The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation and three of its members have no legal standing to bring the case.

The group was trying to end the department's practice of asking patients about their religion in "spiritual assessments," its use of chaplains to treat patients, and drug and alcohol treatment programs that incorporate religion. It claimed those practices violated the separation of church and state.

But the court ruled that federal taxpayers cannot challenge those expenditures. The court cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year in which the same group was not allowed to sue over President Bush's faith-based initiative.

In that case, the court ruled 5-4 the executive branch cannot be sued by taxpayers for expenses that allegedly promote religion. Cases can only be brought when the questionable expenditures are explicitly authorized in a congressional spending bill, the court ruled.

Congress never authorized spending on the chaplain services, pastoral care and other programs challenged, the 7th Circuit ruled.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, the foundation's co-president, criticized the ruling but said an appeal to the Supreme Court was unlikely. She said the group would look for VA patients who object to their treatment to be potential plaintiffs but said such a case would still be difficult to win.

"The courts are moving to the position where government can fund religious activities and endorse religion without restraint," she said. "It's really very disturbing."

The veterans agency, which treated 5.3 million people at its facilities in 2005, says it believes spirituality should be integrated into care, but it allows patients to decide whether that involves religion.

Its spiritual assessments ask patients a series of questions about their faith, such as how often they attend church and how important religion is in their lives. Agency officials say the assessments help them determine patients' needs.

Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, who was wounded in the buttocks while fleeing from an abandoned marijuana load in 2005, was sentenced to 9 1/2 years in prison for his role in two other smuggling efforts later that same year.

His sentencing came a little more than a week after a federal appeals court upheld lengthy sentences for the two agents convicted in his shooting, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compeau. Several members of Congress have called on President Bush to commute the agents' sentences or pardon them.

Aldrete was shot in February 2005, and testified against the agents in their 2006 trial, telling jurors he was unarmed when he was shot as he ran toward Mexico after a brief scuffle with Compean. Ramos and Compean argued they believed Aldrete had a weapon.

Aldrete pleaded guilty in April to two counts of possession with the intent to distribute a controlled substance, and one count each of conspiracy to import a controlled substance and conspiracy to possess a controlled substance.

Child Protective Services filed petitions asking Texas District Judge Barbara Walther to place the six girls and two boys belonging to four different mothers back in foster care.

The children, ranging in age from 5 to 17, will be allowed to remain with their mothers until a hearing scheduled for Sept. 25, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. None currently lives at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado.

CPS filed petitions detailing alleged involvement in underage marriages by the children's fathers or stepfathers, submitting sect marriage documents, notes from suspected underage brides, photos and journal entries from Warren Jeffs, the jailed leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Two of the girls are daughters of Lloyd Hammon Barlow, a doctor indicted last month on three misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse, according to court filings.

Five other sect members, including Jeffs, were charged with sexual assault last month, but their children are not among those in the CPS petitions. The other six children are related, by blood or marriage, to men who are not under indictment but are accused by child welfare authorities of participating in or blessing underage marriages.

An FLDS spokesman did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment Tuesday.

CPS has continued its investigation of the 440 children taken from the Eldorado ranch since the Texas Supreme Court ruled in late May that the children should not have been swept into foster care under a blanket petition and hearing. The court said evidence showed no more than a handful of girls were abused or were at risk of abuse.

In overturning a lower court ruling that had blocked the service, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the judge wrongly concluded that Cablevision, rather than its customers, would be making copies of programs, thereby violating copyright laws.

The next-generation technology would let any cable subscriber with a digital cable box store TV shows on computer servers rather than on a hard drive in their home.

Cablevision's system was challenged by a group of Hollywood studios that claimed the remote-storage DVR service would have amounted to an unauthorized re-broadcast of their programs. A lawyer for the studios did not immediately return a call for comment.

Cablevision, in arguing that control of the recording and playback was in the hands of the consumer, had relied on a landmark 1984 Supreme Court case which found Sony Corp. did not break copyright laws by letting viewers use videotape recorders to record shows for personal use.

Craig Moffett, a senior cable analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said the ruling "sent shock waves to every corner of the media landscape" by taking the availability of DVR-like function from 25 percent ot U.S. homes to nearly 50 percent.

That means many more viewers would be taping shows and watching them at their leisure, likely skipping many commercials. The ad-zapping ability of DVR devices has broadcasters and advertisers worried that fewer people will watch commercials.

The case has been closely watched in the industry as cable companies increasingly offer digital video recording services to their customers, and Moffett said it was likely to end up at the U.S. Supreme Court.

International attention has been focused on the execution of convicted killer Jose Medellin scheduled for Tuesday. The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, said the Mexican-born Medellin and some 50 other Mexicans on death row around the nation should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether a 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests.

Medellin, now 33, is the first among the 50 who is set to die.

His attorneys contend Medellin was denied the protections of the Vienna Convention, which calls for people arrested to have access to their home country's consular officials. He has been in the United States since the age of 3.

"The United States' word should not be so carelessly broken, nor its standing in the international community so needlessly compromised," Medellin's attorneys said, seeking a reprieve in a filing late last week with the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court had not issued any ruling as of Sunday.

President Bush has asked states to review the cases. Texas has refused to budge.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico warned of possible protests there Tuesday.

Medellin's lawyers went to the Supreme Court after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, refused to stop the lethal injection. The justices ruled in March that neither the President nor the international court can force Texas' hand.

Judges from the 11th U.S. Circuit in Atlanta issued an injunction Wednesday ordering the action while a discrimination lawsuit filed by Beta Upsilon Chi against the school moves forward.

The fraternity hasn't been allowed to join the off-campus system of fraternities and sororities because its rules bar religious discrimination. The fraternity requires its members to be Christians.

The fraternity's lawsuit claims the fraternity is deprived of official benefits given to other groups, including access to meeting space and the ability to advertise and recruit members on campus.