The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) rejected on Monday a free-speech challenge to a New York law banning the wearing of masks at public gatherings by a group claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Without comment, the justices let stand a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that upheld the law as constitutional and rejected the challenge by the Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The group advocates white separatism and "white pride." It calls itself an "ideological descendant" of the original Klan, but says it does not use violence. Members wear white...