While some union foes called the court's ruling an important victory and predicted that it would lead to other such laws, the National Right to Work Committee acknowledged that it decided a narrow issue.

The justices did not say it was unconstitutional to require teachers and other public employees to pay dues to a union. Rather, they said only that states that allow public sector unions may also protect the rights of dissidents.

At issue before the court was a unique Washington state law that said unions may not collect fees from a nonmember and spend this money on politics unless "affirmatively authorized by the individual."

The state's largest teachers union challenged this rule in court. The Washington Supreme Court struck down the restriction as a violation of the union's rights, but the ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court.

"Unions have no constitutional entitlement to the fees of nonmember employees," said Justice Antonin Scalia. "It is undeniably unusual for a government agency to give a private entity the power, in essence, to tax government employees," he wrote, referring to the "agency shop" laws in many states that permit such arrangements in the public sector.

The vote was a devastating blow to efforts to reverse a 2003 court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.

An amendment now can't reach voters before 2010. That would happen only with a successful new petition drive and the backing of 50 lawmakers in two consecutive sittings of the 200-seat Legislature - including the one that just rejected the ballot measure.

Such a scenario appeared increasingly unlikely, but opponents of gay marriage vowed to press on.

North Korea lambasted U.S. efforts to build a missile defense system Friday and vowed to increase its "self-defense deterrent," a term that the communist regime usually uses to refer to its nuclear program.

"The U.S. is claiming that it is building a global missile defense system to protect against missile attacks from our nation and Iran. This is a childish pretext," the North's ministry said in a statement carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.

"We cannot but further strengthen our self-defense deterrent if (an) arms race intensifies because of the U.S. maneuvers," it said.

The North Korean warning came as Russia seemed reluctant to respond to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates' assertion Thursday that the Bush administration will not replace its plan for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe with Moscow's counterproposal for a radar site in Azerbaijan.

Gates met briefly with Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, and told reporters afterward that the hotly debated missile defense plan simply did not come up.

"I guess I would have to say, honestly, I was somewhat surprised," said Gates, who is attending a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Belgium. "I don't know how to read it, to be honest."

The silence came after other Russian officials blasted the U.S. plan, and warned that the new sites could be targeted by Russian missiles.

Gates said he did not bring the matter up in his session with Serdyukov because, "I felt I'd been pretty explicit yesterday in the session so I didn't feel the need to." Instead, Gates said, they talked about plans for an upcoming meeting between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

During a session on Thursday, Gates told the allies that the U.S. will proceed with its plans for a radar system in the Czech Republic to watch for missile threats and 10 interceptor rockets in Poland to shoot down any missiles.

And he flatly dismissed any notion that Russia's push for joint use of a radar station in Azerbaijan could replace the broader U.S. plan.

He also said he doubts that there could be any agreement with the Russians by next month, when Mr. Bush meets Putin at Kennebunkport, Maine.

"I was very explicit in the (NATO) meeting that we saw the Azeri radar as an additional capability, that we intended to proceed with the X-Band radar in the Czech Republic," Gates told reporters Thursday.

Russian officials earlier this week called for a freeze on the U.S. plan, arguing that it would undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent. And they reportedly issued threats against the planned sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Meanwhile, NATO ordered its military experts to draw up plans for a possible short-range missile defense system to protect nations on the alliance's southern flank that would be left exposed by proposed U.S. anti-missile units in central Europe.

According to U.S. and NATO officials, the addition of the European bases to anti-missile installations in North America would protect most of Europe from the threat of long-range attack from Iran or elsewhere in the Middle East. But it would leave Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and parts of Romania exposed.

To fill that gap, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO experts would produce a report by February on short-range anti-missile defenses "that can be bolted on to the overall missile defense system as it would be installed by the United States."

Russia has threatened to retaliate against the U.S. plans by pulling out of a key arms control treaty and pointing warheads at Europe for the first time since the Cold War. However, at last week's G-8 summit, Putin seemed to take a more open approach, suggesting Russia could cooperate with the West on an anti-missile radar base in Azerbaijan.

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in the City of New York's favour. Justice Clarence Thomas, giving the opinion of the court, noted that under New York law, property owned by a foreign government is exempt from taxation

if it is "used exclusively" for diplomatic offices or for the quarters of a diplomat "with the rank of ambassador or minister plenipotentiary" to the United Nations.

The PMI building is owned by the government of India. Several floors are used for diplomatic offices, but approximately 20 floors contain residential units for diplomatic employees of the mission and their families. The employees — all of whom are below the rank of Head of Mission or Ambassador — are Indian citizens who receive housing from the mission rent free, the Supreme Court noted.

In April, India and Mongolia filed a joint reply in the case saying, "housing Mission staff on Mission premises because the foreign sovereign has determined that their presence is required to perform their diplomatic and governmental duties does not involve any entry of the foreign sovereign into any marketplace. Rather, the activity at issue in the instant cases is entirely between the Governments of India and Mongolia and their own diplomatic staffs, whose employment relationship is governed wholly by the laws of those two nations."

For several years, the City of New York has levied property taxes against India and Mongolia for the portions of their buildings used to house lower level employees, Justice Thomas noted, adding, the two governments refused to pay the taxes.

By operation of New York law, the unpaid taxes eventually converted into tax liens held by the city against the two properties. The Mongolian ministry owed about $2.1 million in 2003, which has since grown to $4.1 million.

The Bush administration backed India and Mongolia, saying the city's lawsuits have invited retaliation by foreign countries against U.S. property overseas.

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the Supreme Court's decision to allow U.S. courts to hear disputes between his city and foreign governments "brings us closer to finally ensuring that countries with missions and consulates in New York pay their fair share in city taxes, just as all New Yorkers do."

On April 2, 2003, the City of New York filed complaints in a state court seeking judgement to establish the validity of the tax liens. Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer, giving the dissenting opinion yesterday, said, "This case is not about the validity of the city's title to immovable property, or even the validity of its automatic pre-judgement lien.

Rather, it is a dispute over a foreign sovereign's tax liability. If Congress had intended the statute to waive sovereign immunity in tax litigation, I think it would have said so."

The Permanent Mission of India in New York did not return a call from the Tribune for comment.

Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the jurisdiction of U.S. courts generally does not extend to foreign governments. But the Supreme Court cited the exception when "rights in immovable property" are at issue. This, the court said, applied in the New York case.

The law also required the unions to refund the fee to nonmembers who oppose the political activity proposed by the union.

The case involved the Washington Education Association, the state's largest teachers union. About 4,000 of the more than 70,000 people it represents choose not to be members, according to the union, which said Washington is the only state in the nation with such a law.

Lawyers for the state and the Bush administration urged the Supreme Court to uphold the law because it was designed to regulate campaign financing in state elections. The high court agreed in an opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia.

"The purpose of the voters of Washington was undoubtedly the general one of protecting the integrity of elections by limiting electoral spending in certain ways," Scalia said.

"Quite obviously, no suppression of ideas is afoot, since the union remains as free as any other entity to participate in the electoral process with all available funds other than" those fees by nonmembers who refuse to give their approval, Scalia said.

Pearson also called himself as a witness, saying his problems began in May 2005 when he brought in several suits for alterations. A pair of pants from a blue and maroon suit was missing when he requested it two days later. He said Soo Chung tried to give him a pair of charcoal gray pants.

As Pearson explained that those weren't the pants for the suit, he choked up and left the courtroom crying after asking Bartnoff for a break.

Pearson originally asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit, which was more than $1,000. But because the Chungs insisted the pants had been found, they refused to pay.

Manning has said the cleaners made three settlement offers to Pearson, but the judge was not satisfied and increased his demands — including asking for money to rent a car so he could drive to another business.