Oil prices rallied more than $1 Wednesday to close above $52 after floundering through a volatile trading session that saw crude briefly bottom at a new 19-month low.

The market searched for direction in the lull between Tuesday's comments by Saudi Arabia's oil minister advocating no further production cuts and Thursday's scheduled release of petroleum inventory data.

A barrel of crude hasn't settled below $50 since May 24, 2005. But prices came close Tuesday, sliding as low as $50.28 in early trading before recouping the losses. The price of crude has plunged 14 percent since the year began due to weeks of unusually warm weather in the Northeast and an influx of short positions in the market, or bets that prices would fall.

Net income rose to $1 billion, or $1.14 a share, from $565 million, or 65 cents, a year earlier, Cupertino, California-based Apple said today in a statement. Sales rose 24 percent to $7.12 billion. Analysts anticipated profit of 78 cents, according to the average of 14 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Apple sold a record 21.1 million iPods after Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs stoked holiday demand by releasing smaller, less-expensive and higher-capacity models. Updated Macs with faster chips from Intel Corp. helped drive shipments to 1.61 million machines. Sales gained in the U.S. and abroad.

``The results today confirm that Apple's product portfolio is a superior offering to the market place,'' said Glen Kacher, a fund manager at Integral Capital Partners in Menlo Park, California, which owns Apple shares. This year ``should be a victory lap for Apple.''

Profit and sales this quarter will fall short of analysts' estimates. Apple forecast earnings of 54 cents to 56 cents a share, compared with the 60-cent average analyst estimate. The company expects sales of $4.8 billion to $4.9 billion, below analysts' average estimate of $5.23 billion.

Curtis partner Antonio M. Prida was featured in the January edition of Entorno, a news magazine of the Confederation of Employers of the Mexican Republic (COPARMEX), as the co-author of "A Proposed Agenda for an Electoral Reform." Mr. Prida's article indicates that past presidential elections in Mexico showed the strength of the electoral institutions which withstood pressure from populist parties and non-governmental groups. However, Mr. Prida also proposes reforms to the election laws in order to avoid the post-electoral drama witnessed by the world.

www.cm-p.com

One of New York's most prestigious law firms is being sued for discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation by one of their own lawyers.

28-year-old associate Aaron B Charney says in his suit that senior colleagues subjected him to "lewd and illegal conduct," The New York Times reports.

Sullivan & Cromwell, founded in 1879, is one of America's best known - and profitable - law firms.

It is particularly reknowned for its work on mergers and acquisitions, and it is this department that is the focus of the lawsuit.

While secretarial and other staff have sued law firms in the past for harassment, as an associate lawyer in his fourth year at the firm, Mr Charney is an unusual claimant.

The legal action could have a negative impact on his future career.

"The day I derailed my career was the day I complained about the discrimination," he told the Times.

He added that he will be representing himself in court as no other lawyer is willing to take on Sullivan & Cromwell.

Mr Charney wants a jury trial and is asking for undisclosed damages.

He alleges that he was the victim of discrimination and retaliation.

A senior colleague accused him of having a sexual relationship with a fellow employee and demanded he be fired. Mr Charney denies the relationship was sexual.

His boss also alluded to the alleged relationship, telling Mr Charney to put an end to it. He also alleges he was subject to sexually suggestive behaviour by partners.

The chairman of Sullivan & Maxwell released an email statement to The New York Times denying the accusations.

The Justice Department, easing a Bush administration policy, said Wednesday it has decided to give an independent body authority to monitor the government's controversial domestic spying program.

In a letter to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said this authority has been given to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and that it already has approved one request for monitoring the communications of a person believed to be linked to al-Qaida or an associated terror group.

The court orders approving collection of international communications _ whether it originates in the United States or abroad _ was issued Jan. 10, according to the two-page letter to Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

"As a result of these orders, any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," Gonzales wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

"Accordingly, under these circumstances, the President has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires," the attorney general wrote.

The Bush administration secretly launched the surveillance program in 2001 to monitor international phone calls and e-mails to or from the United States involving people suspected by the government of having terrorist links.

The White House said it is satisfied that the new guidelines meet its concerns about national security.

"The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has put together its guidelines and its rules and those have met administration concerns about speed and agility when it comes to responding to bits of intelligence where we may to be able to save American lives," White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

Snow said he could not explain why those concerns could not have been addressed before the program was started. He said the president will not reauthorize the present program because the new rules will serve as guideposts.

A lawsuit that could determine whether Muslims, Jews and other non-Christians can use the holy texts of their faith to affirm courtroom testimony can move forward, the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

The decision means the controversy that started three years ago when a Guilford County Muslim was not allowed to use a Quran will likely go to trial.

"I'm just excited that we're going to be back in court," said Syidah Mateen, who sparked the debate. "We got over one hurdle."

State law describes laying one's hand on "Holy Scriptures" to take an oath — and it's that phrase that is at issue. The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina argues it is broad enough to include the holy texts of Islam, Judaism and other faiths.

"All we want is people to be allowed to use the holy book of their faith," said Seth Cohen, lead attorney for the ACLU of North Carolina, which initially filed the lawsuit against the state.

Some judges in the state have allowed people to take their oaths on the Quran, but that is rare. State law also allows people to affirm their testimony by raising their right hand without using the Bible.

In August 2003, Mateen asked to take her oath on a Quran in a Guilford County court during a domestic-violence hearing. The 42-year-old Browns Summit woman was told she couldn't because the court didn't have any.

Believing she had the approval of the judge, Mateen shared her experience with other members of Greensboro's Al-Ummil Ummat Islamic Center, which then raised money to buy and donate at least eight Qurans to the Guilford County courts.

But when the Islamic center tried to deliver the holy books in 2005, the offer was rejected by the county's two top judges, who contended that state law only allows for oaths on the Bible.

When the Administrative Office of the Courts did not intervene, the ACLU of North Carolina filed a lawsuit in Wake County Superior Court on behalf of its 8,000 members, some of whom are Jewish and Muslim. Mateen was later added as a plaintiff.

In December 2005, Judge Donald L. Smith tossed the case out, ruling that both the ACLU and Mateen failed to show a legal controversy existed with the state. A three-judge panel of the appeals court disagreed.

"We conclude the complaint is sufficient to entitle both plaintiffs to litigate their claims," Chief Judge John Martin wrote in the unanimous opinion.

Cohen said the ACLU's position is that if the "Holy Scriptures" phrase in state law is not broad enough to include texts other than the Christian Bible, then it is unconstitutional and should be struck down under the First Amendment's establishment clause. But the ACLU thinks there is room under the existing law to include the Hebrew Bible, the Quran and other sacred books.

Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, said lawyers with the state were reviewing the appeals court decision and had not yet decided whether to ask the N.C. Supreme Court to take up the matter. The state has 30 days to appeal the decision.

Without an appeal, a trial would likely be several months away, Cohen said.

A federal judge says a fired CIA agent can continue with a lawsuit challenging his dismissal from the agency.

The one-time covert agent -- identified only as Doe -- contends he was fired for refusing to alter intelligence the Bush administration wanted to cite in making its case for going to war with Iraq.

President Bush justified the war on grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons have been found.

The judge ruled the former agent has the right to argue that his dismissal was based on allegedly false information placed in his file.

The plaintiff claims he was the target of two sham investigations launched by the CIA prior before his firing in September 2004.