A worldwide shortage of an anesthetic used in lethal injections almost kept Ohio from proceeding with an execution scheduled this week.

An attorney for the state warned a federal judge last week and again Monday the prisons department might not be able to find enough thiopental sodium for Thursday's execution.

Principal Assistant Attorney General Charles Wille (WIL'-ee) told U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost later Monday the prisons department eventually was able to get the proper supply of the anesthetic. That supply includes doses beyond what would be needed to put condemned inmate Michael Beuke (BYOO'-kee) to death for a fatal shooting.

Prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn tells The Associated Press she doesn't think the shortage will affect other executions.

Beuke says he was brain-damaged at the time of the killing. He's asked for clemency.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that journalists do not have a blanket right to shield confidential sources.

The court ruled 8-1 against the National Post and former reporter Andrew McIntosh, who sought to quash a search warrant issued almost a decade ago in a case dealing with a possibly forged document from a secret source linked to a political scandal.

In finding there is no broad protection for journalists to shield sources, the justices said claims of immunity can be argued on a case-by-case basis.

"The law should and does accept that in some situations the public interest in protecting the secret source from disclosure outweighs other competing public interests — including criminal investigations," Justice Ian Binnie wrote on the court's behalf.

"In those circumstances, the courts will recognize an immunity against disclosure of sources to whom confidentiality has been promised."

But Binnie wrote that in this situation, the needs of a police investigation trumped the right to keep sources confidential.

A federal appeals court on Thursday intervened to block the release of nine members of a Michigan militia accused of plotting to overthrow the government, dealing a setback to the defendants as they gathered in a courtroom hoping to rejoin their families.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati issued a temporary stay about 12 hours after a federal judge in Detroit said she would no longer freeze her Monday decision releasing the nine with electronic monitors and other restrictions.

With some already in street clothes, the militia members were transported to court to be processed for release Thursday. But they were returned to jail after a magistrate judge announced the appeals court decision.

Prosecutors say they will ask a federal appeals court to quickly intervene and stop the release of nine jailed Michigan militia members accused of conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government.

U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade says the conditions set by a judge will not ensure the public's safety. She says the appeals court will be asked to issue an emergency stay Thursday.

The nine were expected to be returned to court to be processed at 11 a.m. EDT before being released. But the appeals court could halt everything.

U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts on Monday said the militia members could be released until trial with electronic monitoring devices. She froze her order until Wednesday night.

They are charged with conspiracy to commit sedition, or rebellion, against the government and the attempted use of weapons of mass destruction.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Pfizer Inc. that sought to thwart a securities lawsuit alleging the drugmaker misrepresented the safety profile of the blockbuster pain drug Celebrex.

The plaintiffs alleged that Pfizer's Pharmacia unit deliberately withheld the full results of a medical study that showed no safety advantage to using Celebrex over less expensive anti-inflammatory drugs.

Pfizer argued that investors missed a two-year statute of limitations to bring the lawsuit. The investors said there was no evidence of a possible fraud until the Washington Post published an article about missing Celebrex data in August 2001, meaning their April 2003 lawsuit was within two years of that development.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled last year that the lawsuit was not filed too late. The Supreme Court let that ruling stand without comment.

The high court's denial of Pfizer's appeal comes a week after the justices ruled unanimously that investors didn't wait too long to file securities lawsuits alleging that Merck & Co. misrepresented the safety of painkiller drug Vioxx. Pfizer's appeal had been on hold pending the outcome of the Merck case.

President Barack Obama has accelerated his search for his next Supreme Court nominee, meeting in the Oval Office with one of the candidates, federal judge Sidney Thomas of Montana, a person familiar with the conversation says.

Obama's meeting with Thomas on Thursday was his first known formal interview for the upcoming vacancy on the court. He is holding conversations with other candidates, and it is not clear whether he has already had other personal meetings with contenders.

Vice President Joe Biden interviewed Thomas at the White House in a separate meeting Thursday, said the person familiar with the conversations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama's private deliberations.

The White House had no comment. A call to Thomas' chambers was not answered.

The personal time Obama devoted to Thomas suggests that the federal judge, well respected within legal circles but hardly a familiar name in Washington, is under a higher level of consideration by the president.

The news of his interview by the president and vice president works to the White House's advantage in signaling that Obama is giving a hard review to a candidate who comes from outside the Washington Beltway and does not neatly fit into conventional wisdom.