A Michigan judge has ordered a stay-at-home mom to attend a murder trial and serve 24 hours in jail because she arrived late for jury selection.

Carmela Khury was released Monday after a day and a half as a spectator in Oakland County Circuit court.

The State Court Administrative Office told Judge Leo Bowman he had no authority to punish Khury and to drop the order or face sanctions.

Khury appeared in court an hour late with her 8-month-old and 3-year-old children last Thursday, saying she could not find a baby sitter.

Bowman dismissed her from the jury pool and ordered her to return Friday to watch the trial. He said she would have to spend 24 hours in jail after the case.

Bowman declined to comment through his staff in suburban Detroit.

Indianapolis-based Dann Pecar Newman & Kleiman P.C. has merged with a law firm in Cleveland. The deal brings Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff LLP into the Indianapolis market after establishing offices in Columbus, Ohio, New York state, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Shanghai. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports the combined firm will be know as Benesch/Dann Pecar in Indianapolis.

Dann Pecar Newman & Kleiman P.C. was founded in 1911 and the Indianapolis office has 26 attorneys.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the United Nations is absolutely immune from such a lawsuit, and its former employees also have immunity.

The ruling upheld a lower court judge's decision to toss out a lawsuit brought by U.S. citizen Cynthia Brzak. She had alleged that ex-refugee chief Ruud Lubbers grabbed her in a sexual manner after a December 2003 business meeting in his Geneva office.

Lubbers resigned from the position in February 2005 because of the attention caused by the scandal. He's also the former prime minister of the Netherlands.

Anastasia Kelly, the former top in-house lawyer for American International Group Inc. who resigned Dec. 30 over compensation issues, has joined DLA Piper's Washington office, the firm announced today.

Kelly joins DLA Piper as of counsel. "She has a well earned reputation as the go-to counsel for companies in difficult circumstances and she will be a tremendous asset for our clients as they navigate this volatile market and these challenging times," DLA Piper Global Chairman Francis Burch said in a statement.

Frank "Rusty" Conner, the managing partner of DLA Piper's Washington office, said via e-mail that Kelly has worked at DLA Piper before. Kelly was not immediately available for comment. She joined AIG in 2006, and was named a vice chairman of the company in January 2009, after the insurance giant received a public bailout during the financial crisis. Before going to AIG, she was an executive vice president and general counsel of MCI/WorldCom, another company that faced the aftermath of an accounting scandal. She was a partner at the firm then known as Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.
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The high court overturned a lower court decision throwing out a settlement between freelancers, publishers and database owners including Reed Elsevier Inc., educational publisher and owner of the LexisNexis information service.

The proposed settlement covers freelancers who registered the copyright to their works as well as those who didn't. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York had said courts generally don't have authority over infringement claims on works that are not copyrighted.

Justice Clarence Thomas disagreed, writing that the lower court did have authority to approve the settlement.

The lawsuit followed a Supreme Court ruling in 2001 that freelance writers have online rights to their work. The case largely applied to articles, photographs and illustrations that were produced 15 or more years ago, before freelance contracts provided for the material's electronic use.

Apple Inc. sued HTC Corp., which makes several Google Inc.-based smart phones, saying the cellphone maker is infringing on 20 patents related to its popular iPhone.

Taiwan's HTC has built up its brand in the recent years thanks to its early support of Google's Android operating system. It was the first company to sell an Android phone and more recently built Google's Nexus One phone, which the Internet giant is selling directly to consumers.

Apple filed complaints with both with the U.S. International Trade Commission and in federal court in Delaware. The suits seek a ban on U.S. imports, sales or use of the targeted HTC phones, as well as unspecified compensation for damages.

The company's ITC complaint claims several of HTC's devices, including the Nexus One, as well as phones running Windows Mobile infringe on its patents. The company said the patents involve the iPhone's touch-screen user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.