The Supreme Court has agreed to rule on Arizona’s controversial law targeting illegal immigrants.

The justices said Monday they will review a federal appeals court ruling that blocked several tough provisions in the Arizona law. One of those requires that police, while enforcing other laws, question a person’s immigration status if officers suspect he is in the country illegally.


The Obama administration challenged the Arizona law by arguing that regulating immigration is the job of the federal government, not states. Similar laws in Alabama, South Carolina and Utah also are facing administration lawsuits.


The court now has three politically charged cases on its election-year calendar. The other two are President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul and new electoral maps for Texas’ legislature and congressional delegation.

Officials say a 13-year-old had a history of troubling behavior before he helped push a shopping cart that fell on a woman from a fourth-floor walkway at a New York City mall.

A city lawyer told a judge Tuesday the boy tried to run schoolmates over on his bike, threw things in the lunchroom and hit his mother's cat.

The attorney says the boy joked around at a police precinct after his Oct. 30 arrest and expressed more concern about his sneakers than about the woman who was seriously hurt.

The boy's lawyer says the teen needs and wants counseling for his behavioral problems.

The boy was charged as a juvenile and pleaded guilty in Family Court last month to assault. His sentencing was postponed Tuesday until later this month.

Hurricane Irene's strong winds and heavy rains threaten to deliver long-lasting power outages to millions of customers along the East Coast, utility officials and weather forecasters say.

An unusually large number of people may be affected by Irene because it is forecast to stay just offshore -- and thus retain much of its power -- as it inches up the coast from North Carolina to New England. When a hurricane hits land, it quickly loses steam.

High winds are the biggest threat to utility wires and poles. Recent heavy rains in the region have made trees even more vulnerable to toppling over. Flooding can cause problems for power plants, which are often located near rivers or other bodies of water.

The path and strength of the storm is still uncertain. However, utilities are preparing for the possibility that outages will be widespread and lengthy.

"It's going to be really tough," says Karen Johnson, a spokesperson for PSE&G, which serves 2.2 million customers in New Jersey. She recommends customers stock up on supplies of food and water before the storm hits.