In developments yesterday at the Supreme Court, the court:

REJECTED…

* …an appeal by four men who challenged Florida’s ban on adoption by gay couples, avoiding another contentious fight over gay rights.

* …an appeal from a Norfolk, Va., gun dealer, Bob’s Gun & Tackle Shop, over a federal agency’s authority to demand information about transactions involving used firearms.

* …an appeal from Indian tribes in Milwaukee who sought to acquire a western Wisconsin dog track and turn it into a casino. The former governor, Scott McCallum, vetoed the idea in 2001 because he opposed any expansion of gambling.

LET STAND…

* …a lower court ruling that allowed Missouri’s Ku Klux Klan chapter into the state highway litter cleanup program. The state had not wished to partner with the group because it discriminates based on race.

* …a lower ruling that allows Florida state prosecutors to pursue charges against two fired America West pilots accused of being drunk in the cockpit.

* …a lower ruling that said the California Public Employees’ Retirement System must proceed with its securities fraud lawsuit on behalf of World-Com Inc. bondholders in federal, rather than state, court.

* …a lower ruling that Major League Baseball must rehire nine umpires with back pay following a 1999 mass resignation. Another portion of the ruling said the Major League did not have to rehire 10 other umpires.

* …a lower ruling granting a new trial for John Rodney McRae, who was convicted of murdering 15-year-old Randy Laufer of Michigan in a 1987 stabbing.

DECLINED…

* …to consider dismissing a lawsuit seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the 1999 shooting of a letter carrier by a white supremacist.

* …to consider the proper standards for allowing individuals to file class-action lawsuits against corporations, in a case accusing six health maintenance organizations of fraud.

* …to consider whether Pennsylvania officials were wrong to keep Ralph Nader off the presidential ballot last November.

SET ASIDE…

* …a South Carolina ruling granting Robert Lee Nance a new trial. Justices ordered the lower state court to review its decision in light of their ruling in Florida v. Nixon, which held that death row inmates should not automatically get new trials if lawyers made a strategic decision not to pursue a vigorous defense.

REFUSED…

* …to allow the filing of an appeal on behalf of Connecticut serial killer Michael Ross, scheduled to be put to death Jan. 26, because the court papers did not have Ross’s signature. Ross, who would be the first inmate executed in New England in 40 years, has said he does not want to appeal.

* …to consider former Ohio Rep. James Traficant’s challenge to his bribery and racketeering conviction.

SAID…

* …it would not speed up a decision on whether to consider a challenge to President Bush’s authority to name William Pryor to a federal appeals court while the Senate was on a holiday break.

ASKED…

* …for the Bush administration’s views in a case that questions whether the state of Utah can keep thousands of tons of radioactive waste out of the state, or if the federal government has exclusive control over the transportation and storage of nuclear waste.

* Refused to consider a challenge to an ordinance that requires employers that do business with the city of Berkeley, Calif., to pay workers a so-called living wage.