A federal judge has again refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by an Iowa woman who claims contaminated water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina contributed to her cancer.

U.S. District Court Judge Terence Boyle this week denied the federal government's motion to end the litigation filed by Laura Jones.

Jones used contaminated water during the 1980s while her husband was stationed at the Marine Corps base. She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2003.

The government argued state law prevents a claim because the contamination took place more than 10 years after her illness. But Boyle said there's an exception for latent diseases.

In the six days Tom DeLay has been on trial, prosecutors have called 22 witnesses and presented volumes of e-mails and other documents as they try to convince a jury that the former U.S. House majority leader illegally funneled corporate donations to Texas GOP candidates in 2002.

So far, no witness or document has directly tied DeLay to the alleged scheme, and some courtroom observers are questioning how strong the prosecution's case is.

"I guess we have to give (prosecutors) the benefit of the doubt. They haven't finished their case yet. But what I've seen so far is troubling," said Bradley Simon, a New York white collar criminal defense lawyer who has been following the trial.

DeLay is charged with money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors allege he and two associates — John Colyandro and Jim Ellis — illegally channeled $190,000 in corporate donations collected by DeLay's Texas PAC through the Washington-based Republican National Committee. Under Texas law, corporate money can't go directly to political campaigns. Testimony was to resume Wednesday.

Former PAC fundraisers, lobbyists and Texas candidates who allegedly received illegal corporate donations have detailed for jurors how DeLay's PAC worked, the donations it received and problems it was having in raising money from individual donors — the only type of funds that could go to political campaigns under Texas law. Prosecutors have implied DeLay was the driving force behind the PAC and the alleged scheme to "clean" the corporate donations through a money swap they say couldn't have been done without his knowledge.

The former Houston-area congressman denies wrongdoing. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.

The Supreme Court has declined to step into a lesbian custody dispute between a woman who has renounced her homosexuality and her onetime partner.

The justices on Monday turned down an appeal from Lisa Miller, the biological mother of an 8-year-old girl. Miller wanted the court to undo a Virginia court decision allowing Janet Jenkins visitation rights with the girl.

Jenkins is from Vermont. Miller is from Virginia. They were joined in a civil union in Vermont in 2000. Their daughter has been the subject of a long-running legal fight.

Miller has renounced her homosexuality. She and her daughter did not appear for a court-ordered custody swap in January. Their whereabouts are unknown.

A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order blocking a state constitutional amendment that prohibits state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.

U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange ruled Monday morning in Oklahoma City following a brief hearing. It prevents the state election board from certifying the results of Tuesday's general election in which the amendment was approved by 70 percent of the voters.

The order will remain in effect until a Nov. 22 hearing on a requested preliminary injunction.

It was issued in a lawsuit filed by the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma. Muneer Awad said during the hearing that the law stigmatizes his religion.

An appeals court on Friday overturned a judge's order for the release of a Guantanamo Bay detainee accused of helping al-Qaida recruit two men who became Sept. 11 hijackers.

A lower court judge had ruled Mohamedou Ould Salahi should be freed after eight years at Guantanamo because he was abused by interrogators at the U.S. military prison in Cuba and that tainted the evidence against him. Other classified information was insufficient to support a criminal prosecution, the judge ruled.

Salahi, now 40 years old, later retracted his confession to persuading the two men to travel to Afghanistan to train for jihad.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the Obama administration's request to order Salahi's continued detention. But the judges unanimously agreed the lower court must reconsider the case, given new legal opinions in other Guantanamo lawsuits.

The Supreme Court appeared closely divided Wednesday about an Arizona tax-break program that provides millions of dollars in scholarships for students at private religious schools.

The conservative justices indicated they are likely to rule against a challenge to the Arizona program that says it amounts to an unconstitutional state endorsement of religion. The court's liberals suggested they have problems with the state's tax credit.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the decisive vote in ideologically divided cases, asked questions of both sides that did not tip his hand.

The Obama administration joined with the state in arguing in strong defense of the program, saying the Arizona residents who oppose it should not even be allowed to bring their lawsuit in federal court.

For the past 13 years, Arizona has allowed residents to send up to $500 to a tuition scholarship organization that they would have otherwise paid the state in taxes on their incomes.

The problem, in the view of the American Civil Liberties Union-backed challenge to the program, is that most of the money goes to groups that award scholarships on the basis of religion and require children to enroll in religious schools.