A federal appeals court says Philadelphia's two major daily newspapers can deny creditors the right to use about $300 million owed them to bid at an upcoming bankruptcy auction.

Monday's split 2-1 decision upholds a lower court ruling in a bitter dispute for control of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.

The panel says the bankruptcy code "unambiguously permits" a debtor to craft any plan that gives lenders a clear equivalent of their secured interest. The opinion says lenders have no statutory right to bid with the company's IOUs.

An auction is set for next month.

A local ownership group — comprised of two current and one new investor — hopes to win the auction with a bid of $67 million in cash and real estate.

All the men argued that the state violated their Sixth Amendment due process rights because they were sentenced to death by a judge instead of a jury, as required under the 2002 federal decision.

But in a unanimous ruling handed down Friday, the Idaho Supreme Court noted that their cases were all appealed and the judgments made final before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling was issued — and that 2002 decision can't be retroactively applied to the Idaho inmates' cases.

All six inmates have appeals in various stages of state and federal court that will now move forward.

An appellate court has upheld references to God on U.S. currency and in the Pledge of Allegiance, rejecting arguments they violate the constitutional separation of church and state.

"The Pledge of Allegiance serves to unite our vast nation through the proud recitation of some of the ideals upon which our Republic was founded," Judge Carlos Bea wrote for the majority in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 2-1 ruling Thursday.

Bea noted that schools do not require students to recite the pledge, which was amended to include the words "under God" by a 1954 federal law. Members of Congress at the time said they wanted to set the United States apart from "godless communists."

In a separate 3-0 ruling, the appeals court upheld the inscription of the national motto "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins and currency, citing an earlier 9th Circuit panel that ruled the phrase is ceremonial and patriotic and "has nothing whatsover to do with the establishment of religion."

The same appeals court caused a national uproar and prompted accusations of judicial activism when it decided in Sacramento athiest Michael Newdow's favor in 2002, ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance violated the First Amendment prohibition against government endorsement of religion.

President George W. Bush called the 2002 decision "ridiculous," senators passed a resolution condemning the ruling and Newdow received death threats.

That lawsuit reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004, but the high court said Newdow lacked the legal standing to file the suit because he didn't have custody of his daughter, on whose behalf he brought the case.

So Newdow filed an identical challenge on behalf of other parents who objected to the recitation of the pledge at school. In 2005, a federal judge in Sacramento decided in Newdow's favor, prompting the appeals court to take up the case again.

Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who was part of the three-judge panel that ruled in Newdow's favor eight years ago, wrote a 123-page dissent to the 60-page majority opinion.

Ginsburg was speaking Thursday at a conference of female judges, many who are elected. She approves of the campaign by her former colleague, retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, to end judicial elections and the vast sums of money spent on those campaigns.

Ginsburg says that if there's one reform she would make, that would be it.

The case had been closely watched by both gun-control and gun-rights proponents.

Massachusetts prosecutors argued that the law saves lives because it requires guns to be kept in a locked container or equipped with a trigger lock when not under the owner's control. The Second Amendment Foundation Inc., however, cited a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said people have a constitutional right to keep weapons for self-defense.

The state Supreme Judicial Court, ruling in the case of a man charged with improperly storing a hunting rifle in his Billerica home, unanimously agreed that the Second Amendment does not overrule the state's right to require owners to store guns safely.

"We conclude that the legal obligation safely to secure firearms (in the Massachusetts law) is not unconstitutional ... and that the defendant may face prosecution on this count," Justice Ralph Gants wrote.

The case involved Richard Runyan, whose mentally disabled son allegedly shot at a neighbor with a BB gun. The 18-year-old showed police where his father kept other guns, and the father was charged with improperly storing a hunting rifle under his bed.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone, whose office prosecuted Runyan, praised the court's ruling.

The Supreme Court will decide whether drug makers can be sued by parents who claim their children suffered serious health problems from vaccines.

The justices on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from parents in Pittsburgh who want to sue Wyeth over the serious side effects their daughter, six months old at the time, allegedly suffered as a result of the company's diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled against Robalee and Russell Bruesewitz, saying a 1986 federal law bars their claims.

That law set up a special vaccine court to handle disputes as part of its aim of insuring a stable vaccine supply by shielding companies from most lawsuits.

Wyeth, now owned by Pfizer, Inc., prevailed at the appeals court but also joined in asking the court to hear the case, saying it presents an important and recurring legal issue that should be resolved.

The Obama administration joined the parties in calling for high court review, although the government takes the side of the manufacturers.