[□ | □] □
[□=□ | □] □
[□ | □ | □] □
California 's law " is indistinguishable in any constitutionally significant respect " from the federal sentencing guidelines that have been approved by the Supreme Court.Alito 's dissent also suggested that the court may not be done tinkering with the federal sentencing scheme , if the justices apply the same line of reasoning to two federal sentencing cases they will hear next month . All 50 states and the District of Columbia yesterday urged the Supreme Court to overturn lower court rulings that they said would give federal authorities the ability to block states from prosecuting financial institutions for predatory lending practices.In oral arguments , the justices posed tough questions about the implications of a mortgage-lending case that could affect the way state-chartered subsidiaries of national banks are regulated . " She acknowledged , however , that the justices probably could have done a better job with the opinion if they had n't been rushed.Still , O'Connor said the outcome of the election would have been the same even if the court had not intervened.She was referring to studies that suggest Bush would have won a recount limited to counties that Gore initially contested , although other studies said Gore might have prevailed in a statewide recount . Americans spend billions of dollars each year on their physical well-being , but there are no comparable efforts to keep people mentally agile and strong.If anything , the study suggests , there is a bigger payoff to mental exercise , because the brief training sessions seemed to confer enormous benefits as many as five years later . For other states and the federal government , it was the latest in a series of rulings going back to 2000 that restrict a judge 's ability to find the aggravating factors that would allow for tougher sentences . Compared with the control group , those who got memory training did 75 percent better on memory tasks five years later , those who got the reasoning training did 40 percent better on reasoning tasks , and those who got the speed training did 300 percent better than the control group.Researchers noted that mental skills can sometimes compensate for physical disabilities : Knowing how to figure out directions and find a new route on a map , for example , could allow someone to retain mobility even after their night vision deteriorates to the point where driving on certain roads becomes difficult.The study tracked 2,802 healthy adults from diverse backgrounds who were , on average , 73 years old . But because this year that day fell on Yom Kippur , the holiest day of the Jewish calendar , the session was brief - - about 10 minutes - - and the justices did not hear oral arguments .