Societe Generale spokeswoman Laura Schalk confirmed that investigators searched its offices on Wednesday, taking some records and detaining the employee, whose name she declined to provide. She called the search part of "normal proceedings" in the probe.

Christophe Reille, a spokesman for Kerviel, declined to comment.

A French court is scheduled to rule Friday on whether Kerviel should be freed from a Paris prison during the investigation. Investigators have said they want to prevent him from speaking with any possible accomplices.

Kerviel says he acted alone, but that his bosses must have been aware of his massive risk-taking, and turned a blind eye as long as he was making money for the bank. Investigators are searching for others who could have known about, or participated in, what the bank says was Kerviel's unauthorized activity.

A preliminary internal probe by Societe Generale found no evidence that anyone helped Kerviel hide his positions. The report did say bank officials failed to follow up on 74 warnings about questionable trades, uncovering Kerviel's positions only on the 75th.

Kerviel's lawyer Guillaume Selnet told The Associated Press last week he will be asking why the alerts "didn't provoke any reaction."

Societe Generale says Kerviel forged documents and e-mails to suggest he had hedged his positions.

The bank reported a trading loss of nearly 4.9 billion euros ($7.58 billion) on Jan. 24 from liquidating 50 billion euros ($73 billion) in unauthorized futures positions Kerviel had taken.

Solner gave Fairplay, whose real name is Jon Dalton, 20 days to amend his complaint to explain why the producers of Fox Reality Channel's "Really Awards" were negligent and involved in the alleged battery.

The lawsuit stems from an October 2007 altercation in which Fairplay, a competitor on "Survivor: Pearl Islands," jumped into Bonaduce's arms on stage during the awards show to give him a hug.

Bonaduce, 48, responded by tossing Fairplay over his shoulders. Fairplay landed face first, losing one tooth, breaking another and loosening two more.

Fairplay, 34, sued Bonaduce, Fox Reality Channel and the show producers for battery, negligence and emotional distress. He claims the producers encouraged Bonaduce to go on stage uninvited, did not provide security and failed to provide prompt medical care afterward.

Vicki Greco, a lawyer for Fox and the producers Natural 9 Entertainment, said Bonaduce's actions were unplanned and the companies were not responsible for the incident.

Fairplay's lawyer, Daniel C. Lapidus, claimed Bonaduce told the producers "what he wanted to do and they told him to do it."

Bonaduce, a child actor on "The Partridge Family," starred in the 2005 reality show "Breaking Bonaduce." The next hearing in the case is scheduled for May 12.

William Constable, 54, a self-employed contractor, was arrested in October when he tried to retrieve a camera he left in a Cape Cod hotel room. A hotel employee who found the camera called police after seeing images of a man having sex with young girls.

Prosecutors said the camera and dozens of cassettes and compact discs later seized from Constable's Nantucket home showed him sexually assaulting girls as young as 5, sometimes two at a time.

During a hearing in U.S. District Court, Constable pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography. According to a plea agreement filed with the court, the recommended sentence will be 25 years in prison and a $50,000 fine, with restitution to be determined when Constable is sentenced on June 10. He also faces lifetime supervision after his release.

The suit against South Carolina-based Force Protection on behalf of shareholder Allan Candelore seeks class-action status. The Post and Courier of Charleston reports the lawsuit claims top company officials did not warn investors about delays in delivering bomb-resistant vehicles to the U.S. military.

Force Protection shares plummeted earlier this month after the company announced it was reshuffling management and told shareholders it had major accounting problems.

The appeals court granted the request of Toni Locy, who had been ordered by a federal judge to pay the fines out of her own pocket while she appeals an order finding her in contempt of court.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton is demanding that Locy provide the names of all dozen or so Justice Department and FBI sources who provided her information for stories on the probe into the anthrax attacks.

The order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia means Locy will not have to pay the fines or face further sanctions including possibly being sent to jail while her lawyers fight Walton's contempt ruling.

Locy says she cannot recall which of her FBI and Justice Department sources provided her information for two stories about scientist Steven Hatfill. Hatfill has been under scrutiny in the probe and is suing the government for dragging his name into the investigation.

Starting at midnight Tuesday, Locy was to have paid out of her own funds $500 a day for seven days, $1,000 a day for seven days and $5,000 a day thereafter until she was to have appeared in court April 3. At that time, the judge could have ordered further fines or directed that she be sent to jail if she continued to defy him.

Locy says that enforcing the contempt order could have a chilling effect by calling into question the enforceability of reporters' secrecy agreements with public officials.

"I am relieved and thankful that the court of appeals has found that my legal arguments are worthy of consideration," said Locy, a former reporter with The Associated Press who wrote the anthrax stories while at USA Today. She now teaches journalism at West Virginia University.

Appeals court judges Douglas Ginsburg, Judith Rogers and Brett Kavanaugh granted the reporter's request. Ginsburg was appointed by President Reagan, Rogers by President Clinton and Kavanaugh by the current President Bush.

Hatfill's lawyers had asked the appeals court to allow the penalties against the reporter to start immediately.

"There was no whistle-blowing here, no use of an anonymity agreement by a reporter to allow a courageous federal official to expose wrongdoing without fear of retaliation," Hatfill's lawyers wrote.

"The 'leaks' at issue here are disclosures from investigative files about one innocent and uncharged man, designed to convey through cooperative members of the media the false story that the government had made progress in the anthrax investigation," the court filing by Hatfill's lawyers added.

Five people were killed and 17 sickened when anthrax was mailed to Capitol Hill lawmakers and members of the media just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Subsequently, Attorney General John Ashcroft called Hatfill "a person of interest" in the investigation and stories by various reporters including Locy followed. Hatfill had worked at the Army's infectious diseases laboratory from 1997 to 1999. The anthrax attacks remain unsolved.

For Fallon, the perception of a disagreement with Bush's policies on Iran rather than an actual rift was enough reason to step down.

"Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president's policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region," Fallon said in a statement Tuesday in which he announced his resignation as head of U.S. Central Command, arguably the most important in the U.S. military.

Democrats seized on Fallon's resignation as an opportunity to criticize Bush.

"Over the last seven Bush years, we've seen those who toe the company line get rewarded and those who speak inconvenient truths get retired," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said in a written statement.

More than 200 policemen with bomb detectors and five sniffer dogs were deployed around the court where some 400 of Thaksin's supporters waited, many holding portraits of the former leader over their heads.

"The defendant pleaded not guilty of the charges," chief judge Thongloh Chom-ngam told the court, which set the next hearing for April 29. It also excused Thaksin from having to appear at every hearing, as requested by his lawyer.

"We can prove our innocence," said Thaksin, who was ousted in a September 2006 military coup for alleged corruption and abuse of power.

When he emerged after the hearing, some of his supporters burst into tears while others cheered him, shouting "Thaksin, fight, fight."

"Never mind, everything will be OK," Thaksin told one female supporter who cried as she hugged him.

Thaksin's return has stirred the Thai political scene because of suspicions that he will seek a return to power and try to settle the score against those who deposed him.

He has insisted, though, that he has no interest in returning to politics and has said he plans to devote himself to charity work, sports and his family.