Overall, consumers rated their satisfaction with the maker of their PC 3 percent worse than last year, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the annual quality study conducted by the University of Michigan set for release Tuesday.

Apple is still the leader in terms of satisfaction with service and products, but its overall ranking dropped by five percentage points this year. Dell also lost five points on its score. Hewlett-Packard's HP brand showed a 1 percent improvement in a year, while its Compaq label is still rated the worst.

This survey is indicative of consumer satisfaction in general, which increased a mere 1 percent since the second quarter of 2006. Though American consumers' satisfaction has increased for the last nine quarters, that rate of satisfaction is slowing, said Claes Fornell, director of the National Quality Research Center at the University of Michigan, which conducted the study.

"It probably means for the economy at large that we will see a slowdown in consumer spending (next quarter) and consumer demand as well," he said. "We've seen a pretty strong correlation between customers and how satisfied they are and their future purchase behavior."

Admittedly, customer satisfaction is a hard thing to measure, he said. Fornell's group conducts the survey by asking 80,000 customers of the leading PC makers a series of questions related to how they view service quality, price, problems, future or repeat purchase plans, and satisfaction related to expectations.

Among PC vendors, Apple still leads the pack with a score of 79, and Compaq comes in at 73. On a scale of 100, any score in the 70s is respectable, and any rating above 74 means you're doing "quite well," Fornell said.

Apple's drop, even if it is ever so slight, is unusual since the company is usually ranked well on most aspects of the ACSI survey, Fornell said. He points to the Apple's growth as a possible cause, as well as the enormous expectations that come with being a quality leader.

"It's almost like what goes up must come down," he said. "They have done so well that they have increased their business by 400 percent in the last five years. That puts a certain strain on resources. With many more customers to service, it's not that service quality is going down, as much as the reliability of the products." Survey results refer only to Apple's computer products.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said, "Customer satisfaction is very important to Apple. While we're pleased that we're still No. 1, we're going to try even harder."

Dell also dropped 5 percent after raising its ranking last year. Dell's problem is customers' perception of product reliability as well as service, Fornell said. As examples, just this year, both shipping delays of the much-anticipated XPS M1330 notebook and the New York Attorney General Office's decision to sue Dell for consumer fraud have made news.

At issue in the case is shareholders' ability to recover damages from parties, such as investment banks and accountants, that are accused of aiding corporate fraud.

Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat seeking his party's presidential nomination, wrote President Bush urging him "to take appropriate steps to discourage" the Justice Department's solicitor general from filing a brief in the case in support of the defendants.

His letter was sent Tuesday, the day before the deadline for Solicitor General Paul Clement to submit such a brief.

Dodd urged Clement not to file a friend-of-the-court brief that contradicted the Securities and Exchange Commission's position "that parties who contribute to defrauding investors should be held accountable."

On the other side, a bipartisan group of three former SEC chairmen, 13 other former SEC officials and 11 academic experts filed a brief with the court Tuesday supporting the defendant companies. The three ex-chairmen were Roderick Hills, appointed by President Ford; Harvey Pitt, one of Bush's former appointees to the position; and Carter appointee Harold Williams.

On Tuesday, a group of people who lost retirement savings in the collapse of Enron Corp. renewed their plea to Bush to support the share- holders' position, Stoneridge Investment v. Scientific-Atlanta.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco also upheld a lower court's ruling dismissing the defendants' claims that they were immune from punishment because they were government contractors.
Since 1990, more than 2,300 people have sued over health problems they believe were caused by exposure to radioactive emissions from south-central Washington's Hanford site over the years. The downwinder cases are largely based on the release of iodine-131, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear weapons production.

A judge dismissed six of the 12 initial "bellwether" cases. In 2005, juries rejected four more during two trials. Just two people, who suffered from cancer, won damages totaling $544,759 against the government and the contractors that managed the federal site at the time.

The appeals court on Tuesday overturned the verdicts against three plaintiffs, Wanda Buckner, Shirley Carlisle and Kathryn Goldbloom, who suffer from hypothyroidism, a condition that slows the body's metabolism.

The district court erred in ruling that the plaintiff's endocrinologist could not testify that he authored articles on I-131's effect on thyroid cells, because it deprived the jury of testimony from the doctor about the extent of his expertise regarding causes of thyroid illness, the appeals court ruled.

In addition, the defendants were allowed to impeach the doctor's testimony based on inadmissible hearsay of another doctor who did not testify, the court ruled.

"We thus have no choice but to reverse the verdicts against plaintiffs Goldbloom, Carlisle, and Buckner and remand for a new trial," Chief Circuit Judge Mary M. Schroeder wrote for the panel.

The court also overturned the ruling in favor of plaintiff Gloria Wise, who was awarded $317,251, on statute of limitations grounds. However, the appeals court remanded the case to district court to determine whether Wise had the information necessary to file a claim within the three-year statute of limitations.

That particular ruling is significant because it could mean the claims of hundreds of other plaintiffs will be time-barred, said Kevin Van Wart, whose Chicago law firm represents General Electric Co., E.I. DuPont de Nemours Co. and UNC Nuclear Inc.

Richard Eymann, a plaintiffs attorney, said he did not yet know how many other clients could have their cases dismissed as a result. Despite that potential impact, Eymann called the overall ruling a victory for the downwinders.

"We're hoping that the contractors and the government will get into serious settlement negotiations with us," he said.

The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Contractors operated reactors and other facilities that historical documents say resulted in intentional and accidental releases of toxic chemicals and radiation.

Residents only learned of the emissions when the government declassified thousands of documents in 1986.

People in Arizona, Nevada, Utah and the Marshall Islands have received compensation for being exposed to radiation during the atomic buildup. Downwinders at the Hanford site have had a more difficult time because health studies have offered differing opinions on whether they have suffered substantial or chronic exposures that threatened their health.

Iodine-131 concentrates in the thyroid, which regulates the body's metabolism. Most of the plaintiffs have thyroid conditions, such as cancer, hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. To succeed at trial, plaintiffs had to prove they were “more likely than not” harmed by radioactive iodine gases released during Hanford operations.

That can be difficult to prove, in part because thyroid disorders are not caused only by exposure to radiation. The plaintiffs' had asked the court to expand the test for causation when there are potentially multiple causes, such as radiation, smoking, genetics or pregnancy.

The appeals court rejected that request.

The court rejected the companies' claims that they were immune from punishment because they were government contractors. The district court already had rejected that claim, as well as claims that the defendants could be held liable for any I-131 emissions from the Hanford facility, which the appeals court rejected as well.

The government already indemnified the contractors under the Price-Anderson Act and must pay any damage awards.

The court denied an appeal by plaintiff Shannon Rhodes, whose claims were rejected by a jury, and upheld the $227,508 award for plaintiff Steve Stanton.

The court also denied an appeal to move to state court claims by other plaintiffs who do not yet have symptoms of any thyroid disease. They had previously sued the contractors for the costs of medical monitoring, but their claims were dismissed.

Van Wart called the last ruling particularly significant because it could have potentially involved thousands of additional plaintiffs.

A decision on the appeal, known as a judicial review, is not expected for at least several weeks. "The decision makers are the judges at the Supreme Court," Abbas said today.

"The opinion from the district court has nothing to do with the case because they can only hear it, but they cannot make a decision. "It will not affect our case." The trio launched the appeal earlier this year.

In emotional appeals to the Denpasar District Court in June, they finally admitted their roles in the failed bid to smuggle heroin from Bali into Australia.

During the hearings, defence lawyers argued they should have faced charges under drug possession laws, which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail, rather than drug export laws, which allow for death.

The appeal is the trio's final bid to beat the death penalty, other than an appeal to Indonesia's president for clemency.

Three other Australians facing the death penalty over the plot - Scott Rush, 21, and ringleaders Andrew Chan, 23, and Myuran Sukumaran, 26 - have also launched challenges, arguing Indonesia's Constitutional Court should scrap the death penalty because the nation's constitution affords life as a basic right. The case is due to resume in Jakarta next week, with a decision some weeks away.

Meanwhile, there could also be some movement in the cases of the remaining three members of the Bali Nine who are not facing death. Lawyers for Michael Czugaj, 22, and Martin Stephens, 31, said they would soon make a decision on whether to launch a final appeal against their life sentences.

"Next week I'm going to meet (Stephens's) family in Bali, and I'm going to see the situation for the judicial review," his lawyer Wirawan Adnan said. Czugaj's lawyer Frans Passar also confirmed his client was also weighing an appeal.

The only female in the group, Renae Lawrence, has ruled out an appeal against her 20-year term, but could have her sentence shaved by one or two months to mark Indonesia's Independence Day holiday on Friday.

Under the Indonesian system, all prisoners are eligible for remission on Independence Day and some religious holidays, if they have served at least six months of their sentence and are not sentenced to either life in prison or death.

The decision stemmed from a manslaughter case in which a lower court ruled that the results from a blood-alcohol test of a driver were unconstitutional and should be suppressed. The judge ruled that the test results violated the Fourth Amendment protection from "nonconsensual, warrantless and suspicionless searches."

The state appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. In a 34-page opinion, justices issued a 4-to-2 decision, vacating the ruling to suppress the evidence and sending the case back to the lower court for further proceedings.

Chief Justice Leigh Saufley wrote that the statute itself is constitutional and that the test results are admissible in court if the state demonstrates that the defendant consented to the test or there was probable cause to believe the driver was operating under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Saufley further wrote that the state's need to obtain information about the intoxication of drivers involved in fatal accidents has to be balanced against the privacy interest of motorists. "We conclude that the state's interest in gathering information to assist in addressing the problem of intoxicated driving outweighs the privacy interest of drivers in the content of their blood," he wrote.

Richard Cormier of Gray was driving a car that was involved in a head-on collision on Route 85 in Raymond on May 11, 2003. An elderly couple from Gray was killed in the accident.

Cormier was transported by ambulance to a hospital, where his blood was drawn. The blood-alcohol content was 0.08 percent, meaning that he was legally intoxicated.

Cormier was later indicted on two counts of manslaughter and other charges, but he moved to suppress the results of the blood test in a court motion.

Justice Paul Fritzsche agreed, ruling that Cormier had not consented to the test and that there was not sufficient probable cause to believe he was operating under the influence.

Fritzsche found the only justification for the blood test was the state law that mandates a test when an accident has resulted in a fatality. He cited a US Supreme Court decision in declaring the test results as inadmissible in court.

Supreme Court Justices Jon Levy and Susan Calkins disagreed with the majority opinion.

"The majority's opinion leads the law into new, uncharted territory in which probable cause, a cornerstone of the Fourth Amendment, plays a secondary, after-the-fact role," Levy wrote.

"Notwithstanding [the statute's] proper and noble purpose, I conclude that to the extent the statute authorizes searches and seizures based on after-acquired probable cause, the statute is unconstitutional."

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"It was wrong and I accept full responsibility for this action," Thomas told a news conference. "I will continue to work for the city I love and I have made peace with my God."

Thomas, a councilman for 13 years and a leading voice for the recovery of the city from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, had been expected to be a strong candidate for mayor when the city picks a successor to Ray Nagin in 2010.

Before U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance, Thomas pleaded guilty to bribery and faces up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. However, he has agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors in an ongoing investigation into corruption in New Orleans.

"This guilty plea is a body blow to a community that is already reeling under a wave of public corruption," Vance said at the hearing. "If this city is ever to recover, we have to have an end to this kind of venality."

Thomas' troubles are the latest in a city and state, Louisiana, with a history of corruption in politics.

U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, a Democrat from New Orleans, was indicted in June on corruption charges linked to business deals in Africa.

Investigators found $90,000 in cash in the freezer of his Washington-area home. Jefferson has denied any wrongdoing.

U.S. Sen. David Vitter, a Republican from the New Orleans suburbs, admitted last month to having committed a "very serious sin" after his number was found in the phone records of a woman accused of running a Washington prostitution ring.