But he has no other details and terms weren't disclosed. Trial in the lawsuit was to begin April ninth. The Ropers sued when State Farm denied their claim after Hurricane Katrina reduced their Ocean Springs home to a slab in August 2005.

The couple sought more than $75-thousand in actual damages and an unspecified amount in punitive damages.

Thousands of Polish citizens marched in Warsaw on Wednesday in support of a proposed constitutional amendment to enact a complete ban on abortion. The opposition Civic Platform party is expected to block passage of the amendment when it comes to a vote in April. Poland's current 1993 abortion law is considered among the strictest in Europe, allowing abortions only if the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the mother; if a fetus has a potentially life-threatening condition; or if the pregnancy is the product of a crime, which is only permitted during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. A two-thirds majority is needed to amend the Polish constitution.

Last year, a Polish woman challenged the abortion law before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as violating her privacy rights under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The ECHR decided in her favor last week, but the ruling will not affect the Polish law.

The proper balance among these and other public policy objectives lies not only in recognizing the creator's rights but in giving due weight to their limited nature. In crassly economic terms it would be as inefficient to overcompensate artists and authors for the right of reproduction as it would be self-defeating to undercompensate them.

http://www.michaelgeist.ca

The case comes on appeal from the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which held in January that the shareholder's complaint had enough detail to establish "a strong inference that knew had exaggerated its revenues." This case is one of several cases being considered by the Supreme Court where companies hope to limit class actions suits against them. On Monday, the Court agreed to consider whether shareholders of companies that commit securities fraud should be able to sue investment banks, lawyers, and auditors that allegedly also participated in the fraud. The Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case involving shareholders seeking damages from banks that allegedly violated antitrust laws.

For its 10th anniversary, Yahoo Mail is upping the ante to maintain its position as the leading free e-mail service in the world. It's bet: infinity.

"We will begin offering everyone unlimited e-mail storage starting in May 2007," said John Kremer, VP of Yahoo Mail, in a blog post on Tuesday.

When it launched in 1997, Yahoo Mail offered users 4 Mbytes of storage. Then came the information explosion. In 2004, storage capacity was raised to 100 Mbytes. A year later, it was 1 Gbyte.

Google's Gmail currently offers 2.8 Gbytes of storage to its users, an amount that has been creeping upward since the service debuted with 1 Gbyte. Google watchers speculate that some sort of competitive answer to Yahoo's announcement may come on April 1st, the third anniversary of Gmail.

Windows Live Mail offers 2 Gbytes of storage. MSN Hotmail offers 1 Gbyte for its free plan.

Yahoo Mail has long been the most popular free e-mail service worldwide. In February, it received some 243.4 million visitors, according to comScore Media Metrix. Microsoft's MSN Hotmail and Windows Live came in a close second, with 233.3 million visitors the same month. Google's Gmail remains a distant third, having served 62.4 million visitors last month.

However, of the three leading free e-mail services, Yahoo Mail has been growing the slowest. Between February 2006 and February 2007, worldwide traffic at Yahoo Mail grew 9%. Hotmail/Windows Live Mail grew 13% and Gmail grew 68% during the same period, according to comScore.

Unlimited storage, if unanswered by Microsoft and Google, may help Yahoo maintain its lead in the market.

"We hope we're setting a precedent for the future," said Kremer. "Someday, can you imagine a hard drive that you can never fill? Never having to empty your photo card on your camera to get space back? Enough storage to fit the world's music, and then some, on your iPod? Sounds like a future without limits."

It may sound like that, but limitless things often have limits, as is the case with Comcast's "All You Can Eat" broadband service. Kremer, in fact, acknowledged there will be some limits: "[L]ike any responsible Web mail service, we have anti-abuse limits in place to protect our users."

A Yahoo spokesperson declined to elaborate on limits to unlimited storage. "We do have controls in place to ensure that people benefit from the unlimited storage feature, but are not able to abuse the system," a Yahoo spokesperson said in an e-mail. "Our anti-abuse limits are there to monitor suspicious activity and to ensure our users have a safe, efficient and reliable Web mail experience. As always, we will require users to abide by the Yahoo Terms of Service. I do not have any other details to share with you at this time."

Boston-based legal firm Goodwin Procter has inked a deal to lease several floors in The New York Times’ new Manhattan high-rise headquarters.

The law firm will lease seven floors, totaling 216,000 square feet, in the 52-story Renzo Piano designed building, which is now nearing completion.

The move is part of a major expansion by Goodwin Procter of its New York office, which focuses on the city’s booming financial services sector. The firm expects to double its New York office in size from 150 to 300 over the next few years, a spokeswoman said.

The law firm, which has more than 800 lawyers, has opened a number of new offices recently in other cities around the country.

The new Times headquarters building is a joint venture between The New York Times Co. and Forest City Ratner Cos. The 1.6 million-square-foot New York Times Building, which will open in the fall, is now almost fully leased.

http://www.goodwinprocter.com

The US District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit against former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for authorizing torture and abuse of detainees by US personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The suit asserted that Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for detainee abuse and that his actions violated the US Constitution, federal statutes and international law. Chief Judge Thomas Hogan based the dismissal on the immunity of government officials from lawsuits and the premise that US constitutional rights do not apply overseas. While noting that the allegations of torture were "horrifying," Hogan concluded that policy considerations counsel against permitting government officials to be sued for political decisions.

The suit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights First, which had previously sued Rumsfeld and other military officials in 2005 on behalf of eight former detainees. A war crimes action is also pending against Rumsfeld in Germany, where the German Federal Prosecutor is using Germany's universal jurisdiction law to investigate similar allegations.