A decision is expected before the court term ends in late June.
(No. 07-665, Pleasant Grove City vs. Summum)
GOP governors meet in Dem-tilting Florida MIAMI, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The 2008 Republican Governors Association meeting is being held in a state, Florida, that is showing many signs of trouble for the GOP, observers say.
The meeting is being hosted by Gov. Charlie Crist, who after being hailed as a "rock star" at the 2006 meeting for being one of only three GOP non-incumbents to win a statehouse that year, saw his key battleground state vote for Democratic U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.
Crist, while still holding good but lower approval numbers, has seen Florida lose 115,000 jobs so far this year, the most of any U.S. state, fueling worries among Republican Party leaders that Crist himself will become the target of a concerted Democratic effort to defeat him in 2010, the Miami Herald reported Wednesday.
"Crist can't be blamed for (GOP presidential nominee Sen. John) McCain running a crummy campaign and being weighed down by the burden of President Bush," Republican strategist Ed Rollins told the Herald. "But Crist needs to rebuild his own party in Florida because it's not as safe for Republicans as it once was."
Observers said the GOP spotlight will be on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose sharp partisanship stands in contrast to Crist's centrism.
U.N. won't send more troops to Congo UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The United Nations won't send any more peacekeeping troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the near term, officials said.
The U.N. Security Council failed to reach an agreement on the Congo situation Tuesday despite a plea from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to send 3,000 more troops there, The Times of London reported.
Ban has urged the Congolese government and Tutsi rebels led by Gen. Laurant Nkunda to uphold a cease-fire to allow aid workers to reach an estimated 100,000 refugees trapped behind rebel lines in the country's North Kivu region. Ban also said he was "very concerned by reports of targeted killings of civilians, looting and rape," The Times reported.
Alain Le Roy, the head of U.N. peacekeeping operations, said he was hopeful the Security Council would reach a different conclusion later this month. But John Sawers, Britain's ambassador to the United Nations, was more cautious, telling the newspaper, "There isn't a bottomless pit of peacekeepers, so we do need to make absolutely sure we're making the best possible use of the troops that already exist in the largest peacekeeping force in the world."
Ban said he will submit a report on Congo to the Security Council next week.
Sudan president orders Darfur cease-fire KHARTOUM, Sudan, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir says he's ordering a cease-fire with rebels based in Darfur and will move to disarm pro-government militias.
