Oil income in US refuges goes to states, court says

In a decision that will cost federal coffers millions of dollars, the Supreme Court ruled that revenues from oil and gas leases on federal wildlife refuges must be distributed mainly to states. Ruling 6 to 3, the high court upheld a federal appeals court ruling awarding about $23 million in payments from oil and gas leases on the Kenai National Moose Range to the State of Alaska.

In other rulings, the court held 7 to 2 that federal drug agents, armed with only an arrest warrant, acted illegally when they entered and searched the home of a person they were not seeking. And in a 6-to-3 decision the justtices ruled that federal judges must look for racial prejudice among jurors only in cases of defendants accused of violent crimes against members of a different racial or ethnic group. In the ruling, the justices upheld the conviction of a man found guilty of smuggling Mexican aliens into California.