The Supreme Court blocked the largest sex-discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history on Monday, siding with Wal-Mart and against up to 1.6 million female workers in a decision that makes it harder to mount large-scale bias claims against the nation's other huge companies, too.

The justices all agreed that the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. could not proceed as a class action in its current form, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. By a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, the court also said there were too many women in too many jobs at Wal-Mart to wrap into one lawsuit.

"Because respondents provide no convincing proof of a companywide discriminatory pay and promotion policy, we have concluded that they have not established the existence of any common question,"

Acting with unusual speed, the state Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated Gov. Scott Walker's plan to all but end collective bargaining for tens of thousands of public workers.

The court found a committee of lawmakers was not subject to the state's open meetings law, and so did not violate that law when they hastily approved the measure and made it possible for the Senate to take it up. In doing so, the Supreme Court overruled a Dane County judge who had struck down the legislation, ending one challenge to the law even as new challenges are likely to emerge.

The majority opinion was by Justices Michael Gableman, David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler. The other three justices - Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and N. Patrick Crooks - concurred in part and dissented in part.

Microsoft Corp suffered a defeat on Thursday when the Supreme Court upheld a record $290 million jury verdict against the software giant for infringing a small Canadian company's patent.

The justices unanimously agreed with a U.S. appeals court ruling that went against the world's largest software company in its legal battle with Toronto-based i4i.

The high court refused to adopt Microsoft's lower standard to replace the long-standing requirement that a defendant in a patent infringement case prove by clear and convincing evidence that a plaintiff's patent is invalid.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft had argued that a lower standard of proof involving a "preponderance of the evidence" would make some "bad" patents easier to invalidate while promoting innovation and competition.

New Jersey must provide about $500 million for its poorer school districts, the state Supreme Court said on Tuesday, complicating the state's ongoing budget negotiations.

The court ruling, concerning what are known as the Abbott districts, is the latest development in a decades-long battle over state education funding for poor and other disadvantaged students. Last year, Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, and the Democrat-controlled state legislature cut education spending by more than $800 million.

Depending upon how the funding gap was calculated, the shortfall could have been as high as $1.7 billion, but the court strictly limited its decision to the Abbott schools.

The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether the government can dictate the message of a Christian ministry. And a brief submitted along with the question cites a page of biblical references as authority, listing them even ahead of the U.S. Constitution, statutes and previous case law.

The idea of a forced message is among the issues that are being raised in the case involving the ministry of Daniel Chapter One, which has gone to the high court to protest the actions of the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether voter identification laws unfairly deter the poor and minorities from voting, stepping into a contentious partisan issue in advance of the 2008 elections. The justices will hear arguments ea