McCollum said he is asking a federal judge to quickly hold a hearing on a lawsuit he filed last month to keep the agreement from going into effect until the Florida Supreme Court decides whether Crist was authorized to sign the compact without legislative approval.

The agreement allows Las Vegas-style slots and card games like blackjack and baccarat at the Seminole's seven casinos. The state would get $50 million immediately and $100 million guaranteed in the first year. In the second year, the state is guaranteed $125 million and at least $150 million in the third year. Following that, the amount depends on revenues - but everyone involved in the negotiations said it will quickly add up to billions.

Without the compact, the tribe would have at least been able to install Las Vegas style slots without paying any money to the state because the Florida approved slots at Broward County jai-alai frontons and horse and dog tracks.

Crist signed the compact in November. House Speaker Marco Rubio and Senate President Ken Pruitt are challenging Crist's authority to enter into the agreement on his own and the Supreme Court plans a hearing on the case Jan. 30.

Half of the country's 404 Intermediate People's Courts, which carry most executions, now use lethal injections, the China Daily quoted Jiang Xingchang, vice president of the Supreme People's Court, as saying.

Lethal injection "is considered more humane and will eventually be used in all Intermediate People's Courts," Jiang said in the report. He did not give a time schedule for the change.

China does not officially release capital punishment figures, but it is believed to execute more people each year than the rest of the world combined. Death penalty recipients include some people convicted of nonviolent crimes such as fraud.

The human rights monitoring group Amnesty International says China executed at least 1,770 people in 2005 — about 80 percent of the world's total. The true number is widely believed to be many times higher, however.

China has attempted to reform its capital punishment system following reports in 2005 of executions of wrongly convicted people, and criticism that lower courts arbitrarily impose the death sentence.

An amendment to China's capital punishment law, enacted in November 2005, restored to the Supreme People's Court the sole right to approve all death sentences, ending a 23-year-old practice of allowing provincial courts alone to sign off on executions.

In his appeal, Blom appears to make five different claims: that the district court did not apply the appropriate standard when reviewing his petition for postconviction relief; that his confession was coerced and, therefore, its admission into evidence violated his constitutional rights; that the district court improperly asserted subject matter jurisdiction over federal charges by leading him to believe that his confession would result in resolution of federal firearm charges and by issuing orders interfering with Blom's access to his federal public defender; that he has been improperly denied the opportunity to develop evidence demonstrating his actual innocence; and that he is being improperly held out of state to prevent him from perfecting his appeal.

Carlton County Attorney Thom Pertler prosecuted Blom.

"He was tried and convicted by the jury," Pertler said last Thursday night. "I think the Supreme Court recognizes that you give deference to the jury and what they decide on the merits of the case. The issues that he was raising — although difficult to ascertain what they were — were looked at by the Supreme Court and it was determined that the claims he was asserting had been previously asserted so he wasn't entitled to any relief."

Blom is serving a life sentence. Now 58, and formerly of Richfield, Minn., Blom was convicted of abducting Poirier from the Moose Lake convenience store where she worked May 26, 1999, strangling her on his nearby vacation property and then burning the body.

After his arrest, Blom confessed to strangling the woman. He later recanted the confession, but it was used in his trial. He was convicted of first-degree murder on Aug. 16, 2000, at the conclusion of a 10-week trial in Virginia. The conviction was automatically appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court and affirmed. He filed another appeal last January, which led to Thursday's decision.

Blom is serving a life prison sentence without parole for Poirier's murder and a 19-year, seven-month sentence on a federal gun charge. He is being held in a Pennsylvania prison, where his anonymity among inmates can help protect his safety.

The notice, issued by the IRS on Monday, provides guidance about the standards of conduct that must be met by a tax return preparer to avoid a penalty for an understatement of tax that may result from a position taken on a tax return.

"It is important to note that the regulations expected to be finalized in 2008 may be substantially different from the rules described in this notice, and in some cases more stringent," the IRS notice said.

The IRS guidance applies to large companies such as Jackson Hewitt Tax Service and H&R Block Inc as well as to private attorneys and accountants who prepare tax returns.

A tax preparer may rely in good faith upon information furnished by the taxpayer or another adviser or third party, and is not required to independently verify or review the items reported on tax returns to determine if they are likely to be upheld if challenged by the IRS, the agency said. However, the tax return preparer must make "reasonable inquiries" if the information appears to be incorrect or incomplete, it said.

The IRS notice also asked accountants, industry groups, consumer groups and the public to submit comments by March 24 on how the agency should define "tax return preparer" in its overhaul of regulations.

That provocative possibility has long been whispered in legal and political circles ever since Sen. Hillary Clinton became a viable candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now a respected conservative law professor has openly predicted a future President Clinton would name her husband to the high court if a vacancy occurred.

Pepperdine Law School's Douglas Kmiec said, "The former president would be intrigued by court service and many would cheer him on."

Kmiec worked in the Reagan and Bush 41 White Houses as a top lawyer, but said he has no personal or political "disdain" for Bill Clinton.

CNN talked with several political and legal analysts of both ideological stripes, and while several laughed at the possibility, none would rule it out completely. And all those who spoke did so on background only.

There is precedent for such a nomination: William Howard Taft, who called his time as chief justice, from 1921 to 1930, the most rewarding of his career. He was president from 1909 to 1913.

As one Democratic political analyst said, "You may recall recent trial balloons that Mr. Clinton was perhaps interested in becoming U.N. secretary-general. If he is grasping for a similarly large stage to fill his ambitions and ego, what better place than the nation's highest court, where could serve for life if he wanted?"

But a conservative lawyer who argues regularly before the high court noted Chief Justice John Roberts is fully entrenched in his position, and that might be the only high court spot Clinton would want. He also might not enjoy the relative self-imposed anonymity the justices rely on to do their jobs free of political and public pressures.

"Court arguments are not televised, and most justices shy away from publicity as a matter of respect for the court's integrity," said this lawyer. "Could Justice Clinton follow their example?"

Politics, however, may trump family ties. Perhaps three justices or more could retire in the next four to eight years, among them some of the more liberal members of the bench. The new president might face competing pressures to name a woman, a minority — especially a Hispanic or an Asian-American — and a younger judge or lawyer to fill any vacancies, three qualifications a white male in his 60s like Clinton would not have.

"This particular idea has zero chance of coming true," said Thomas Goldstein, a top appellate attorney who writes on his popular Web site, scotusblog.com.

The more immediate effect of such talk might be more practical: it could help motivate conservative voters in an election year to ensure no Clinton ever reaches the White House or the Supreme Court anytime soon.