A new gun ordinance in Chicago that officials say is the strictest of its kind in the country went into effect on Monday.

The ordinance was pushed through quickly by Mayor Richard Daley and the City Council after the U.S. Supreme Court last month made the city's 28-year-old handgun ban unenforceable. The high court ruled that Americans have the right to have guns in their homes for protection.

The ordinance permits residents to have only one working gun at a time in their homes and prohibits them from stepping outside, even onto their porches or in their garages, with a handgun.

Following the lead of Washington, D.C., which enacted a strict ordinance after the Supreme Court struck down its gun ban two years ago, Chicago also requires prospective gun owners to take a class and receive firearms training.

Chicago's ordinance also bans gun shops from setting up shop in the city and bars anyone convicted of a violent crime, domestic violence or two or more convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs from owning a handgun.

Also starting Monday is a 90-day grace period in which residents who owned handguns illegally during the ban can register them without penalty.

Chicago's ordinance was widely criticized by gun rights advocates, who have said the city is simply trying to make it as difficult as it can for people to own guns and putting up unconstitutional roadblocks in their way. They promised lawsuits and last week, even before the ordinance went into effect, at least two lawsuits were filed challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance.

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An American geologist detained and tortured by China's state security agents over an oil industry database was jailed for eight years Monday in a troubling example of China's rough justice system and the way the U.S. government handles cases against its citizens.

Beijing's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court convicted Xue Feng of collecting intelligence and illegally providing state secrets and immediately sentenced him.

Xue's lawyer Tong Wei described the sentence as "very heavy", just short of the maximum 10 years, and said he would confer with Xue over whether to appeal. Xue was also fined 200,000 yuan ($30,000).

The U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, witnessed the sentencing in a show of high-level U.S. government concern about the case. Afterward, the U.S. Embassy released a statement saying it was dismayed and urged China to grant Xue "humanitarian release and immediately deport him."

For Xue, the verdict comes more than six months since the last court hearing and two and a half years after he was detained — a protracted prosecution and pretrial detention that Chinese officials never explained.

Born in China and trained at the University of Chicago, Xue ran afoul of the authorities for arranging the sale of a detailed commercial database on China's oil industry to IHS Energy, the energy consulting firm he worked for that is now known as IHS Inc. and based in Colorado.

Two conservative-driven decisions with potentially broad consequences will likely define the just-completed Supreme Court term: freeing corporations and unions to spend as much as they like in campaigns for Congress and president, and ruling that Americans have a right to a gun for self-defense wherever they live.

A key member of the five-justice majorities in both cases, and the author of the guns opinion, was Justice Samuel Alito. Though he has been on the court less than five years, Alito has had an outsize influence in firming up the court's conservative bloc.

His appointment to replace the more moderate Sandra Day O'Connor, more than any other choice in the last decade shows the importance of Supreme Court nominations. It also points up that Elena Kagan's nomination to take the place of the like-minded John Paul Stevens almost certainly will not have the same short-term impact as Alito has had.

"Of all the changes in personnel during this time of rapid change at the court, the Alito-for-O'Connor switch has clearly been the most consequential," said Paul Clement, who was top Supreme Court lawyer for then-President George W. Bush.

Indeed, nothing is likely to alter the court's current path in either direction unless President Barack Obama has the chance to replace a right-leaning justice, or a future Republican president gets to add another solid conservative vote.

The conservative trend on the court might be even stronger as long as Democrats hold Congress and the White House, said Paul Smith of the Jenner and Block law firm in Washington. "The conservative majority is going to continue to feel a need to push back in a lot of areas," Smith said.

The credit, or criticism, for many of the court's high-profile decisions goes variously to Chief Justice John Roberts, the putative leader of the court's conservatives, or Justice Anthony Kennedy, who dislikes the label "swing justice," but is always in the majority when the other eight justices split along liberal and conservative lines.

Their influence certainly was in evidence this term. Roberts was in the majority more than any other justice — 92 percent of the time — and Kennedy wrote the campaign finance decision as well as one in which the liberal justices prevailed, ruling out life prison terms with no prospect of parole for juvenile offenders in other than murder cases.

Arizona officials plan to release a training program Thursday designed to teach police officers to enforce a tough new crackdown on illegal immigration without racially profiling.

An hour-long video and supporting paperwork will be sent to all 170 Arizona police agencies and publicly released Thursday morning.

Officials released an outline for the video in May.

It will emphasize the importance of professionalism, ethics and integrity, as well as an officer's duty to protect civil rights, according to the outline.

Retired immigration agents also will describe how federal officers are trained to avoid racial profiling and the documents that immigrants are required to carry.

And officers will be taught how to contact federal immigration authorities or local officers certified by the federal government to determine someone's immigration status.

Gov. Jan Brewer ordered the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to develop the training when she signed the law April 23.

Police bosses will decide the best way to teach their forces. But there is no requirement that all 15,000 Arizona police officers complete the training before the law takes effect July 29.

Opponents have challenged the measure as unconstitutional and have asked that a federal court block it from taking effect. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton plans to hear arguments on the request later this month.

Arizona's law generally requires police officers enforcing another law to question a person's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.