In a 7-2 ruling in a case from Kentucky, the justices permitted states to exempt interest on their own bonds from taxation while taxing residents for interest on bonds issued by other states.

In the $2.5 trillion municipal bond market, 42 states exempt some or all interest on their bonds from income taxes, while taxing interest on bonds from other states.

The states have said that throwing out the system of exemptions that began 90 years ago would have a devastating impact on state finances.

Industry groups warned of possible turmoil in the municipal bond market if the existing setup were dismantled.

In the majority opinion, Justice David Souter said that the state tax exemptions go back to 1919 and have not hindered commerce among the states.

In dissent, Justice Samuel Alito said the majority decision "invites other protectionist laws."

Souter responded that that the dissent "rightly praises the virtues of the free market." But Souter said that overturning the tax exemptions now would upset the market in bonds based on the experience of nearly a century.

Monday's 6-3 decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito, deals with provisions of the Armed Career Criminal Act. The law makes defendants eligible for longer prison terms if they have three prior criminal convictions for crimes that are either violent felonies or serious drug offenses.

A jury convicted Gino Gonzaga Rodriquez of possessing a gun as a convicted felon. Prosecutors said his five prior convictions — two for burglary in California and three for drug trafficking in Washington — should have led to a 15-year prison sentence.

But a federal judge imposed a sentence of 92 months and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco agreed.

At issue was what makes a crime a serious drug offense. Judges sometimes look at the length of the sentence prescribed by state law.

In this case, the question was whether the additional time that state law imposed because someone is a repeat offender can be used to trigger the still harsher penalties under the federal sentencing law. The Supreme Court concluded it can.

Justice David Souter, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens, dissented. Souter said the court's ruling would make life more complicated for trial courts trying to calculate prison sentences.

The family of Steven Domalewski, who was 12 when he was struck by the ball in 2006, filed the lawsuit in state Superior Court. It names Hillerich & Bradsby Co., maker of the 31-inch, 19-ounce Louisville Slugger TPX Platinum bat used when Steven was hit.

The lawsuit also names Little League Baseball and Sports Authority, which sold the bat. It claims the defendants knew, or should have known, that the bat was dangerous for children to use, according to the family's attorney, Ernest Fronzuto.

"People who have children in youth sports are excited about the lawsuit from a public policy standpoint because they hope it can make the sport safer," Fronzuto said after filing the suit Monday morning. "There are also those who are skeptical of the lawsuit and don't see the connection between Steven's injury and the aluminum bat."

Little League denies any wrongdoing, as does the bat manufacturer. Sports Authority has not responded to several telephone messages seeking comment.

Steven was pitching in a Police Athletic League game when he was hit just above the heart by a line drive. His heart stopped beating and his brain was deprived of oxygen for 15 to 20 minutes, according to his doctors.

Although he was not playing in a Little League game, the organization is being sued because it gave its seal of approval to the bat, certifying it as safe for use by children, Fronzuto said.

A jury in Rio Grande City, Texas, in April 2006 awarded $32 million to the widow of 71-year-old Leonel Garza, a short-term Vioxx user who died of a heart attack in 2001. That award — $7 million for compensatory damages and $25 million for punitive damages — later was cut to about $7.75 million under Texas law limiting damages.

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Texas 4th Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, ruling in favor of Merck. The opinion was signed by Justice Sandee Bryan Marion.

The judges wrote that Garza's family did not prove his brief use of Vioxx caused two blood clots that the family's attorneys argued triggered his heart attack. The judges also concluded the family did not provide sufficient evidence to rule out his long-standing heart disease as the cause of his fatal heart attack.

Garza had a prior heart attack and heart bypass surgery, smoked for nearly 30 years and died of the second heart attack after taking Vioxx for less than a month.

Merck lawyers had argued that heart attack was the end result of his 23 years of heart disease.

"There was simply no reliable evidence Vioxx caused Mr. Garza's heart attack," Travis Sales, one of the attorneys who represented Merck during the trial, said in an interview.

David Hockema, one of the Garza family attorneys, said they had just read the opinion and had not decided on their next move. Possible next steps would be a motion for a rehearing before the same court of appeals or a petition to the Texas Supreme Court, he said.

"I think the decision is clearly wrong and sets an impossible burden for the plaintiff to show the offending instrument (Vioxx) was the sole cause of their injury," Hockema said.

After the trial, a juror admitted previously borrowing more than $12,000 from Garza's widow, Felicia, an issue that Merck also raised in its appeal, Sales noted. However, that was not mentioned in the three-page appellate court decision.

Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck pulled Vioxx from the market in September 2004 after research showed the painkiller doubled risk of heart attacks and strokes. That triggered an avalanche of lawsuits against Merck, which has a $4.85 billion settlement pending to end the bulk of the personal injury suits.

The Garzas and others whose cases went to trial before the settlement agreement in November are not eligible to participate.

Wednesday's ruling gives Merck 10 victories and four losses in the trials that reached verdicts, with retrials pending in a few cases.

Merck shares rose 66 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $39.83 in regular trading Wednesday, and rose another 23 cents in after-hours trading. Shares have traded between $36.80 and $61.62 over the past 52 weeks.

Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in an opinion written by Chief Justice Ron George.

Outside the courthouse, gay marriage supporters cried and cheered as news spread of the decision.

"Our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation," the court wrote.

The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco's monthlong same-sex wedding march.

"Today the California Supreme Court took a giant leap to ensure that everybody — not just in the state of California, but throughout the country — will have equal treatment under the law," said City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who argued the case for San Francisco.

The attorney, Stuart Stein, told a federal appeals court Wednesday that Dummar deserves another shot at the money because of pilot Robert Diero, who came forward in 2004 to say he flew Hughes to a brothel in Nevada around the time and the place that Dummar said he found Hughes.

Stein, an estate-planning lawyer from Albuquerque, N.M., with a radio show, argued that Hughes' associates knew about Diero but didn't disclose it at the original probate trial in 1977-78.

"The judgment was obtained by fraud," Stein told a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

Dummar's lawsuit seeks the money from two men who benefited from Hughes' will, one of whom is deceased. Randy Dryer, an attorney for one of the estates, told the appeals judges that Stein's allegations of fraud are based on "speculation and conjecture."

And Dryer said that even if a jury heard from Diero and believed the story, "It doesn't necessarily follow that the jury would have concluded that the (will) was valid.

"They could have easily concluded that Mr. Dummar saw a golden opportunity to reward himself for his good deeds," Dryer said.

Dryer also argued the will already has been determined to be a forgery, saying that it doesn't contain the authentic writing of Hughes.

Dummar is among the most famous of hundreds of people who came forward claiming to be heirs to Hughes' estate after the eccentric billionaire's death in 1976.

Now 63, Dummar delivers frozen food and lives in Brigham City, Utah. He says as a 22-year-old man he was driving across the Nevada desert in December 1967 when he came across a "bum" near Lida Junction and gave him a ride to the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

Dummar said the man claimed he was Hughes, but he didn't believe it until someone he said was Hughes' personal messenger delivered the handwritten will to the Brigham City gas station that Dummar owned.

It included instructions to turn the will over to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which also stood to gain $156 million. The church never pursued a claim.

Diero said it wasn't until years later that his memories about the flight were jogged by a newspaper article mentioning Lida Junction, a tiny community about 150 miles north of Las Vegas and six miles from the place where Dummar claims he found Hughes.

Diero had been a director of aviation facilities for Hughes Tool Co. He broke a nondisclosure agreement with the company when he came forward with his account of flying Hughes from Las Vegas to the Cottontail Ranch brothel for a tryst with a diamond-toothed prostitute. After losing track of Hughes, Diero said he returned to Las Vegas without him.

Diero has said he routinely delivered Hughes on secret nighttime flights in a single-engine plane to rural Nevada brothels, a claim disputed by others familiar with Hughes.

After Diero came forward, Stein renewed Dummar's claims in court, seeking money from Hughes' cousin, William Lummis, and the estate of Frank Gay, who was chief operating officer of Summa Corp., which controlled Hughes' major assets.

Lower courts dismissed the claims, so Dummar appealed to the 10th Circuit on the grounds that the alleged fraud meant the case had not been fairly and fully litigated.

Gay died in May 2007 at age 86. Lummis is retired and is living in Texas. Peggy Tomsic, an attorney for Gay's estate, asked the appeals court to uphold the ruling against Dummar in the original probate case.