Some in the region were heartened by Obama's attempt to reach out to Muslims in his inaugural address Tuesday, saying he wanted to put relations on a new path. But he followed that overture immediately with a stern warning to those who foment violence.

"I would like to stress that the region has high hopes that your administration will deal with the Palestinian issue from its first day as an immediate priority and a key for solving other issues in the Middle East," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in a congratulatory message to Obama.

But others were more pessimistic as newspaper editorials and political commentators laid out the challenges facing Obama, from rebuilding the wreckage in Gaza to ending the war in Iraq and confronting a strengthening Taliban in Afghanistan.

"To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy," Obama said Tuesday.

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist," he added.

The Supreme Court said it won't consider reviving the Child Online Protection Act, which lower federal courts struck down as unconstitutional. The law has been embroiled in court challenges since it passed in 1998 and never took effect.

It would have barred Web sites from making harmful content available to minors over the Internet.

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled that would violate the First Amendment, because filtering technologies and other parental control tools are a less restrictive way to protect children from inappropriate content online.

The act was passed the year after the Supreme Court ruled that another law intended to protect children from explicit material online — the Communications Decency Act — was unconstitutional.

The Bush administration had pressed the justices to take the case. They offered no comment on their decision to reject the government's appeal.

Five justices who ruled against the Internet blocking law in 2004 remain on the court.

The case is Mukasey v. ACLU. 08-565.

By a 6-3 vote, the court on Wednesday reversed a federal appeals court that had thrown out the second-degree murder conviction of Cesar Sarausad II.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned the conviction because of unclear jury instructions. But the high court, in a majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, said there was "no evidence of ultimate juror confusion."

"Rather, the jury simply reached a unanimous decision that the state had proved Sarausad's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," Thomas wrote.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice David Souter said an uncertain instruction from the trial judge merged with a "confounding prosecutorial argument" that included a "clearly erroneous statement of law."

"In these circumstances, jury confusion is all but inevitable and jury error the reasonable likelihood," wrote Souter, who was joined in his opinion by Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Sarausad was convicted for his role as the driver in the shooting that killed a teenage girl outside a Seattle high school.

Sarausad was a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Washington at the time of the shooting. He drove the car from which Brian Ronquillo shot and killed 16-year-old Melissa Fernandes. She had nothing to do with the gang rivalry that led to the shooting.

Ronquillo was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 52 years in prison. Sarausad got a 27-year sentence.

Sarausad admitted being the driver but denied knowing that Ronquillo had a gun, much less that he was planning to kill anyone.

The jury instructions at issue concerned whether, to be convicted of second-degree murder, Sarausad had to know that Ronquillo intended to use a gun and that someone could die as a result.

In ruling unanimously Wednesday for five officers attached to the Central Utah Narcotics Task Force, the court also abandoned a rigid, two-step test that it adopted in 2001 to guide judges in assessing alleged violations of constitutional rights.

Trial and appellate judges "should be permitted to exercise their sound discretion" in evaluating such claims, Justice Samuel Alito said in his opinion for the court.

Under the 2001 ruling, courts first had to determine whether an action amounts to a violation of a constitutional right and then decide whether the public official, often a police officer, should be immune from the civil lawsuit.

The case grew out of a search of the home of Afton Callahan of Millard County, Utah, in 2002.

An informant contacted police to tell them he had arranged to purchase drugs from Callahan at Callahan's trailer home.

Wearing a microphone provided by police, the informant entered the trailer and signaled police that a deal had been made. They entered the trailer without a warrant and arrested Callahan on charges of possession of methamphetamines.

Utah courts ruled that the evidence that was seized from Callahan's home could not be used against him. Other courts have allowed prosecutions to go forward under similar circumstances.

Callahan later sued the officers for violating his constitutional rights. A federal judge ruled the officers could not be sued because there is disagreement in the courts over whether the search was illegal.

Marc Dreier said all his relatives live in the U.S. and only a few of his business associates or friends live abroad.

Dreier, 58, has been jailed without bail since he was arrested in early December as he returned from Canada. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Dreier's lawyers have proposed that he be released on $10 million bond, secured by the signatures of his son and mother, and kept under house arrest with electronic monitoring and armed security guards approved by the government. He would be denied computer access and have only preapproved visitors.

The conditions would be similar to those of Bernard Madoff, who has confessed to losing up to $50 billion in a giant Ponzi scheme and is holed up at his multimillion-dollar penthouse.

Dreier, who led a law firm with more than 200 lawyers before his arrest, told a magistrate judge who will consider the bail issue that he no longer controls any money or assets in the United States or abroad.

From Kenya and Indonesia, where Barack Obama has family ties, to areas around the world, Obama represented a volcanic explosion of hope for better days ahead.

The ascendance of the first African-American to the presidency of the United States was heralded as marking a new era of tolerance and possibility.

It was a reflection of Obama's sprawling, complex family tree that villages in places as diverse as Ireland and Kenya held special parties to celebrate their link to the new president.

An Irish village called Moneygall covered itself in red, white and blue bunting Tuesday in honor of Obama's connections, via a great-great-great grandfather named Fulmouth Kearney who emigrated to the United States in 1850. Road signs read "Moneygall welcomes our President, Barack Obama."