Alabama: Chief justice to fight for Ten Commandments

Alabama’s chief justice promised Tuesday to appeal a federal judge’s order that he remove a Ten Commandments monument he had installed in the rotunda of the state’s judicial building.

“I have no plans to remove the monument, and when I do I will let you know personally,” Chief Justice Roy Moore said.

Moore said he has received no order for the monument’s removal, but if he does he will appeal to higher courts. Moore’s attorney, Stephen Melchior, said earlier that Moore will ask the appellate courts to allow the 5,300-pound granite monument to stay in the judicial building until the appeals process is completed.

Washington: Interior secretary fights contempt ruling

Interior Secretary Gale Norton will challenge a judge’s ruling that held her in contempt for concealing failures in fixing a history of mismanagement of royalties from Indian land.

Government attorneys filed a notice with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday indicating they plan to appeal the September contempt ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth.

Lamberth ruled in September that Norton and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb had failed to comply with his 1999 order to the department to account for more than a century of proceeds from oil, gas, mining and timber royalties on Indian land.

Moreover, Lamberth said they had committed “fraud on the court” by concealing the failures and misrepresenting their progress in fixing the management problems and protecting the Indian money.

Florida: Stubborn virus cancels cruise ship’s voyage

Seattle-based Holland America Line on Tuesday voluntarily canceled the upcoming cruise of the 1,380-passenger Amsterdam set to leave Thursday from Port Everglades in an attempt to control a persistent stomach virus that has sickened passengers on the last four cruises.

Instead of heading out on another 10-day southern Caribbean voyage, the Amsterdam will be scrubbed from stem to stern and left idle in hopes of breaking the cycle of disease transmission.

Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said the virus is not being transmitted in the ship’s food or water supply, but rather by personal contact.

Holland America said 57 passengers and 17 crew on the current cruise had shown symptoms of the illness as of noon Tuesday.

Washington, D.C.: Appeals court denies health care for vets

A divided, reluctant federal appeals court denied claims Tuesday by World War II and Korean War veterans who said the government reneged on a promise to provide free lifetime health care if they stayed in the service for 20 years.

Although the government conceded military recruiters made the promises, the Defense Department convinced the court there was no valid contract because the assurances were not backed up by law.

The 9-4 decision was by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The veterans have been on both the winning and losing sides of the case. A federal judge in Jacksonville, Fla., ruled against them in 1998. In February, a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled in their favor.

The veterans will seek a Supreme Court hearing, said their lawyer, George “Bud” Day, a retired Air Force colonel who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.