt," said Bernanke in his opening statement, referring to a series of Fed interest rate cuts and a $170 billion tax rebate and stimulus plan signed by President Bush Wednesday.

But Bernanke conceded that banks are getting tighter in their lending standards, the housing and home building markets are likely to weaken further and the labor market may be softening.

"More-expensive and less-available credit seems likely to continue to be a source of restraint on economic growth," he said.

The Fed last month made two deep rate cuts: three-quarters of a percentage point at an emergency meeting, followed by half a point eight days later.

Bernanke said Thursday that the Federal Open Market Committee, its rate-setting body, was ready to act again if further economic readings justify it.

"The FOMC will be carefully evaluating incoming information bearing on the economic outlook and will act in a timely manner as needed to support growth and to provide adequate insurance against downside risks," Bernanke said.

Democratic leaders of a House science subcommittee alleged yesterday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency manipulated scientific research into the potential danger posed by a toxic gas emitted in trailers still housing tens of thousands of survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

FEMA "ignored, hid and manipulated government research on the potential impact of long-term exposure to formaldehyde" on Katrina and Rita victims now living in the FEMA trailers, the congressmen wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, whose department includes FEMA.

Reps. Brad Miller (N.C.) and Nick Lampson (Tex.) cited agency documents given to Congress in alleging that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- generally considered a repository of nonpartisan scientific expertise -- was "complicit in giving FEMA precisely what they wanted" to suppress the adverse health effects.

The lawmakers said the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry ignored one of its experts, Christopher T. De Rosa, after he informed FEMA there was no "safe level" of long-term exposure. They said FEMA bypassed that opinion and "shopped" the agency for its desired recommendation to study only short-term exposure.

"Any level of exposure to formaldehyde may pose a cancer risk, regardless of duration," De Rosa wrote in a Feb. 27, 2007, letter to a FEMA lawyer, recently obtained by a House Science and Technology investigative subcommittee that Miller chairs. "Failure to communicate this issue is possibly misleading and a threat to public health."

De Rosa wrote the letter after learning that the CDC bypassed his office to produce a Feb. 1, 2007, report for FEMA that did not consider long-term exposure risks, contradicting his recommendation to the agency in June 2006.

"Honest scientific studies don't start with the conclusion, and then work backwards from there," Miller said.

FEMA said the health agency's report last February did not address long-term health effects but rather concerned ways to avoid toxic exposure to formaldehyde. "FEMA did not suppress or inappropriately influence any report," agency spokesman James McIntyre said.

More than 40,000 trailers are still being used by families displaced by Katrina in August 2005 and Rita weeks later. FEMA announced last July that it would test occupied trailers, after congressional investigators disclosed that the agency had suppressed warnings for more than a year from its field workers about health problems experienced by Katrina survivors.

Tests on 500 trailers, finally begun last month, are being performed by CDC, the lawmakers noted. "The Committee is concerned about the independence and scientific integrity of any indoor air testing for formaldehyde levels in these trailers done under the auspices of FEMA," Miller and Samson wrote.

"For those who are too poor to live elsewhere, FEMA's position remains as it was in 2006: there are no possible adverse health effects that can't be cured by opening the windows," they added.

Ryan's lawyers said in a petition to the court that the trial judge replaced two jurors with alternates after deliberations in the case had already begun.

"The manipulation of the jury's composition deprived the petitioners of the fundamental right to a fair trial by an impartial jury," Ryan's petition said.

The jurors' opinions on the case were already known when trial Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer replaced two of them for omitting mention of their police records on pretrial questionnaires, the petition says.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld Ryan's conviction, erred in not seeing that the jury irregularities ruined any chance the trial would be fair, the petition read.

The petition asks the Supreme Court, which turns away most appeals, to consider the case.

A message left at the office of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald on Wednesday night was not immediately returned.

The Supreme Court may be the last stop in the long quest by the former governor to get out from under his conviction and the 6 1/2-year sentence he is serving in a federal prison.

Ryan, who turns 74 next month, was convicted of steering lucrative leases and contracts to lobbyists and cronies in exchange for valuables ranging from vacations in Jamaica and Mexico to a free golf bag. He was also convicted of using state workers and money to run his campaigns and of quashing an investigation into bribes paid in the secretary of state's office in exchange for drivers licenses.

Joining Ryan in the petition was businessman Larry Warner, who made millions of dollars in state leases and contracts from the secretary of state office Ryan held before being elected governor.

The great Federalists from Virginia and New York, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, didn't agree with the anti-Federalist views of Maryland's Jeremiah Chase on the organization of American government. However they all saw eye-to-eye on one matter: the selection of judges.

The founders would likely be appalled at Maryland's judicial system today. It has degenerated into a partisan free-for-all, with impartial judges forced to raise campaign cash in ever-larger amounts while locking out the fastest-growing political group in the state: independents. It's time to change this system and make it fair for all citizens of Maryland.

The founders understood that courts and judges were special institutions in a democracy that needed to be insulated from "intemperate" political influence. Madison argued that the "primary consideration ought to be to select that mode of choice which best secures" a well-qualified jurist.

Maryland's 143 Circuit Court judges must enter an election that is nominally "nonpartisan." Electing judges this way runs counter not only to Madison and Hamilton's advice, but also to the counsel of the national and state bar associations, the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Maryland's Courts and a host of other watchdog groups.

Most judges in Maryland are appointed using a reasonable democratic process. The governor (with the consent of the Senate) has ultimate say over the Court of Appeals, Court of Special Appeals and District Court. Judges on the appeals courts face voters in retention elections every 10 years. This method has served Maryland well for more than two centuries. But in 1970 the law was changed over concerns that the judicial appointment process didn't give women and minorities a fair chance.

Since then, Circuit Court judges have faced contested elections against any lawyer who is a member of the state's bar association. It doesn't matter if the judicial nominating commission has found the lawyer "unqualified" to serve. Candidates can make the nominating commission irrelevant. They just skip the interview process and go right to the election. And that's where political mud-wrestling takes place.

The 2004 and 2006 St. Mary's County judicial elections are prime examples of everything that is wrong about Maryland's system. Several well-funded, partisan challengers publicly hurled personal invectives or outright falsehoods in bitter campaigns. Others attacked "liberal activist judges" who would carry out agendas that included partial-birth abortion on demand, gay marriage, and a ban on the pledge of allegiance in schools. The challengers had the luxury of spelling out specific judicial platforms, taking set positions on issues such as bail bonds, work release programs, and truth in sentencing. (Disclosure: The authors are friends with one of the judges on the Circuit Court in St. Mary's County.)

Sitting judges are disadvantaged under this system. They have to campaign on their record while maintaining the difficult balancing act of politicking, raising money from lawyers, and making decisions every day in court. Studies show that voters have very little information about sitting judges and their record on the bench.

Maryland's judicial elections problem is compounded by the disenfranchisement of unaffiliated voters. More than 440,000 people -- more than 14 percent of state voters -- do not get a chance to cast their votes for judge until the general election. The primaries decided the elections in St. Mary's in both 2004 and 2006. More than 6,000 registered unaffiliated voters in St. Mary's never had the opportunity to choose.

Maryland's nonpartisan system actually encourages partisanship and often punishes the more moderate candidates, who fail to rally a partisan base of support.

The separation of powers and the protection of the judiciary from popular "factions" that Madison held dear are undermined when judges must take into consideration the coattail effects of other popular (or unpopular) candidates for legislative or executive branch offices on the ballot.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution never envisioned the judiciary to be chosen directly by the people. Hamilton wrote that "there can be but few men in the society who will have sufficient skill in the laws to qualify them for the stations of judges." It is time for the legislature to get serious about ending the rank partisanship, electoral flaws, and opportunity for unqualified jurists to reach the bench of the state's Circuit Court via contested popular elections.

Though Georgia's judges are technically outlawed from banishing offenders, some have skirted the rule by restricting them from all but one of the state's 159 counties. Now, one convict is challenging the practice, claiming it is unconstitutional.

"It's a throwback to the dark ages," McNeill Stokes, the defense attorney who argued the case Monday, said in an interview. "The whole point behind this is zealous prosecutors wanting to get rid of problems in their counties."

State attorneys contend the orders are a way to rid criminals from populous areas and protect victims from repeat offenses. But some defense attorneys see them as thinly disguised efforts to evade a Georgia constitutional provision that explicitly forbids courts from "banishment beyond the limits of the state."

The case revolves around Gregory Mac Terry, who pleaded guilty to assault and stalking charges. According to court documents, he violated a restraining order by sneaking into his estranged wife's home, forced her into his car and then threatened her with scissors.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 10 more years on probation, and a judge added a condition that he be banned from all Georgia's counties except Toombs County in southeast Georgia. His attorney says that condition kept him in prison longer, because he couldn't complete a work-release program in another county.

State attorney Paula Smith Sr. said the ban is reasonable, because Terry wrote a letter saying he wouldn't forget his wife when he was released.

"What we're losing sight of here is the purpose, and that was to help Mr. Terry's wife from his documented obsession of her," Smith said, adding that the court was "trying to safeguard this woman."

The banished rarely move to the remote counties where they are sent, and lawyers say some flee the state altogether. DeKalb County alone has banished dozens of offenders to Echols County, which sits on the Florida border.

During arguments Monday, justices peppered attorneys with questions about how the policy works logistically.

For example, they asked, how would an offender even get to the county where he was supposed to live without passing through counties he was banned from?

That provocative possibility has long been whispered in legal and political circles ever since Sen. Hillary Clinton became a viable candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now a respected conservative law professor has openly predicted a future President Clinton would name her husband to the high court if a vacancy occurred.

Pepperdine Law School's Douglas Kmiec said, "The former president would be intrigued by court service and many would cheer him on."

Kmiec worked in the Reagan and Bush 41 White Houses as a top lawyer, but said he has no personal or political "disdain" for Bill Clinton.

CNN talked with several political and legal analysts of both ideological stripes, and while several laughed at the possibility, none would rule it out completely. And all those who spoke did so on background only.

There is precedent for such a nomination: William Howard Taft, who called his time as chief justice, from 1921 to 1930, the most rewarding of his career. He was president from 1909 to 1913.

As one Democratic political analyst said, "You may recall recent trial balloons that Mr. Clinton was perhaps interested in becoming U.N. secretary-general. If he is grasping for a similarly large stage to fill his ambitions and ego, what better place than the nation's highest court, where could serve for life if he wanted?"

But a conservative lawyer who argues regularly before the high court noted Chief Justice John Roberts is fully entrenched in his position, and that might be the only high court spot Clinton would want. He also might not enjoy the relative self-imposed anonymity the justices rely on to do their jobs free of political and public pressures.

"Court arguments are not televised, and most justices shy away from publicity as a matter of respect for the court's integrity," said this lawyer. "Could Justice Clinton follow their example?"

Politics, however, may trump family ties. Perhaps three justices or more could retire in the next four to eight years, among them some of the more liberal members of the bench. The new president might face competing pressures to name a woman, a minority — especially a Hispanic or an Asian-American — and a younger judge or lawyer to fill any vacancies, three qualifications a white male in his 60s like Clinton would not have.

"This particular idea has zero chance of coming true," said Thomas Goldstein, a top appellate attorney who writes on his popular Web site, scotusblog.com.

The more immediate effect of such talk might be more practical: it could help motivate conservative voters in an election year to ensure no Clinton ever reaches the White House or the Supreme Court anytime soon.

The appeals court is stopping any transfer while it considers Ahmed Belbacha's request that he not be returned to his home country.

Belbacha was brought to Guantanamo Bay in 2002 from Pakistan. He had been an accountant at the Algerian government's oil company, Sonatrach.

Belbacha said that after he was recalled for a second term of service in the Algerian army, he was targeted with death threats by terrorists in Groupe Islamique Armee, then at the height of a violent campaign for an Islamic Algeria.

Belbacha never reported for duty, but he said the GIA visited his home at least twice and threatened him and his family. He left the country, traveling to France, England, Pakistan and Afghanistan before being taken into custody and sent to Guantanamo Bay.

The U.S. military has classified Belbacha as an enemy combatant, saying he associated with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The U.S. government said he is eligible for transfer subject to appropriate diplomatic arrangements for another country to take him.

Belbacha's lawyer, David Remes, said he went to court after hearing from a confidential source that Belbacha was to be sent to Algeria.