This week, in a series of terse, unsigned orders, the Court tossed the issue back to the lower courts.

The fate of the report remained unclear until today, when the judges announced in an unsigned order that they would release it "in some short period of time."

The unsigned order, which was sent to all precincts on Wednesday, makes no mention of the protests outside Freddy's or the 125th Street fire.

On a positive note, "unsigned but announced orders are about $6.5 billion, so we know there are some things that will carry the company along very nicely," he said.

In brief, unsigned orders, the Court added 21 lower court decisions to the 90 appeals in which it had already agreed to hear oral arguments this term.

Whatever the Justices' discussions among themselves may have been, the brief unsigned order issued today neither characterized the issues nor responded to the dissent.

The Court's unsigned order offered no explanation.

The Court simply released an unsigned order stating, in its entirety: "The judgment below is affirmed by an equally divided Court."

The vast majority of cases filed in the Supreme Court are disposed of summarily by unsigned orders.

Adding further to the confusion today was the Court's one-paragraph, unsigned order upholding California's 1992 redistricting plan that had created nine new majority black and Hispanic Congressional districts.