Investment firms didn't draw such loans for the week ending July 9. They borrowed just $1.7 billion in the previous week ending July 2, down from $6.1 billion in the week before that. Such borrowing rose as high as $38.1 billion in early April.

The Fed opened its emergency program to investment firms on March 17.

At that time, the investment houses were given similar loan privileges as commercial banks after a run on Bear Stearns pushed the nation's fifth-largest investment bank to the brink of bankruptcy. The situation raised fears that other Wall Street firms might be in jeopardy. Bear Stearns was eventually taken over by JPMorgan Chase in a deal that involved the Fed's financial backing.

Banks, meanwhile, averaged $12.9 billion in daily borrowing over the past week. That compared with $14.9 billion in the previous week.

The identities of commercial banks and investment houses are not released.

In the broadest use of the central bank's lending power since the 1930s, the Fed in March scrambled to avert a market meltdown by giving investment houses a place to go for emergency overnight loans. The program will continue for at least six months. Commercial banks and investment companies now pay 2.25 percent in interest for the loans.

Separately, as part of efforts to relieve credit strains, the Fed auctioned $21.3 billion in Treasury securities to investment companies Thursday.

The auction drew bids for less than the $25 billion the Fed was making available, which was viewed as possible sign of some improvements in credit conditions.

In exchange for the 28-day loans of Treasury securities, bidding companies can put up as collateral more risky investments. These include certain mortgage-backed securities and bonds secured by federally guaranteed student loans.

The auction program, which began March 27, is intended to make investment companies more inclined to lend to each other. A second goal is providing relief to the distressed market for mortgage-linked securities and for student loans.

The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday set an execution date of Oct. 14 for Richard Cooey, who was convicted of raping and murdering two University of Akron students in 1986.

Executions had been put on hold nationally for several months until the U.S. Supreme Court decided in April to allow Kentucky's lethal injection process, which is similar to the one used in Ohio. Opponents argued the procedure is unconstitutionally cruel.

McLaren apologized last December after Ferrari data and documents were found at its chief designer's home, resulting in a $100 million fine for McLaren and disqualification from the 2007 constructors championship.

McLaren said Friday that both sides had agred to bring the dispute to a final conclusion. The exact terms of the deal were not released, but Ferrari said it would donate the payment from McLaren to charity.

The Italian team said it would continue to pursue its case against former Ferrari mechanic Nigel Stepney. Stepney was head of performance development at Ferrari in July 2007 when the scandal broke after a 780-page technical dossier on Ferrari cars was found at the home of McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan.

Stepney and Coughlan were later fired by their teams.

The ruling reinstates the attempted sexual assault charges against twin brothers Nicholas and Alexander Grunke and Dustin Radke, all 22. The charges carry a punishment of up to 10 years in prison.

Justice Patience Roggensack, writing a majority opinion with three other justices, said state law bans sexual intercourse with anyone who does not give consent "whether a victim is dead or alive at the time."

"A reasonably well-informed person would understand the statute to prohibit sexual intercourse with a dead person," she wrote.

Jefren Olsen, an attorney who represented Radke, said the decision was flawed because the law was never intended to punish necrophilia.

"Obviously, the facts are rather notorious and not the easiest to deal with," he said. "I assume that had some impact."

Police say the three men, carrying shovels, a crowbar and a box of condoms, went to a cemetery in southwestern Wisconsin in 2006 to dig up the body of Laura Tennessen, 20, who had been killed the week before in a motorcycle crash.

Nicholas Grunke had seen an obituary photo of her and asked the others for help digging up her corpse so he could have sexual intercourse with it, prosecutors say.

Authorities say the men used shovels to reach her grave but were unable to pry open the vault. They fled when a car drove into the cemetery and were eventually arrested.

The men were charged with attempted third-degree sexual assault and misdemeanor attempted theft charges. The case has been on hold as prosecutors appealed the dismissal of the assault charges.

Suzanne Edwards, a lawyer representing Nicholas Grunke, said she was disappointed in the decision. She said the men will be arraigned on the charges and have a chance to plead not guilty.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, whose office represented prosecutors in the appeal, praised the decision.

"Words matter and the Legislature chose its words carefully to extend the sexual assault law to those heinous circumstances where a dead person is sexually assaulted, whether or not the defendant killed the victim," he said. "Necrophilia is criminal in Wisconsin."

The decision brings Wisconsin into line with more than 20 other states that prohibit necrophilia or the abuse of a corpse, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"I will never back down in defending a woman's right to choose," the likely Democratic nominee said, drawing a sharp contrast with his GOP rival.

"That's what's at stake," Obama added as he campaigned with his half-sister and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the pioneering former first lady he toppled during the Democratic presidential primary, at a "Women for Obama" breakfast fundraiser.

Obama packed his day with female-focused events in New York and Virginia, a reminder of his need to win over women who include some still smarting from Clinton's loss. She had tried to become the first woman to win the White House, and women were her base voters. They took her defeat hard, so much so that even a few are promising to vote for McCain.

Thus, to underscore his differences with McCain on women's issues, Obama cited Senate legislation from the spring that sought to counteract a Supreme Court decision limiting how long workers can wait before suing for pay discrimination.

A group called the Mothers of Srebrenica was seeking compensation for the failure of Dutch United Nations troops to prevent the slaughter by Serb forces of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males in the U.N.-declared safe zone.

The Hague District Court said the U.N.'s immunity — which is written into its founding charter — means it cannot be held liable in any country's national court.

"The court's inquiry into a possible conflict between the absolute immunity valid in international law of the U.N. and other standards of international law does not lead to an exception to this immunity," the judges wrote in their ruling.

A ruling lifting the U.N.'s immunity could have had far-reaching implications for the way the world body carries out its peacekeeping operations around the world.

At a hearing last month, Dutch government lawyer Bert Jan Houtzagers said that if a Dutch court decided it had jurisdiction in the case, "any court in any country could do so and that would thwart the viability of the United Nations."

Axel Hagedorn, a lawyer for the victims, said he would appeal Thursday's decision. The case could go to the European Court of Human Rights.