A conservative majority led by Chief Justice John Roberts said other means besides race considerations should be used to achieve diversity in schools.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discrimination on the basis of race," he wrote.

More than a half-century after the high court outlawed segregation in public schools, the justices were deeply divided over one controversial outgrowth of that decision: what role race should play, if any, in assigning students to competitive spots in elementary and secondary schools.

The cases from Kentucky and Washington state revisit past disputes over race and education, stemming from the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

"Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on color of their skin. The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once again-- even for very different reasons," Roberts wrote.

He was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito.

But Kennedy held out hope for school systems that use race that their criteria might be allowed in some narrow circumstances.

Reading his concurring opinion from the bench, Kennedy said, "This nation has a moral and ethical obligation to fulfill its historic commitment to creating an integrated society that ensures equal opportunity for all its children.

"A compelling interest exists in avoiding racial isolation, an interest that a school district, in its discretion and expertise, may choose to pursue."

He added, "Crude measures of this sort [as illustrated in this case] threaten to reduce children to racial chits valued and traded according to one school's supply and another's demand."

And Thomas said, "Simply putting students together under the same roof does not necessarily mean that the students will learn together or even interact. Furthermore, it is unclear whether increased interracial contact improves racial attitudes and relations."

Those on both sides of the issue, as well as the Bush administration, had hoped the Supreme Court would clarify when and to what lengths state and local officials can go to promote diversity in K-12 education.

In a landmark case three years ago, the justices affirmed racial quotas were unconstitutional but offered a limited, but nonetheless powerful endorsement of affirmative action in higher education. The Supreme Court has now ruled that legal standard does not apply in a K-12 public school setting.

While supporters on both sides of the issue seemed to agree classroom diversity is an important goal, differences remain over how to maintain it without the real or perceived consequence that some families may be unfairly discriminated against or inconvenienced.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the majority "reverses course and reaches the wrong conclusion. In doing so, it distorts precedent, it misapplies the relevant constitutional principles, it announces legal rules that will obstruct efforts by state and local governments to deal effectively with the growing resegregation of public schools, it threatens to substitute for present calm a disruptive round of race-related litigation."

Stevens was joined by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

The Seattle and Louisville plans are voluntary, introduced in the years after integration of schools in many areas was managed by the courts. They were not designed as remedial efforts to achieve diversity, but to maintain it, as a reflection of the larger communities' racial makeup.

During oral arguments in December, hundreds of demonstrators -- many of them African-American college students -- marched and chanted outside the court in support of the affirmative action plans. Some carried signs such as "Equal education, not segregation."

Louisville-area schools endured decades of federal court oversight after schools there were slow to integrate. When that oversight ended in the late 1990s, county officials sought to maintain integration, requiring that most public schools have at least 15 percent and no more than 50 percent African-American enrollment. The idea was to reflect the whole of Jefferson County, which is 60 percent white and 38 percent black. Officials say their plan reflects not only the need for diversity but also the desire of parents for greater school choice.

A white parent, Crystal Meredith, sued, saying her child was twice denied the school nearest their home and had to endure a three-hour bus ride to a facility that was not their top choice. Many African-American parents raised similar concerns.

In Seattle, public schools often rely on a "tiebreaker." Under the plan, begun in 1998, families can send their children to any school in their district. When there are more applicants than spaces available, and when a school is not considered "racially balanced," race is one of several "integration tiebreakers" used to achieve diversity.

A group primarily of white parents from two neighborhoods sued in 2001, saying about 200 students were not admitted to the schools of their choice, preventing many from attending facilities nearest to their homes.

One school at the center of the controversy is Franklin High. Half of its roughly 1,500 students are Asian-American, a third are African-American, and about 7 percent are Hispanic. White enrollment dropped from 23 percent in 2000 to 10 percent last year.

The Seattle diversity plan was suspended while the appeals worked their way through the courts.

From the justices' comments during oral arguments and in the various written opinions, it was clear the legal sticking point was whether those diversity efforts represented a "compelling government interest."

The Bush administration supported the parents bringing suit against the choice plans. Solicitor General Paul Clement told the justices the two plans at issue represented "very stark racial quotas." He argued they were a "clear effort to get the schools to mimic the overall community" and that other "race-neutral" means to achieve classroom diversity should be used.

Moshe Katsav was expected to step down as Israel's president after agreeing today to plead guilty to sexual harassment rather than face more serious charges that he raped female staffers.

Under the plea agreement announced by Atty. Gen. Menachem Mazuz, the 61-year-old Katsav will avoid jail time, raising an outcry among women's rights activists who saw the case as an important test of Israel's commitment to stamp out sexual harassment in the workplace.

The presidency in Israel is largely a ceremonial position; political power rests with the prime minister.

The Katsav case was among a list of scandals that have eroded Israelis' confidence in their leaders. Justice Minister Haim Ramon quit after being accused of forcibly kissing a female soldier and later was convicted of an indecent act. Corruption allegations also have swirled around top officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The president faced possible indictment on charges that he raped and sexually harassed female subordinates while serving as president and earlier as tourism minister. In January, Mazuz warned Katsav that authorities had enough evidence to indict on allegations involving four women, but the attorney general had yet to issue formal charges.

Katsav agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges, including sexual harassment, indecent acts and harassment of a witness, Mazuz said today. Katsav will pay damages, but prison time was suspended under the deal, which requires court approval.

Katsav was expected to resign later today, though that move was largely symbolic because his term ends next month. The Israeli parliament had already elected a successor, Shimon Peres, who takes over July 15.

Mazuz defended the decision to drop the more serious charges, saying they were going to be difficult to prove in court.

"I have reached the conclusion that I cannot in fact determine that we have crossed the threshold of the reasonable chance of conviction," Mazuz told reporters.

The plea would spare the country and alleged victims the spectacle of a trial and prevent further damage to the presidency, Mazuz said.

"From the status of No. 1 citizen, he will have dropped to the status of a man convicted of sex offenses, bearing eternal turpitude and shame," Mazuz said.

Women's rights advocates accused Mazuz of giving Katsav preferential treatment and undermining efforts to encourage Israelis to step forward with complaints about harassment on the job.

"We talk about citizens being equal before the law, and here we see a man of stature, power, money, advisors, the finest attorneys - and all these together succeed in imposing their way on the state of Israel and reach a deal that conveys a grave message," Shelly Yacimovich, a lawmaker from the center-left Labor Party, told Israel Radio.

Katsav, elected to a seven-year term in 2000, had vehemently denied wrongdoing since sexual-misconduct allegations were lodged last summer by a presidential staffer, identified publicly only by her first initial, A. Other women later stepped forward with additional allegations, but the statute of limitations had run out on some of those charges.

In January, Mazuz notified Katsav that he planned to indict pending the outcome of a subsequent hearing. But after that hearing in May, Katsav's lawyers and prosecutors began discussing a plea bargain.

Katsav's lawyers said they persuaded him to admit guilt to lesser charges to avoid the rape indictment.

Moshe Negbi, a legal analyst for Israel Radio, said the outcome would leave few Israelis satisfied.

"The president maintains he did nothing but is willing to confess so as to spare his family the suffering. And the women say they aren't retracting a single word, but the prosecution capitulated to a man in high office," Negbi said. "The public will believe in either option, but will no longer believe in the system itself."

The investigation began in September at Saratoga Gaming and Raceway following a tip from people at the track that harness horses were being injected.

The indictments also charged the Barracks with wrongly giving Patsy B Happy the anti-bleeding drug Lasix on Nov. 3, 2006. They earned $540 in that race.

The men will be sentenced Aug. 31. Murphy said it was likely the men would receive probation, but a judge will make that determination.

The Barracks' horse racing licenses are currently suspended, and a hearing will determine whether they will be permanently revoked.

Marc Mosher, 38, Robert Moscone, 60, and Carl Forrester, 31, also face charges in the case. It was unclear late Wednesday when their trials will take place. Each was charged with two counts of fifth-degree conspiracy, a misdemeanor.

Though Jobe is not identified in the court records in the Ketner case, she said she was falsely described in the document and has been identified by name by several El Paso-area media outlets.

She has alleged defamation and civil conspiracy, charging that Ketner worked with federal prosecutors and investigators to concoct false allegations against her and others. Jobe demanded a jury trial and has not specified how much money she is seeking.

Jobe's lawyer, Leon Schydlower, was in court Tuesday and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Ketner's San Antonio lawyer, Joel Perez, has said he did not anticipate representing Ketner in the civil suit. Telephone numbers listed for Ketner have been disconnected.

In a statement, Countrywide denied that a raid had occurred but didn't address the general subject of an investigation.

"Even if there were [such a probe], it's company policy not to comment on anything to do with our regulators," a spokesman said.

In the insider trading case, the former executives — Alan Cao, 38, of Woodland Hills; Jun Shi, 43, of Moorpark; and Quan Zhu, 43, of Santa Monica — admitted in plea agreements that they had made tens of thousands of dollars by selling Countrywide shares, including some stock they had borrowed to profit from a price drop in a technique known as short selling, and by buying options giving them the right to sell Countrywide shares.

Countrywide reported Oct. 20, 2004, that its third-quarter profit was 7 cents a share lower than analysts had forecast. The company also cut its earnings forecast. Its stock sank 11.5% that day.

Prosecutors said the illegal profits amounted to $47,668 for Cao, who was Countrywide Financial's vice president of financial planning; $35,547 for Zhu, executive vice president of portfolio risk management; and $19,995 for Shi, first vice president of planning at Countrywide Bank.

Cao and Shi settled a related Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit in March 2006 by returning their earnings plus interest and paying a fine equal to their profit, the SEC said.

In the plea agreements, prosecutors said they would recommend home confinement and probation if pre-sentencing reports turn up no other wrongdoing. No one else is expected to be charged in the case, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Beong-Soo Kim in Los Angeles, the prosecutor in the case.

In a statement about the trading case, Countrywide said it was "committed to the highest ethical standards."

"The company's policies prohibiting illegal insider trading are strictly enforced," Countrywide said.

The company described the three executives as "mid-level managers" and said it had cooperated fully with regulators and prosecutors in the case.

Hose's attorney, Jim Ecker, said he is pleased with the outcome for his mentally ill client. The judge left the opportunity for Hose to receive mental health treatment in prison, he said.

"He has suicidal tendencies, and he's at high risk for that," Ecker said.

Hose was charged with several sex crimes related to the disappearance and alleged abuse of Tanya Kach, a runaway who was 14 when she vanished Feb. 10, 1996.

The trial was originally set to begin in February of this year, but Hose tried to kill himself the day before it began. It was delayed again in May because Hose was being treated at a mental hospital.