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Reports on the ruling of a federal judge in the U.S. that accounting firm BDO Seidman LLP does not have to turn over confidential documents in its fight against government accusations that it sold abusive tax shelters. Bases of the court's decision.

Harold Wenning, 69, remembers what he called ''the one-for-five trick'' from his days running a news kiosk in Midtown Manhattan. ''They'll say it's a five and give you a one,'' he said. ''I had a guy say it was a 20 once and he gave me a one. I had a guy buy a roll of quarters from me and he gave me a dollar. That happens.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports on the disputes between universities and student newspapers in the U.S. over the transparency of sexual assault cases. Topics discussed include lawsuit filed by the University of Kentucky against campus newspaper "The Kentucky Kernel," remarks from University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto, and information on the sexual assault case against entomology professor, James Harwood.

The article discusses entrepreneur Aaron Kushner's management of "The Orange County Register" newspaper, which is owned by Kushner's Freedom Communications media company, highlighting a lawsuits and problems facing Kushner. Topics addressed include Kushner's decision to resign as publisher of the "Orange County Register," as well as lawsuits filed by the "The Los Angeles Times" newspaper and other parties against Kushner for allegedly failing to make various payments.

Presents information on the lawsuit filed by Brickman Associates against International Paper on October 24, 2000 over the sale of a wooded property in Connecticut. Details on the sale of the land to the Trust for Public Land conservation group; Plans of Brickman Associates for the area.

Reports that on March 18, 1997, a Federal court in the United States ruled that criminal charges of price fixing can be brought against foreign companies doing business in that country. Historical significance of the ruling; Price-fixing charges filed against Japan's Nippon Paper Industries Company; Names of other companies that have been accused of fixing prices.

The article reports that court documents in a lawsuit filed against Wachovia bank show that the bank had long been aware of claims of fraud made against telemarketers who had accounts with the bank, and had in fact actively solicited their business. The lawsuit was filed against Wachovia by victims of those telemarketers. The documents also show that Wachovia was warned of the frauds by other banks and federal regulators.

This article contends that Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., U.S. President George W. Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, has consistently favored big-business litigants as he has pushed the federal appeals court in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in a conservative direction. The author reports that Alito has, with few exceptions, sided with employers over employees in discrimination lawsuits and in favor of corporations over investors in securities fraud cases.

The article reports on the conviction of a 52-year-old nanny Yoselyn Ortega for killing the 6-year-old Lucia Krim and the 7-year-old Leo Krim in the bathtub of the family's apartment wherein the nanny show regrets for killing the children.

Relying on an antiquated provision of the New York City Charter, a civil rights lawyer filed papers in State Supreme Court on Friday requesting a judicial hearing on City Council spending practices that have recently come under intense scrutiny. The hearing, known as a summary inquiry, would not determine guilt or innocence, but would merely lay out the facts surrounding the case for public review. Federal prosecutors have been examining a longtime Council practice in which members appropriate discretionary funds to nonexistent organizations and channel the funds to other programs without mayoral approval. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reports that the American Medical Association dismissed the editor of its journal on January 15, 1999 for rushing through a paper on whether college students think oral sex is `having sex' to influence President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial. Comments from Doctor E. Ratcliffe Anderson, executive vice president of the association, on editor George D. Lundberg; Details on the paper.

Focuses on the Federalist papers, the collection of articles published by Alexander Hamilton, John Jays and James Madison in 1787 and 1788, to make their case for the adoption of the Constitution, in the wake of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's September 1998 report to the United States Congress. Attention that the papers received after Starr's report on his investigation of American President Bill Clinton's relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

A sheaf of documents that a federal court forced the Treasury Department to release indicate there have been repeated complaints from American consumers who have been falsely linked to terrorism or drug trafficking during routine credit checks, the organization that sought the documents in a lawsuit said Tuesday. The more than 100 pages of documents released Monday to the organization, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco, include a variety of complaints about the list maintained by the Office of Foreign Asset Control in the Treasury Department, said Philip Hwang, a lawyer for the group. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports that the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts has upheld a $2 million libel verdict in a lawsuit against the newspaper "The Boston Herald" and one of its reporters. The lawsuit concerns a series of articles and columns about Judge Ernest B. Murphy of the Superior Court in Massachusetts. The articles said that Murphy made disparaging comments about crime victims and was lenient with criminals.

The article reports that Jose Padilla, who was accused by the U.S. government of plotting to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb, has been allowed to see classified government documents before his trial on charges of conspiring to wage and support international terrorism.

Reports that Samuel R. Berger, national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and give up his security clearance for removing classified material from a government archive in the U.S.

Discusses the release of documents held by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts in the court cases against Father Paul R. Shanley and other priests accused of sexually abusing young children. Documents that allegedly show that top ranking church officials, including Cardinal Bernard F. Law, knew more about cases of sexual abuse than they said; Documents that allege Boston officials placed an incoming priest they knew had just been treated for pedophilia; Recommendation that Father Robert Brown not be placed in a situation where he could be around children; His placement as pastor of a Boston church where he would be in contact with children.

Discusses the release of documents held by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts in the court cases against Father Paul R. Shanley and other priests accused of sexually abusing young children. Documents that allegedly show that top ranking church officials, including Cardinal Bernard F. Law, knew more about cases of sexual abuse than they said; Documents that allege Boston officials placed an incoming priest they knew had just been treated for pedophilia; Recommendation that Father Robert Brown not be placed in a situation where he could be around children; His placement as pastor of a Boston church where he would be in contact with children.

Reports that the United States may charge the accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Company with obstruction of justice in the investigation of Enron Corporation. Statement that federal prosecutors have prepared a multicount criminal indictment of the firm; Impact that this could have on the future of Arthur Andersen; Allegations that the company engaged in destruction of documents related to Enron.

Reports that the United States General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress, is suing Vice President Dick Cheney to try to force the White House to reveal the identies of energy industry executives who helped the administration develop a national energy policy in 2001. Details of the lawsuit; Way that Congress is trying to determine whether executives from corporations who contributed to President George W. Bush's 2000 campaign helped shape the national energy policy; Comments on the investigation.

Focuses on the case of Dmitri Sklyarov, a Russian cryptographer who was arrested in the United States and charged with trafficking of a program that decrypts copyright protections on Adobe Systems' software for electronic books. How this has initiated the first criminal case under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998; Public support for Sklyarov; How he was arrested at a conference for computer hackers after giving a presentation on electronic book security.

Reports on the billing-fraud case which federal prosecutors have filed against Dr. Joseph Spinella relating to allegations of excessive Medicare payments for prescription drugs. Allegations that he conspired with drugmaker TAP Pharmaceutical Products to receive money for prescribing prostate-cancer drug Lupron; Company history of TAP Pharmaceuticals.

Focuses on the reinstatement of several workers of `The Detroit News' and `The Detroit Free Press' discharged in the course of labor protests while on strike in Detroit, Michigan. When the decision was issued; When the dispute started; Length of the strike.

Comments on the decision of a Federal judge to order the United States government to unseal secret grand jury testimony from the investigation of Alger Hiss in the 1940s. Indictment of Hiss on perjury charges in an espionage case involving suspected Communist infiltration of the government; Judge Peter K. Leisure's reasons for ordering the unsealing; Unsealing of the testimony at the urging of the Public Citizen Litigation Group.

Reports on the beating of Shafqat Chugtai of New York City, editor of the Urdu-language newspaper serving Pakistani immigrants. Arrest of a prominent Pakistani, Zakir Siddiqui, in connection with the beating; Accusations against Siddiqui that were voiced in Chugtai's newspaper `Sada-E-Pakistan.'

Focuses on the antitrust trial against Microsoft Corp. Response of Microsoft executives to the challenges posed by the Internet; Details on the electronic mail message sent by Nathan P. Myhrvold, chief technology officer of the company, to senior executives; Information on the deposition testimonies of the witnesses.

Reports on the order of William M. Daley, secretary of the United States Department of Commerce to widen the inquiry into whether officials were involved in an anomaly to destroy documents sought in a lawsuit. Verdict issued by Judge Royce C. Lamberth which rebukes the department; Information on the lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch against the department.

Reports that on September 2, 1998, Microsoft Corp. was requested by the United States Government to hand over documents which are believed to show illegal behavior by the company. Microsoft's response to this request; Comments from Mark Murray, a Microsoft spokesman; Allegations of the lawsuit against the company by the US Justice Department and 20 states.

Reports that `The Detroit News' and `The Detroit Free Press' newspapers were instructed by the United States National Labor Relations Board to reinstate the newspaper workers who striked in 1995 and reward them with back payments. What the board based its decision on; Indication that the companies will have to dismiss employees they hired as permanent replacement workers during the strike; Response of union leaders to the decision.

Reports on the contempt case in the Federal District Court in Raleigh, North Carolina, against Kirsten B. Mitchell a reporter for The Wilmington Morning Star newspaper, in relation to the disclosure of information from a sealed document. Who originally sealed the document; Circumstances surrounding the case; What reason Mitchell gave for reading the document; Controversy between judicial power and freedom of press; Which case did the sealed document refer to.

Reports on the libel case won by Proinsias De Rossa against the newspaper `Sunday Independent' concerning an article written by Eamon Dunphy. How much money was won in damages; What was De Rossa linked to in the article; Information on De Rossa's party.

Focuses on affidavits released by the United States Justice Department relating to Russell E. Weston Jr., who was charged with the shooting death of two Capitol policemen in Washington, D.C. on July 24, 1998. Claim that additional ammunition for his revolver was found; Congressional approval for a visitors' center at the Capitol to improve security; Details on the affidavits.

Reports that more confidential material from the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case, including the last name of the woman who had accused Bryant of rape, was accidentally released to the public by the court on July 28, 2004, through the Colorado State Judicial Branch Web site. Third instance of supposedly secret sealed papers slipping through the safeguards; Deep tension that has emerged within the case about the flow of information; Delicate balance that the court has tried to strike between the rights to privacy and the rights of a free press.

CORRECTION APPENDED The Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed Wednesday that it was investigating another Chinese client of the Shanghai affiliate of Deloitte, the large accounting group, on suspicion of accounting fraud. It did not identify the company, but an official said the investigation, which began in 2010, was continuing. The S.E.C. filed an administrative action against Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu CPA Ltd. of Shanghai for refusing to provide audit work papers related to the unidentified company. Deloitte said it had provided the work papers to Chinese regulators but could not provide them to United States regulators under Chinese law. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What becomes of New York's most formidable muckraking paper when two of its greatest muckrakers are gone? The Village Voice, the granddaddy of alternative weeklies, which enlivened political and investigative journalism in New York through its scrappy, hold-nothing-sacred approach, has lost Wayne Barrett and Tom Robbins, two journalists who helped define the paper's modern era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lawyers for Tim Donaghy, the disgraced N.B.A. referee who is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, argued in court papers filed Monday that his sentence should be limited because he had no control of his gambling habit. In the court papers, the lawyers presented an examination of Donaghy by a gambling treatment expert, who concluded that Donaghy was a pathological gambler who placed wagers because of his ''underlying need for 'action.' '' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Deals with the court papers filed on the shooting incident involving a driver of a van and two state troopers in the United States. Role of driver Keshon Moore in provoking the state troopers to shoot according to the court papers; Number of shots fired by the troopers on the van; Actions taken against troopers John Hogan and James Kenna.

The article discusses an analysis from the Research and Development (RAND) Corporation nonprofit which suggests that conversions from paper to electronic health care records at U.S. medical facilities have not reduced health care costs or improved patient care. Topics include federal financing of system conversions at hospitals, lawsuits that concern system transitions, the use of electronic systems to charge patients more for medical services, and rising health care costs.

The article focuses on New York City socialite and philanthropist Brooke Russell Kuser Marshall Astor. According to the author, Astor is at the center of a bitter intergenerational dispute that has become public. The author reviews how one of Astor's grandsons, Philip Marshall, has accused her son of mistreating her. Excerpts from court papers filed by Marshall are included.

Reports on the allegations that the oil company ChevronTexaco evaded taxes in a complex petroleum pricing scheme according to a research paper. Involvement of a project in Indonesia; Investigations by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS); Controversy about the legitimacy of the case.

Focuses on the report `National Policy on Microsoft: A Neutral Perspective,' written by Chris Hall, regarding the antitrust suit against Microsoft Corp. What the paper says about the United States government's evidence against the company; Focus of the paper; Windows-pricing issue.

A Wall Street executive filed suit on Friday against what had been New York's oldest art gallery, Knoedler & Company, charging that it and its former president, Ann Freedman, conspired with others in selling him a fake Willem de Kooning painting for $4 million. The suit is the third filed by an art collector involving a painting sold by the gallery, which closed last year. In this case the executive, John D. Howard, asserts that the gallery paid only $750,000 for the painting in 2007 and days later sold it to him for more than five times that price. ''No genuine work of art by de Kooning with a $4 million retail sale value could be purchased in good faith for $750,000,'' the lawyers for Mr. Howard, from Lynn Cahill LLP, state in the papers filed in federal court in Manhattan. Mr. Howard's suit asserts that his painting is one of a number of suspect works by Modernist masters that were supplied to the gallery by a little known Long Island dealer, Glafira Rosales. It states that the landscape, sold as a work painted by de Kooning in 1956-57, was probably created more recently by ''someone affiliated with Rosales.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Julie Taymor, who filed suit after she was fired as director of the $75 million Broadway musical ''Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark'' last March, said in court papers Friday that the producers' counter-suit was ''highly sensationalistic, false and misleading'' and aimed at ''assassinating her character and professional reputation.'' In a 46-page answer to the producers' counterclaim, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, Ms. Taymor contended that they secretly conspired to oust her while still asking her to make changes on the show's book while public performances were going on. The filing argues that the producers fired Ms. Taymor and blamed the show's problems on her as an ''opportunistic way'' to calm worried investors, buy more time, and ''sway critics' opinions'' by insisting that the show had been ''re-imagined.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Exxon Mobil Corporation and Kenneth Salazar, the interior secretary, agreed to settle a lawsuit in which Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, challenged the government's decision to cancel offshore leases that may yield ''billions of barrels of oil,'' according to a court filing. The accord ''will allow Exxon Mobil to develop this very large, but technically challenging, resource as quickly as possible using a phased approach,'' Patrick McGinn, a spokesman for Exxon, said in an e-mail. Exxon sued on Aug. 12 over a ruling by the department that canceled Gulf of Mexico leases for the so-called Julia unit. The company and the government entered into a settlement agreement on Dec. 30, according to a filing Friday in United States District Court in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Exxon said in its complaint that it sought a suspension for its Julia leases in 2008 because of drilling complexity. It cited federal regulations that allow oil oil producers to suspend production in their fields, partly ''to facilitate proper development of a lease.'' The Interior Department denied the request in 2009, stating that the company''had not demonstrated a commitment to production'' according to court papers. Unsuccessful appeals followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before George Zouvelos agrees to post someone's bail, a customer must put up cash, sign a 20-page contract and initial 86 separate paragraphs. Those paragraphs are chock-full of fees: $250 if the defendant misses a weekly check-in; as much as $375 an hour for obscure tasks like bail consulting and research; and unspecified amounts if Mr. Zouvelos, a bail bondsman based in Manhattan, farms out tasks like obtaining court documents or delivering release papers to jail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A legal dispute that had riveted the chess world and hobbled the United States Chess Federation, the game's governing body, has been settled -- mostly. Papers filed on Friday in Federal District Court in Lubbock, Tex., stipulate that two former federation board members, the federation and some of its other members are dismissing almost all of their claims and counterclaims. The dispute began with accusations over Internet postings and evolved into a series of lawsuits in several states. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The first day of jury selection in the Cheshire triple murder case offered a taste of the intense emotions the case has brought to Connecticut, but ended without any jurors chosen in the capital murder trial. The slow pace showed that court officials may have rightly figured that picking a jury could take months. Some potential jurors were excused after saying that the media had given them detailed knowledge of the case. ''It's all over the papers,'' one panel member said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A Swiss court on Wednesday granted bail to the filmmaker Roman Polanski, right, who was being detained as he fights extradition to the United States to face sentencing on charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl. The Swiss Federal Criminal Court granted Mr. Polanski's appeal against detention in exchange for $4.5 million, along with other guarantees like the surrender of his identity papers to ensure he does not leave the country, the federal tribunal said. The three judges of the court estimated that the bail amount was a substantial portion of Mr. Polanski's fortune and that given his ''advanced age'' -- he is 76 -- the ''possibility of reaccumulation of fortune in this amount would not be certain.'' The court considered the bail and the supporting measures ''as being sufficient to avert the risk of flight,'' it said. The Justice Ministry has 10 days to submit an appeal to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. If it does not appeal, Mr. Polanski would be allowed to leave his jail cell and remain under house arrest and electronic monitoring at his holiday chalet in the resort of Gstaad. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

TLC sued Jon Gosselin, a star of its show ''Jon & Kate Plus 8,'' on Friday, saying he breached his contract by giving unauthorized interviews. Jon and Kate Gosselin, who appear with their eight children on the reality show, had signed contracts with the channel that stipulated how and when they could grant interviews and make public appearances. After the couple filed for divorce, TLC said last month that it would reconfigure ''Jon & Kate Plus 8'' as ''Kate Plus 8,'' diminishing Mr. Gosselin's role. Days later he banned the camera crews from his property, effectively halting production, and began asserting that the show had hurt his family. TLC said in court papers filed in Maryland, where TLC is based, that Mr. Gosselin had repeatedly violated his contract and cited his entering into a ''lucrative arrangement'' to appear regularly on ''Entertainment Tonight'' and its sibling show, ''The Insider.'' Mr. Gosselin's lawyer, Mark J. Heller, called the lawsuit baseless and said the change from ''Jon & Kate'' to ''Kate Plus 8'' effectively ended any contract his client had with TLC. Mr. Heller said TLC had treated Mr. Gosselin ''like a dog by attempting to keep him on a leash and muzzle him and deny the father of eight the opportunity to earn a livelihood to support his family.'' Production of ''Kate Plus 8'' remained suspended in light of the legal action, TLC said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]