A California appeals court ruled in favor of octuplets mother Nadya Suleman Friday, denying a call for an independent guardian to monitor her children's finances.

The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana called the petition an "unprecedented, meritless effort by a stranger" and directed an Orange County probate court to vacate its order for an investigation into the family's finances.

Paul Petersen, an advocate for children in the entertainment industry, argued that Suleman's children were vulnerable and that an independent guardian should be appointed to look after their financial interests.

The appeals court said the probate judge erred because Petersen failed to show that Suleman was engaging in financial misconduct.

Suleman gave birth to octuplets on Jan. 26, 2009. The medical curiosity of their delivery turned to public outrage when it was learned that the single, unemployed mother had been caring for her six other children with the help of food stamps and Social Security disability payments for three of the youngsters.

A former emergency room doctor who deliberately braked in front of two bicyclists, causing them to crash and suffer serious injuries in the road rage incident, was sentenced Friday to five years in prison.

Christopher Thomas Thompson, 60, was sentenced in Los Angeles County Superior Court. He was in tears as he apologized to the victims.

"The physical and mental scars are my fault," he said, telling them that he has recurring nightmares about one of the cyclists crashing through the windshield of his car.

But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Millington said he was concerned about a lack of remorse. The defendant was apologetic today, but remarks he made soon after the crash indicated otherwise, the judge said.

Thompson, who worked at Beverly Hospital in Montebello, has been jailed since he was convicted in November of assault with a deadly weapon, battery with serious bodily injury, reckless driving and mayhem.

Prosecutors say he had argued with the two cyclists before suddenly slamming on his brakes in front of them on Mandeville Canyon Road on July 4, 2008, causing them to crash and suffer serious injuries. One cyclist who went through the car window suffered broken teeth, cuts and had to have his nose reattached. The other cyclist suffered a separated shoulder after crashing to the pavement.

Under terms of a settlement announced by Oregon Attorney General John Kroger, a California law firm is prohibited from providing loan modifications in Oregon and is required to pay $28,857.

"I will not hesitate to take action against companies that attempt to take advantage of Oregon homeowners in distress," Kroger said.

The settlement followed an Oregon Department of Justice investigation that determined The USMAC Law Group had violated state law by collecting advance fees for loan modifications to prevent foreclosure sales.

The DOJ's investigation also focused on alleged non-compliant contract language and deceptive infomercial advertisements for the firm's loan modification program that aired nationally on satellite television.

Loan modification companies are prohibited from collecting advance fees and using confusing contract language by the 2008 Oregon Mortgage Rescue Fraud protection Act.

The USMAC Law Group will provide $6,857 in refunds to two Oregon consumers and an additional nine Oregon consumers who contracted with The USMAC Law Group may also be eligible for refunds. The remaining $22,000 will be paid to the Oregon Department of Justice. No wrongdoing was admitted by The USMAC Law Group in agreeing to the settlement.

The settlement with The USMAC Law Group comes as part of a crack down on unscrupulous loan modification work to fight the foreclosure crisis by the Department of Justice, the Department of Consumer and Business Services, the Oregon Legislature and consumer groups, Kroger said.

A Swiss court ruled that the nation's top financial regulator acted in an "unlawful" manner when it forced UBS AG to release client data to U.S. authorities, reigniting a debate over bank-secrecy practices.

The decision, if upheld, could complicate efforts to extract client data by tax authorities in other countries. Private bankers have argued that whittling away Switzerland's banking-privacy laws has led to withdrawals by wealthy individuals.

Nearly one year ago, Finma, the Swiss financial-services regulator, ordered UBS to hand over details on nearly 300 accounts to U.S. authorities in order to settle a tax dispute. The regulator said it had to move quickly because, according to Swiss officials, U.S. authorities were threatening to indict the bank over the tax issue.

Finma argued that a potential indictment was a "clear and present" danger that UBS might not survive. Moreover, Finma added, UBS already had admitted to aiding tax fraud through hidden offshore accounts. The court disagreed, saying Finma had exceeded its authority and should have referred the matter to the government. The government backed Finma's move last February.

A federal appeals court gave notice Friday it likely would reject the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to sanction Comcast for throttling peer-to-peer applications.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit suggested as much during oral arguments from the FCC and Comcast. The Philadelphia-based cable concern is appealing the agency’s 2008 decision ordering it to stop hampering the peer-to-peer service BitTorrent as a traffic-management practice.

The move was in response to complaints Comcast was sending fake signals to users of BitTorrent, a bandwidth-heavy protocol often used to pirate copyright content.

A millionaire motorist clocked up a record fine of 299,000 Swiss francs ($290,000) after Swiss police caught him racing through a village at 100 km per hour in his red Ferrari Testarossa, Swiss media reported on Thursday.
A court in the northeastern Swiss canton of St Gallen gave the millionaire the hefty penalty, which outstripped the previous record of 111,000 francs handed a Porsche driver in 2008 in Zurich, after a string of previous traffic offences.

"The accused ignored elementary traffic rules with a powerful vehicle out of a pure desire for speed," the court said in its judgement of the motorist, who clocked speeds of up to 137 km per hour on country roads, said daily Blick.

The St Gallen Cantonal Court ordered the man to dip into his 23.3 million franc fortune, which included a villa with a garage containing five luxury cars.

Court officials said they could not immediately confirm details of the case.

In October, St Gallen police pulled over another speeding motorist after he committed 15 traffic offences in 10 minutes, including driving on the hard shoulder, jumping a red light and failing to stop for police.

Attorney General Rob McKenna and Secretary of State Sam Reed say they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an appellate court's decision that would give Washington state felons in prison and on community supervision the right to vote.

McKenna and Reed announced their decision Wednesday. The appeal has to be filed with the court by April, and the state will seek a stay on felony inmates' ability to vote until the case is resolved.

Tuesday's 2-1 ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the 2000 ruling of a district judge in Spokane. The appeals court says Washington state's felon disenfranchisement law violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.