The Supreme Court says it won't stop a special election for President Barack Obama's old Senate seat that leaves out current Illinois Sen. Roland Burris.

Burris earlier this month asked the high court to block plans for a special Senate election that would exclude him.

The election will decide who serves out the final two months of the term that began when Obama entered the Senate in 2005.

Burris argued that the federal courts overstepped their authority by declaring that the candidates would be the same people running for the new Senate term. It meant that Burris, who's not seeking another term, couldn't run. He'd leave office soon after November 2nd instead of serving until January.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this week found two Oregon statutes ostensibly aimed at preventing the sexual abuse of children to be unconstitutional and in violation of the First Amendment. The court found that a “furnishing” statute, (Oregon Revised Statutes § 167.054) (“section 054”), which made it a crime to provide children under the age of 13 with "sexually explicit"material, and a “luring” statute, (§ 167.057) which criminalized providing minors under the age of 18 with "visual, verbal, or narrative descriptions of sexual conduct," to be overly broad and potentially in violation of free speech protections.

While the state of Oregon had argued that the statutes applied only to “hardcore pornography,” the Ninth Circuit found that, as written, the laws could be applied to much more, including books like Judy Blume’s Forever, and Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale. "Although the state argues that the statutes may be construed to narrowly focus on the sharing of hardcore pornography or material that is obscene to minors alone, its position is contradicted by the statutory text," reads the court decision. "In their current form, the statutes sweep up a host of material entitled to constitutional protection, ranging from standard sexual education materials to novels for children and young adults by Judy Blume. Despite the legislature’s laudable goals, we cannot rewrite the statute to conform to constitutional limitations."

A class-action lawsuit against Airbus and Northrop Grumman has been filed in the US by attorneys acting on behalf of passengers and crew injured in a serious incident involving a Qantas Airbus A330-300 in 2008.

The lawsuit is being led by a US law firm following contact from Australian law firms which will represent passengers and crew injured when A330 VH-QPA plunged over 1000ft in two uncommanded dives while on a flight from Singapore to Perth on October 7 2008, forcing the crew to make a mayday call and an emergency landing at Learmonth. The latest interim report from the ATSB suggests that the uncommanded dives may have been caused by erroneous data inputs from a faulty air data inertial reference unit (ADIRU), which was manufactured by Northrop Grumman.

Airbus has already moved an application to have the case heard in Australia rather than the US, with some commentators noting that Australian laws would not allow people to claim the same level of compensation as in the US. Currently, it appears that the trial will be heard in the US.

President Barack Obama heads to Pennsylvania on Monday to raise money for Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak, who is locked in a tight race for a seat considered a must-win for the president's party.

Democrats know that Sestak's chances of winning depend heavily on the party's ability to ramp up voter turnout in cities like Philadelphia. With six weeks until the midterm elections, Obama is trying to fire up the party's base, urging the first-time voters that helped him win the White House in 2008 to head back to the polls in November.

"I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods, and your workplaces, to your churches, and barbershops, and beauty shops," Obama told a Congressional Black Caucus dinner Saturday night. "Tell them we have more work to do. Tell them we can't wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now."

The relationship between the White House and Sestak has been a rocky one. Obama backed longtime Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter in the primary contest that Sestak won earlier this year. The White House had tried to get Sestak to drop his challenge to Specter by offering him an unpaid presidential advisory position, an offer Sestak rejected.

Obama carried Pennsylvania during his White House run, but two years later, voters are angry at the sluggish economic recovery and could take their frustrations out on Democrats in November's balloting. Democrats see the Pennsylvania Senate seat as one that could not only determine which party holds the Senate majority, but also which way the key swing state might lean in 2012.

The Connecticut judge presiding at the trial of a man charged in a deadly home invasion remains hospitalized, but a hospital spokesman says his condition has been upgraded to good from fair.

Yale-New Haven Hospital spokesman Mark D'Antonio told The Associated Press that Judge Jon Blue remained at the hospital Monday morning. D'Antonio would not disclose Blue's ailment and says it's not clear when the judge will be discharged.

The trial of Steven Hayes began last week and was supposed to resume Monday morning in New Haven Superior Court. It has been postponed until Wednesday.

Hayes and another man are charged in the killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her 11- and 17-year-old daughters at their Cheshire home in 2007. They face the possibility of the death penalty if convicted.

Georgia's top court has ruled in favor of a former Atlanta police officer who sought immunity after being charged with murder in a shooting of a 19-year-old who was killed while the officer was investigating a report of a vehicle break-in.

The state Supreme Court on Monday upheld by a 6-1 decision a lower court ruling in favor of former officer Raymond Bunn, who claimed he was acting in self-defense when he shot 19-year-old Corey Ward in a parking lot in 2002.

Bunn contended that Ward was driving the SUV straight at him when Bunn shot at the window, hitting Ward twice in the left side of his head.

Prosecutors said Bunn was not directly in front of the vehicle, which belonged to Ward's mother, when he fired.

The Supreme Court majority ruled that the preponderance of evidence favored Bunn's story, despite conflicting evidence.