Less than a week after pushing through legislation to impose a 90 percent tax on the bonuses, the House Financial Services Committee prepared a considerably milder proposal that would let Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and financial regulators decide if employee compensation was "unreasonable" or "excessive."

The panel was expected to endorse the measure on Thursday, paving the way for a floor vote as early as next week.

The proposal, sponsored by Democratic Reps. Alan Grayson of Florida and James Himes of Connecticut, would not force employees of insurance giant AIG to give back money already paid to them. But it would empower the government to stop future payouts by financial institutions even if employees have been promised the money.

The bill would exempt firms willing to participate in a government-sponsored program aimed at buying up $1 trillion of bad debt, or "toxic assets," sitting on the books of major banks.

Republicans opposed the bill because they said it was too vague.

"Private investors need certainty that Washington will not change the rules of the game while the game is being played," said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the committee's top Republican.

But Democrats said it was necessary to protect taxpayer dollars. They pointed to a provision that would require Geithner to set standards to measure an employee's performance and the stability of a financial institution before bonuses are paid.

The justices' decision Monday ends lawsuits first filed in 2000. Federal appeals courts in New York and Washington threw out the complaints after Congress passed a law in 2005 giving the gun industry broad immunity against such lawsuits.

The city's lawsuit asked for no monetary damages. It had sought a court order for gun makers to more closely monitor those dealers who frequently sell guns later used to commit crimes.

But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law provides the gun industry with broad immunity from lawsuits brought by crime victims and violence-plagued cities. The Supreme Court refused to reconsider that decision.

The lawsuit was first brought in June 2000 while Rudy Giuliani was New York mayor. It was delayed due to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and because of similar litigation in the state courts.

The court ruling on Monday reverses a Vermont Supreme Court decision that threw out the assault conviction of Michael Brillon. The state court said Brillon's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial had been violated after he was jailed for three years and went through six defense attorneys before his trial for hitting his girlfriend in the face.

In an opinion by Justice Ruth Ginsburg, the court said taxpayers may pay the bills for a public defender, but the lawyer represents his client, not the state.

"Most of the delay that the Vermont Supreme Court attributed to the state must therefore be attributed to Brillon as delays caused by his counsel," Ginsburg said.

But the court also said the state high court should take another look at whether a breakdown in Vermont's public defender system played a role in Brillon's case and, if so, whether his rights were violated.

The New York state appeals panel issued a unanimous and unprecedented ruling in the case of Mark Speranza, 23, who left semen samples at the Repro Lab Inc. in July 1997 and signed a form directing that they be destroyed if he died. He wanted to be able to father a child if he survived his battle with cancer.

Following their son's death in January 1998, Mary and Antonio Speranza of Edison, N.J., told Repro's operator that they wanted a grandchild and wanted to save the sperm so a surrogate mother could be artificially inseminated.

The lab operator, Awilda Grillo, told the Speranzas their son deposited the specimens for his use only and the specimens had not been screened for donation to a member of the public, as required by state law.

The Speranzas paid Grillo storage fees and asked her to preserve the sperm specimens until a court could decide on custody.

State Supreme Court Justice Jane Solomon ruled that the law barred use of the sperm. She noted that the required screening, specifically a blood test of the donor, was now impossible since Mark Speranza was dead.

Either way, he says, the Constitution gives him the right to test the genetic evidence to find out.

The Supreme Court was to hear arguments Monday on Osborne's case and announcing whether it has accepted any new appeals.

More than 230 people have been exonerated based on DNA tests performed years after their convictions, according to the Innocence Project, a legal group that has sought genetic testing on behalf of hundreds of prison inmates and led the charge to free those who were wrongly convicted.

In many cases, eyewitnesses picked out the wrong man, often with the victim of one race incorrectly identifying someone of a different color. Among the exonerated were people who confessed to crimes, even though they were innocent.

The woman in Alaska was raped, beaten with an ax handle, shot in the head and left for dead in a snow bank near the Anchorage International Airport. The condom that was found nearby was used in the assault, the woman said.

Supreme Court justices take two oaths before assuming the bench. In recent years, several justices took one of the oaths at the White House with the president in attendance.

Stevens, who is the oldest sitting justice, called that "inappropriate symbolism." Justices are supposed to be independent of politics and the White House.

He says that is why he refuses to attend Supreme Court ceremonies at the White House. He called on future nominees and future presidents to end the modern practice of having taking one of oaths done at the White House.