The justices engaged in spirited debate over the constitutionality of a 2006 law aimed at curbing false claims about military exploits.

Some justices said they worried that upholding the Stolen Valor Act could lead to other limits on speech, including laws that might make it illegal to lie about an extramarital affair or a college degree, or to impress a date.

“Where do you stop?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked at one point.

But Roberts later joined other justices in indicating that the court could make clear that, if it upheld the law, it would only be endorsing an effort to prevent people from demeaning the system of military honors that was established by Gen. George Washington in 1782.

The Obama administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., defended the law as targeted to “protect the integrity of the honors system.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed the least willing member of the court to accept the administration’s argument. She disputed that the value of the highest award, the Medal of Honor, or any others has been diminished because some people lie about having received them.

Sotomayor said the issue provokes a justifiable emotional reaction, but said previous Supreme Court cases make clear that taking offense by itself is not enough to justify limiting speech.

“We were at the top of our run and we were going through the protocol that we use to take when we’re out in the back country,” Pro skier Elyse Saugstad, the survivor, told “Good Morning America” today. “I think there were a few of us that were down below the avalanche. We thought we were in a safe zone, but ended up being swept in the avalanche.

“It happened really fast, ultimately I think you don’t have much time to react,” she added. “The first thing that came to my mind was to use my airbag device.

Three men were killed Sunday when they were swept about a quarter-mile down a canyon, and a fourth skier caught up in the slide was saved by a safety device, authorities said. The large group had split into three smaller groups before the avalanche, but all the backcountry skiers were buried to some extent. Those who were able to free themselves rushed to dig out the victims and unsuccessfully performed CPR on the three, believed to be in their 30s and 40s.

“Most of the people involved in this were well-known to the ski community up here, especially to the ski patrol,” said Deputy Chris Bedker of the King County Sheriff’s search-and-rescue unit. “It was their friends who they recovered.”

The Seattle Times reported that two of the victims were Chris Rudolph, the 30-year-old director of marketing for Stevens Pass, and 46-year-old Jim Jack, a judge of competitive free-skiing, where skiers perform tricks and jumps, often in the backcountry.

The Stevens Pass fatalities were part of a deadly Sunday on Washington ski slopes. A male snowboarder was killed in a separate avalanche incident at the Alpental ski area east of Seattle, authorities said.

The men who died on Stevens Pass tumbled approximately 1,500 feet down a chute in the Tunnel Creek Canyon area, King County Sheriff’s Sgt. Katie Larson said.

The fourth skier who was swept down the mountain about 80 miles northeast of Seattle was a woman who appeared to avoid a similar fate because of the avalanche safety device she was wearing, Larson said.

ESPN.com identified the survivor as professional skier Elyse Saugstad, who said she used an airbag after the avalanche hit. ESPN Freeskiing editor Megan Michelson was among the skiers and was uninjured, it said.

Michelson said the initial slide was about 30 feet wide and three feet deep, but quickly grew as it swept away Saugstad and the three victims.

Saugstad said she immediately deployed the airbag from her backpack, crediting it with saving her life.

“I was completely buried except for my head and hands” after coming to a rest, she said.

Two of the victims were found nearby, while the third was carried “several hundred feet” farther down the mountain, Saugstad said.

Michelson said the remaining skiers called for help and skied the length of the avalanche track looking for victims, Michelson said.

“The debris pile at the bottom was massive,” Michelson said.

The U.S. Capitol Police say the person was detained Friday in the area of the Capitol as part of a “lengthy and extensive operation” with the FBI.

The arrest comes one day after a Nigerian man was sentenced in the U.S. to life in prison for trying to bring down an Amsterdam-to-U.S. flight on Christmas Day 2009 with explosives hidden in his underwear. U.S. officials blame Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s plot on the Yemen-based branch of al-Qaida.

Back then, the notion of same-sex marriage was unheard of. I remember asking them King County Prosecutor Charles O. Carroll if I could grant a couple a marriage license. Carroll responded emphatically “no” and said it was against the law.

How times have changed.

I applaud the actions of the state Legislature and Gov. Chris Gregoire. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This is an overdue step to right an injustice. It is the right thing to do.

But I also have a very personal reason to back the new state law. I have three children I love very much. My eldest daughter is a lesbian, and has been in a committed relationship with her partner for years. I had the opportunity to walk my daughter down the aisle on her wedding day in Vermont.

Thanks to the courage of the Legislature and Gregoire, parents will be able to do that right here in Washington state.

How the times have changed.

Appearing before the U.S.-China Business Council, Xi spoke warmly of evolving relations between the world’s two economic super powers but, as in earlier stops here, offered little new insight into how he will lead China, or whether the present tenseness in U.S.-Chinese relations might be eased.

He did say, however, he feels the United States and China must “build up mutual understanding and strategic trust.”

One way to do that, Xi said, is for the United States to relax current restrictions on exports to China of higher-technology American goods.

It was his last stop in the nation’s capital before heading to Iowa and then the West Coast. Earlier Wednesday, Xi met with members of Congress a day after a lengthy meeting with President Barack Obama, receptions at the State Department and the Pentagon, and a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

As with the day before, Xi stuck to tightly scripted public appearances.

With China having passed Japan last year as the world’s second largest economy, Xi said his country and the U.S. “should respect each other’s core interests and major concerns.”

As for recent moves by the Obama administration to assert a more robust role in the Asia Pacific region, Xi said China welcomes “a positive role” by the United States. But, he added “We hope at the same time, the United States will respect the interests and the concerns of China.”

Xi, in his Wednesday speech, reiterated standard Chinese talking points for dealing with the United States: urging the U.S. to continue to support a “One China” policy and oppose any moves toward Taiwanese independence, to honor its commitment to recognize Tibet as part of China, and to work together on dealing with nuclear ambitions by North Korea and Iran.

He was introduced by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who helped President Richard Nixon open the door to China in the 1970s. Kissinger told Xi, “You are here at a crucial moment,” suggesting it was a critical a time as that earlier overture that led to formal U.S. recognition of the communist regime in Beijing.

“This visit comes at a time of growing strategic distrust,” China watchers Kenneth Lieberthal and J. Stapleton Roy said in the Washington Post.

Lieberthal, director of the Thornton China Center and Roy, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the US, said Beijing sees itself as strong enough to expect Washington “will no longer treat its core concerns with what it views as a bullying, dismissive attitude.”

“China is pressing its territorial claims in potentially energy-rich maritime areas in the East and South China Seas,” they said.

“China, arguably the world’s second most powerful country, is rankled by US diplomacy that it sees as emboldening people in Taiwan, Tibet and the huge northwestern region of Xinjiang to defy Beijing,” they said.

Lieberthal and Roy said that while both Washington and Beijing considered good bilateral relations to be “vital,” there was a danger their growing strategic rivalry could evolve into “mutual antagonism.”

They said that both sides should try to reach a set of understandings that included steps embodying mutual restraint on development and deployments of particularly destabilizing weapons systems.

“To improve trust, such discussions need to probe each side’s goals and expectations on such sensitive issues as the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan,” they wrote.

In a front-page news story, the Post said Xi’s visit was crucial to his political ascension and to US hopes for easing “mounting tensions.”

Daniel Blumenthal, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a Foreign Policy magazine blog that “sustained dialogue” was needed over such matters as the “risks of the perennial flashpoints” like Taiwan.

“Effectively deterring Chinese aggression in the South China Sea enhances US efforts to encourage peaceful resolution of disputes there,” Blumenthal wrote.

“Once Beijing comes to believe that intimidating others will not achieve its goals, engagement with Washington improves,” he wrote.

At his first event after his arrival in Washington, Xi said the US should adopt “concrete measures to promote mutual trust.”

“We hope the US side could view China in an objective and rational way, and adopt concrete measures to promote mutual trust, especially to properly and discreetly handle the issues concerning the core interests of China,” he said in remarks carried by Xinhua news agency.

He spoke during a meeting with several former top US officials, including former US secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright.

Xi was due to meet US President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the White House yesterday before driving to the Pentagon for talks with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Later today, he will meet with congressional leaders before flying to Iowa.

“As governor for more than seven years, this is one of my proudest moments,” Gregoire said in remarks before signing the bill. “We stood up for equality and we did it together – Republicans and Democrats, gay and straight, young and old, and a variety of religious faiths. I’m proud of who and what we are in this state.”

The legislation passed through the state House last week in a 55-43 vote; the previous week, it passed in the Senate by 28-21.

The law makes Washington the seventh U.S. state – in addition to the District of Columbia – to legalize gay marriage.

It will not take effect, however, until early June due to the state’s 90-day enactment period.

In the meantime, opponents of same-sex marriage in the state have vowed to undo the law in a ballot measure in November. In order to introduce the measure, they have to collect 120,577 signatures by June 6.

Gregoire said she was confident Washington voters would vote for marriage equality even if the matter does end up on the November ballot.

“If asked, if asked, the voters of the state of Washington will say ‘yes’ to marriage equality in the state of Washington,” she said. “Washingtonians will say ‘yes’ because a family is a family all facing the same challenges. Can we keep over our heads? Can we keep our jobs? Can we provide for children’s health and safety, education and happiness? I believe our Washingtonians will say because it’s time for us to stand up for our sons, our daughters, our brother, our sisters, our moms, our dads, our friends and the couple down the road.”

A similar law passed through the New Jersey state Senate earlier on Monday, though Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has vowed to veto such a measure.

Meeting Friday with reporters, foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu did not elaborate on what steps he would discuss with Clinton to force Syria to end its violence against civilians.

He also said he believes from recent discussions with Iranian officials that Tehran is ready for new talks with the West on limiting its nuclear program.

In their proposal, Trump Hotel Collection and Colony outlined a plan to convert the building into a Trump International Hotel with more than 250 rooms, several restaurants, ballrooms and meeting space. In a nod to the building’s 113-year history, the redevelopment also would add a library, a museum, an exhibition gallery and indoor and outdoor gardens.