The Georgia Supreme Court ruling Monday throws out an appeals court's dismissal of the lawsuit and sends it back to a lower court.

Atlanta claims Travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia and 14 other online travel companies owe millions in unpaid taxes. Similar challenges have been filed by Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago and Branson, Mo.

The lawsuits challenge pricing schemes in which consumers are charged a higher price than what the sites pay hotels for the rooms, allowing the sites to pocket service fees. The taxes are paid on that cheaper rate — and cities say they're deprived of millions in revenues.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly halts a change in regulations issued in the waning days of the Bush administration and orders further review. She set an April 20 deadline for the Interior Department to review the rule and indicate its course of action in response to the injunction.

The rule, which took effect Jan. 11, allowed visitors to carry a loaded gun into a park or wildlife refuge as long as the person had a permit for a concealed weapon and the state where the park or refuge was located allowed concealed firearms. Previously, guns in parks had been severely restricted.

The Obama administration had said it was reviewing the Bush rule but had defended it in court.

Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, said Thursday the department is reviewing the injunction.

The Bush administration issued the gun rule in December in response to letters from half the Senate asking officials to lift the restrictions on guns in parks that were adopted by the Reagan administration in the early 1980s.

The rule went further than a draft proposal issued a year ago and would have allowed concealed weapons even in parks located in states that prohibit the carrying of guns in state parks. Some states allow concealed weapons but also ban guns from parks.

He also gets his favorite barbecue potato chips, and visitors have been allowed to bring him McDonald's Happy Meals — an attempt to keep his environment as normal as it can be as he awaits a decision on whether he is competent to stand trial in his mother's fatal beating.

Walker, 18, is charged with murdering his long-doting mother, Gertrude Steuernagel, a professor at Kent State University who once wrote publicly about having to cope with her son's aggressive behavior. She was found unconscious in their kitchen Jan. 29 and died eight days later.

The case has posed special challenges to the justice system from the start; Walker had to wear a face mask at an initial court appearance to prevent him from spitting at deputies.

The case has also worried advocates, like Rory McLean, president of the Autism Society of Greater Cleveland, who fear that Walker's actions — he was found cowering in the basement when sheriff's deputies responded to the home — could be misinterpreted.

Walker, who has a court-appointed guardian, is due to be arraigned Friday on the murder charge but both sides agreed he did not have to appear in court. He is also charged with assaulting a deputy who investigated the beating. No pleas have yet been entered on his behalf.

A top economic aide to President Obama defended the administration’s multi-front strategy to tackle a number of economic issues at once, calling it “the right medicine,” while a House GOP leader criticized those plans as a “lack of focus.”

“It is an economic war,” said Christina Romer, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers. “We have inherited a crisis like none since we had the Great Depression. So absolutely, it is something we need to deal with. I think we are.”

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Romer acknowledged, “We haven’t won yet. We have staged a wonderful battle. So we have put in place just a host of programs: the stimulus package, the financial rescue plan, the housing plan. We think it’s the right medicine and we think it will work.”

Romer cited a “focus on fundamentals” by the administration. “The other thing I think is so important, the president has actually said in terms of fundamentals, we need to make changes,” she said. “That’s why he’s focusing on energy, education, getting the budget deficit under control...”

However, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor , R-Va., also appearing on the program, criticized the administration for not targeting the fiscal crisis first.

“I want to believe that we’re going to get out of this mess. I think all Americans do,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, on Friday I met with 25 small-business people in my district, and times our tough. I mean, we know that 650,000 people lost their job last month. If my math is correct, that works out to be about 15 jobs a minute that people are losing. ...

“I think we’re seeing out of the Obama administration is a lack of focus on how to get things going again. If we’re going to get things going again, how can we have a budget that doubles the debt on our children?”

The White House reportedly will announce Monday that it will provide an estimated $10 billion to thaw out credit markets specifically for small businesses.

After stating his name and age, the 70-year-old disgraced financier was asked by the judge Tuesday whether he is satisfied with the legal counsel of his lawyer, Ira Sorkin.

"I am," Madoff said.

Sorkin is expected to represent Madoff when the former Wall Street financier pleads guilty on Thursday to swindling investors out of billions of dollars.

Prosecutors have asked the judge to rule on three potential conflicts of interest to clear the way for the plea. One of them involves $900,000 that Sorkin's parents invested with Madoff's firm.

The court by a 7-2 vote reversed a state Supreme Court decision in favor of Michael Brillon, whose conviction for assaulting his girlfriend was overturned. The state court said Brillon's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was violated after he was jailed for three years and went through six defense attorneys before his trial.

Hours after Monday's decision, Bennington County State's Attorney Erica Marthage filed the paperwork with the Vermont District Court to have Brillon re-arrested. He was released in April after his 12- to 20-year sentence was cut short by the state court's decision.

"It creates a sense that someone gaming the system, like he was, isn't going to be able to get away with it," Marthage said Monday of the Supreme Court ruling. "It puts some faith back into the system."

Marthage said she didn't know how the state court that will consider her motion would rule because the case was so unusual.

The Supreme Court decision, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said taxpayers may foot the bill for a public defender, but the lawyer represents his client. It sent the case back to the Vermont Supreme Court for reconsideration.