Based on the order, known as a preliminary injunction, a federal judge ruled that Florida should pay Wyner's lawyers $25,000 in legal fees.

But Wyner's lawsuit also was a broader challenge to a Florida law that bans nudity on beaches, arguing that the law violated her First Amendment right of free expression.

Wyner lost that fight and the Supreme Court said that what matters is the final resolution of the lawsuit.

"Here, at the end of the fray, Florida prevailed in the suit. The state's bathing suit rule remained intact," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her opinion for the court.

Ginsburg cautioned that the court was taking no position "on the extent to which the First Amendment protects artworks that involve nudity."

Because the case had the potential for broad impact on lawsuits against governments generally, the Bush administration and 24 states joined Florida in urging the court to reverse the award of attorney's fees.

An unusual array of conservative and liberal interest groups came together in support of Wyner, arguing that public interest law firms would be left without any compensation in many cases.

The governments wanted the court to rule that parties who win preliminary injunctions can never recover attorney's fees.

The court, however, left unanswered what happens in lawsuits in which "the preliminary injunction essentially resolves the whole case and ends the litigation," said Andrew Pincus, a partner with the Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw law firm who filed a brief on behalf of the interest groups.

Authorities have been tracking the plot for more than a year. The suspects include Russell Defreitas, a US citizen native to Guyana and former JFK air cargo employee, Abdul Kadir of Guyana, Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad, and Abdel Nur of Guyana, who is still being sought in Trinidad. Defreitas said he formed the plot more than a decade ago when he worked as a cargo handler. He said he chose the airport because its destruction would put "the whole country in mourning."

China promised Monday to better control emissions of greenhouse gases, unveiling a new national program to combat global warming, but rejected mandatory caps on emissions as unfair to countries still trying to catch up with the developed West.

The program offered few new concrete targets for reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that are believed to contribute to global warming. But the plan outlined steps China would take to meet a previously announced government goal of improving overall energy efficiency in 2010 by 20 percent over 2005's level.

One of China's chief objectives is "to make significant achievements in controlling greenhouse gas emissions," said the report, released by the National Development and Reform Commission, the economic planning agency.

Among the measures the government called for were stepped-up efforts to put the hard-charging but inefficient economy on a more sustainable footing, to research and deploy new energy-saving technologies and to plant more trees.

Given an economy that has been growing at better than 9 percent annually over the past 25 years, the plan's overall effect, if implemented, would be to slow the increase in greenhouse gases, not reduce their absolute amount.

China has fallen under increasing pressure internationally to take more forceful measures to curb releases of greenhouse gases. The country relies on coal among the dirtiest of fuels to meet two-thirds of its energy needs and is projected to surpass the U.S. as the world's No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases sometimes in the next two years.

In explaining the new program, the head of China's planning agency said global warming was largely caused by 200 years of unrestrained industrialization by the West, and it would be unfair to impose mandatory emissions caps on China and other developing nations.

"This would hinder the development of developing countries and hamper their industrialization," Ma Kai told reporters.

The report's release seemed in part an attempt to pre-empt criticism of China when Chinese President Hu Jintao attends an expanded summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Germany this Friday. The summit will feature a session on global warming.

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Friday announced draft legislation to combat violent crime that would increase penalties, extend the statute of limitations for prosecution, and create separate statutory prohibitions against violent crime by illegal immigrants. The proposed Violent Crime and Anti-Terrorism Act of 2007, brought forward just days after FBI Assistant Director of Public Affairs John Miller said that a forthcoming FBI report would detail a nationwide increase in murders, robberies and other violent crimes for a second straight year, also seeks to restore the binding nature of sentencing guidelines, which the US Supreme Court found to be merely advisory in US v. Booker. The legislation would also expand federal narcotics law, sexual predator law, and anti-terrorism law.

Gonzales also announced the expansion of violent crime task forces into four new cities: Mesa, AZ; Orlando, FL; San Bernardino, CA; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In a statement made at the ATF Headquarters, Gonzales said that the four cities were chosen because they asked for help following an "unacceptable increase in homicides or other violent crimes" [statement text]. The addition of the four cities means that 29 US cities are now covered in the Violent Crime Impact Team program. Friday's proposals do not increase funding for individual communities' own law enforcement groups.

Bruckner has an impressive track record advising domestic and multinational clients in private equity transactions, with specific expertise advising on large and mid-size management and leveraged buy-outs.

"Volkmar's work on a number of large and mid-market deals has elevated him as a 'rising star' at the German M&A and private equity bar. His experience handling complex domestic and cross-border deals strengthens our capability in Germany.  He has developed a reputation within German private equity circles for being extremely hard-working, having a strong team spirit and possessing an entrepreneurial attitude - qualities that we place high emphasis on. Volkmar joins a strong and ambitious team in Germany, and his experience and attitude will further reinforce our position in Europe," said Jörg Kirchner, Office Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins in Munich.

John Watson, Vice Chair of the Global Corporate Department, commented: "On the corporate side, we are committed to building the leading private equity, M&A and acquisition finance capability in Europe. We have taken great strides in this direction, working on some of the most widely-watched deals in the market, entering new markets and attracting major players in Europe  to join our team. Volkmar's arrival is further evidence of this commitment and ambition."

"I admire Latham's private equity practice and the firm's focus and success at building a deep corporate capability in Europe.  The firm's global platform and culture of integration together with its strong German presence will provide additional opportunities for me to grow my practice and attract new clients," said Bruckner.

Bruckner joins Latham & Watkins from Dechert LLP, where he has been a partner since January 2006. He joined Dechert in 2004 from Baker & McKenzie, where he practiced as an associate since 1999. Bruckner studied law at the University of Erlangen, completing his PhD at Erlangen in 2001. He completed an LL.M. in international comparative law at George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C. in 1996.  He teaches M&A and private equity related courses at the Nuremberg University Business School.

The high court certified a class covering about 72,000 former and current Wal-Mart workers. One legal expert said the decision "isn't good news for Wal-Mart".

"My speculation is that a jury is likely to find for the plaintiffs, given New Jersey juries and the pretty strong evidence put on elsewhere," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia. Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, faces more than 70 US wage-and-hour suits, including class actions by employees claiming the company failed to pay for all hours worked or didn't compensate them properly for overtime.

Since December 2005, juries in Pennsylvania and California have awarded Wal-Mart workers a total of $US251 million ($A303 million) in pay and damages over such claims.

"We're disappointed with the decision and we're studying the opinion," Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said.

Workers' lawyer Judy Spanier said her clients were "very pleased" with the decision. "It essentially adopts every argument we made," she said.

The ruling sends the case back to state court in New Brunswick for pretrial evidence-gathering.

The trial court first refused to grant class-action status, saying the case would be unmanageable. A mid-level appeals court upheld the decision. The Supreme Court found both lower courts were in error.

The workers claim Wal-Mart forced them to work through meal breaks, locked them in retail stores after they clocked out and coerced them into working off the clock.

The New Jersey action class will cover current and former hourly Wal-Mart staff employed from May 30, 1996, to the present.

Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP has combined its two D.C. offices in one location, bringing together more than 200 lawyers and government affairs professionals.

The law firm, resulting from the Jan. 1 merger of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham and Preston Gates & Ellis, has 1,400 lawyers who practice from offices in D.C. and numerous other cities around the globe, including Beijing, Boston, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

The firm's combined D.C. office is at 1601 K St. NW, a 190,000-square-foot space that was also the previous home of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham. The firm took an additional 10,000 square feet of space at that location to house the additional workers from Preston Gates & Ellis.

The former D.C. office of Preston Gates & Ellis was at 1735 New York Ave. NW.

In Washington, the firm is known for its work in financial services, including an investment management practice and a mortgage banking and consumer credit group. By merging their operations, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis also has one of the largest public policy and lobbying practices nationwide.

In addition, the D.C. office has a litigation group that handles a variety of general, commercial, securities, antitrust, government contracts, environmental and insurance coverage matters. The office also focuses on energy, telecom, media, food and drug, transportation and emerging companies.