Junk-bond king Michael Milken, media mogul Conrad Black and American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh have applied to the Justice Department seeking official forgiveness.

But with Bush's term ending Jan. 20, some lawyers are lobbying the White House directly to pardon their clients. That raises the possibility that the president could excuse scores of people, including some who have not been charged, to protect them from future accusations, such as former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or star baseball pitcher Roger Clemens.

Those who have worked with Bush predict that will not happen. The White House has declined to comment on upcoming pardons.

"I would expect the president's conservative approach to executive pardons to continue through the remainder of his term," said Helgi C. Walker, a former Bush associate White House counsel.

The decision marks the first court ruling of its kind in South Korea.

The 76-year-old patient, identified only by her surname, Kim, has been in a permanent, vegetative coma since suffering brain damage in February.

Her family filed a lawsuit after doctors refused to end her life. Her children claim their mother had always opposed keeping people alive on machines when there is no chance of revival.

The court accepted the argument.

"Doctors have the obligation to comply with a patient's demand for the removal of a respirator in case it is meaningless to extend life, and if it serves more for the dignity and value as a human being (for the patient) to die spontaneously," Seoul Western District Court said in the ruling.

The court said there are enough indications to assume the patient would have wanted to be removed from the respirator if she knew of her condition. Doctors at major hospitals in Seoul agree that Kim has no chance of revival and could live as long as three or four months, the ruling said.

The court cautioned, however, that the ruling does not deal with "proactive euthanasia" and does not mean that family members have the right to independently ask to end medical treatment for loved ones.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the go-ahead for the lawsuit filed by three men who claim priests abused them as children. They allege the Vatican orchestrated a decades-long coverup of priests sexually abusing children throughout the U.S.

Louisville attorney William McMurry is seeking class-action status, saying there are thousands of victims nationally in the scandal that haunts the Roman Catholic Church. He is seeking unspecified damages from the Vatican.

"This is an enormously huge moment," McMurry said. "We're finally going to get to the root of the problem."

Jeffrey Lena, a Berkeley, Calif.-based attorney for the Vatican, said the appeals court's decision narrows the plaintiffs' case because the court upheld dismissing several issues.

"It's gratifying to see the hard work the judges put into the opinion," Lena said.

Lena declined to say if he would appeal the decision. McMurry said he expects the case to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Several lawsuits around the country have sought damages against the Vatican, but many have been bounced around in lower courts. Attorneys for both sides say the Louisville case is unique.

Judge Yevgeny Zubov had adjourned the case Thursday for 10 days. He cited a defense lawyer's scheduling conflicts even though the lawyer said there were none.

On Monday court spokesman Alexander Minchanovsky said the trial would resume Tuesday and the jurors were called back early to discuss a string of procedural issues. He refused to elaborate.

Zubov had originally opened the trial to the public but reversed the decision last week.

Politkovskaya embarrassed the Kremlin with her reporting on human rights abuses in Chechnya. Her killing in 2006 caused international outrage.

Bush said he approved the action, recommended by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, while flying back to Washington on Sunday evening from meetings in Peru with Pacific Rim leaders. He said he also spoke with President-elect Barack Obama on Sunday night, part of what he has promised will be "close cooperation" between his administration and the Obama camp until the transfer of power on Jan. 20.

Referring to the Citigroup rescue, Bush said: "We have made these kind of decisions in the past. We made one last night. And if need be we will make these kind of decisions to safeguard our financial system in the future."

Bush, who spoke after meeting with Paulson and other Cabinet members at the Treasury Department, said they all realize that Americans are concerned for their jobs and savings.

"We will safeguard the financial system as the first step necessary for economic recovery," the president said. "This is a tough situation. But we will recover from it."

Also while at Treasury, just across a sidewalk from the White House, Bush joined a meeting of top administration officials who are working on greater economic cooperation with China. Bush met on Friday in Peru with Chinese President Hu Jintao for talks focused in part on the global economic turmoil.

The formal transfer of power doesn't take place until Jan. 20, but don't tell that to financial markets. They are already taking their cues from Obama and his team.

Wall Street surged by nearly 500 points on Friday after reports that Obama would pick Timothy Geithner, the well-respected head of the New York Federal Reserve, to be his Treasury secretary.

Obama was to formally present his economic team on Monday and elaborate on his weekend call for a sweeping economic stimulus to save and create 2.5 million jobs over the next two years.

It is not that Bush did not have his own successes in Lima at his eighth and final summit of the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

The leaders of Pacific Rim countries endorsed the action plan drafted a week ago in Washington by the Group of 20, representing the world's richest nations and major developing countries such as China, Brazil and India.