The jury presiding over the perjury trial of former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby returned a guilty verdict Tuesday after 10 days of deliberation in the case that began January 23. Libby faced perjury and obstruction of justice charges in connection with the investigation into the leak of the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame. He was found guilty on four of five counts.

US District Judge Reggie B. Walton dismissed a juror last week after finding she had been exposed to information about the CIA leak case over the previous weekend. Deliberations continued with just 11 jurors, despite the availability of two alternate jurors. Earlier this week, Walton refused to answer a jury question on the level of proof that would have to be met to find Libby guilty. The jury wanted to know whether in order to satisfy the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt they had to find it would not be "humanly" possible" for Libby to completely forget conversations which witnesses had testified took place. Walton determined the question was too vague to be properly answered.

Libby's defense team rested February 15, one week after the prosecution finished presenting its evidence against Libby. Lawyers subsequently made their closing arguments February 20 in which the defense argued that Libby was a scapegoat for presidential aide Karl Rove's disclosures, while the prosecution argued in its final remarks that Libby was merely trying to a cover up a potentially illegal intelligence leak.

"We need a sustained focus here, and much more needs to be done," Rep. John Tierney said of a scandal enveloping Walter Reed. Charges of bureaucratic delays and poor treatment there have produced calls in Congress for quick reform.

Tierney said he is afraid "these problems go well beyond the walls of Walter Reed," adding that "as we send more and more troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, these problems are only going to get worse, not better."

The hearing brought an apology from the Army's top civilian. "We have let some soldiers down," said Peter Geren, undersecretary of the Army.

As Congress held its first hearing on the scandal at the medical center itself, Tierney, D-Mass., questioned whether problems at the facility are "just another horrific consequence" of inadequate planning that went into war in Iraq; a problem created by contracting out work there to private business, or some other cause.

"This is absolutely the wrong way to treat our troops, and serious reforms need to happen... immediately," he said.

Tierney chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's national security panel, which held the hearing Monday in the hospital's auditorium. The list of Army officials, hospital staff and patients invited to speak includes the medical center's previous commander, Maj. Gen. George Weightman.

Geren, who will become acting Army secretary later this week, told the panel that the revelations of poor conditions at Walter Reed had hurt the Army. Defense Secretary Robert Gates forced Army Secretary Francis Harvey to resign last Friday.

"There's a vow that's part of the soldier's creed: I will never leave a fallen comrade," he said. "That's the -- on the battlefield, in a hospital, as an outpatient. That is the part of our soul of every soldier. And anytime that vow is broken, I can tell you it hurts the heart of the Army," Geren said.

The defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee also scheduled a hearing on Walter Reed for later in the day.

Outraged lawmakers on Sunday vowed quick action and called for an independent commission to examine poor conditions for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a letter Sunday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., asked for an independent commission, possibly headed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, to investigate all post-combat medical facilities and recommend changes.

"To think that men and women are serving their country in the most honorable and courageous way possible and all we give them is a dilapidated, rat-infested, run-down building to recover is a disgrace," Schumer wrote. "My fear is that Walter Reed is just the tip of the iceberg, and merely highlights the pervasive and systemic mistreatment of our service members."

President Bush last week ordered a comprehensive review of conditions at the nation's network of military and veteran hospitals. They have been overwhelmed by injured troops from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House said the president would name a bipartisan commission to assess whether the problems at Walter Reed exist at other facilities. Last week, Gates created an outside panel to review the situation at Walter Reed and the other major military hospital in the Washington area, the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md.

Gates also dismissed Harvey, who had fired Weightman and replaced him with Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army's surgeon general and a former commander of Walter Reed. Gates said Harvey's response was not aggressive enough.

The Army announced that Maj. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker will be the new commander of Walter Reed, which is in Washington. In addition, the Army took disciplinary action against several lower-level soldiers at Walter Reed.

The moves came in response to a series of Washington Post reports about substandard conditions and bureaucratic problems affecting the care of injured soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to Walter Reed, one of the military's highest-profile and busiest medical facilities, and its outpatient facilities.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Sunday the scandal is emblematic of the Bush administration's "lack of accountability" and "overoptimism" about the war in Iraq.

An African-American attorney is suing the Los Angeles law firm founded by the late Johnnie Cochran over alleged racial discrimination.

The Los Angeles Times said Saturday that Shawn Chapman Holley has said that after Cochran's death in 2005, the firm's leadership was turned over to "white men who began to discriminate against black lawyers and black clients."

Prior to Cochran's death, the law firm gained notoriety for the acquittal of 1994 double murder charges against O.J. Simpson. The lawsuit has stunned members of the city's black establishment, the Times said.

Public affairs consultant Kerman Maddox, told the Times, "I'm shocked; if true, that would be a devastating blow to the legacy of Johnnie Cochran."

Randy McMurray, a black partner in the firm, denied Holley's charges. "We probably have the most diverse law firm in California; I don't know what race we would be discriminating against," he said.

Holley worked for the firm for some 17 years before she says she was demoted by Caucasian males and then fired in January of 2006, an allegation the firm has denied.

The firings have sparked arguments about the power of the US Attorney General to indefinitely appoint replacement prosecutors, and also allegations that the firings were politically charged. Earlier this week Iglesias told reporters that federal lawmakers pressured him to speed up indictments of local Democrats in time for the November elections. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty denied that the removal of the attorneys was motivated by political considerations.

A federal judge in California on Thursday dismissed all claims in the second of four patent infringement lawsuits filed by Alcatel-Lucent against Microsoft Corp. . The case, which was scheduled to begin trial March 19, concerned speech recognition technology. The ruling, issued by US District Judge Rudi Brewster, will be appealed by Alcatel-Lucent.

Last Thursday, a federal jury in California awarded Alcatel-Lucent $1.52 billion in damages for violations of two of Alcatel-Lucent's digital music patents committed by Microsoft. Microsoft indicated it might appeal the verdict. Two additional patent suits between Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent are pending, with the next trial scheduled to begin May 21.

Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a $10 million settlement to the Securities and Exchange Commission last June without admitting or denying allegations made by the SEC that the corporation had failed to protect against potential misuse of insider trading information as required by law.

Pentagon officials announced Thursday that David Hicks, an Australian detainee held in U.S. custody for more than five years, will face two counts of providing material support for terrorism, the first time anyone has been charged under the new U.S. law governing military trials for some foreign terrorism suspects.

The case against Hicks marks the first use of rules established by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which was enacted last year when Republicans still controlled Congress and after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down earlier rules for the military trials.

With their party now in control of Congress, some Democrats have been outspoken about wanting to revamp the Military Commissions Act to provide suspects with more rights and eliminate the use of evidence obtained through coercion. Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., have introduced legislation that would restore rights of detainees such as Hicks to challenge their detentions via habeas corpus petitions, something a federal appeals court in Washington recently ruled were prohibited under current law.

The filing of charges also could prompt Hicks' attorneys to initiate a new legal challenge of the law. Defense attorneys for a group of foreign nationals held in the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- including Hicks -- have filed lawsuits that its provisions are unconstitutional, but recently lost at the appellate level.

The detainees' attorneys said they plan to file a petition Monday for an expedited hearing in the Supreme Court. Another Guantanamo detainee, Salim Hamdan, filed a petition with the Supreme Court this week alleging that the Military Commissions Act is unconstitutional.