Supreme Court won’t hear Microsoft case

The Supreme Court rejected the Justice Department’s plea to hear the appeal of its antitrust case against Microsoft immediately, and instead returned the proceeding to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday. Arguing that the case involved issues of “immense importance to our national economy,” Justice officials had urged the Supreme Court to invoke a rarely used procedural rule to bypass the appeals court and quickly review the case.

Two students shot at middle school

Two teen-age boys shot each other with the same gun during a fight at Carter G. Woodson Middle School in New Orleans Tuesday after a 13-year-old expelled student slipped the weapon to one of them through a fence. The two boys were both in critical condition as of Wednesday.

Buchanan, Nader left out of debates

Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader will not be allowed to participate alongside Republican candidate George W. Bush and Democratic candidate Al Gore in the first presidential debates Oct. 3 and 5 because they failed to meet the criteria for inclusion set by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. The criteria is an average of 15 percent support in five major national polls, which neither one has.