A 34-year-old Clearwater woman is accused of stealing at least $175,000 from her employer over several years and spending it on vacations, trips to the hair salon, personal bills and student loan payments.

Kerry Sue McCallister-Higgins was arrested Monday night on a felony charge of grand theft.

According to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, McCallister-Higgins had check-signing privileges as an office manager and bookkeeper at Golson Law Firm, which used to be at 601 Cleveland St. N.

Over the course of six years or longer, McCallister-Higgins wrote "multiple, unauthorized" checks to herself, an arrest report shows.

She used others to pay for credit card purchases at grocery stores, movie theaters, drugstores and various other shops. Others paid bills for hotels, hair-dos, rental cars, student loans and a cell phone, said Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda.

At the time of her arrest, Detective David Kavanagh with the Sheriff's Office economic crimes unit had identified $175,939 in missing funds. But that amount may rise as detectives continue to investigate, Barreda said.

Former Oakland Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell pleaded not guilty to a charge of illegal drug possession Tuesday in Alabama.

Russell, 24, is a former LSU star who was released by Oakland after being the No. 1 draft choice in 2007. He entered the plea in court in Mobile. He is charged with felony possession of a controlled substance, codeine syrup.

Authorities have said that he did not have a prescription for the drug and that he was arrested July 5 at his home as part of an undercover investigation.

His attorney, Donald Briskman, said in a phone interview that there were about nine or 10 people in the house and that he believes once all the evidence is known, Russell will be exonerated.

Russell, a prep star in Mobile, had no comment after his court appearance. He has been free on $2,500 bond.

Briskman said he asked for an early hearing in order for Russell to get the case behind him and renew his effort to play professional football. A hearing in his case is set for Aug. 11 to determine if there is enough evidence to send the case to a grand jury.

One of the NFL's biggest No. 1 draft busts, Russell completed just 52.1 percent of his passes in his career, with 18 touchdowns, 23 interceptions and 15 lost fumbles. He won only seven of 25 starts.

Conrad Black, the brash former newspaper magnate who lived extravagantly before his 2007 federal conviction for defrauding shareholders, may soon be released from a Florida prison after a federal appeals court granted him bail Monday.

The ruling from the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals came weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court kicked Black's fraud conviction back to a lower court.

Black, who renounced his Canadian citizenship to become a member of the British House of Lords, was convicted along with three other former executives from the media empire Hollinger International of swindling the company's shareholders out of $6.1 million. He was acquitted of nine other charges.

It was not immediately clear when Black, 65, would be released from the low-security prison in Coleman, Fla., where he has served more than two years of a 6 1/2-year sentence. The conditions of his release will be determined by U.S. District Court judge in Chicago, according to an order from the three-judge panel.

Last month, the Supreme Court weakened the "honest services" law that was central to Black's fraud conviction. The justices left it up to a lower court to decide whether the conviction should be overturned. That decision has not yet been made.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Tuesday its second-quarter net income dropped 83 percent to $453 million as its trading revenue fell and it booked a charge for its settlement of civil fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company's revenue fell short of expectations and helped send the stock market falling. Goldman followed IBM Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc., which late Monday reported revenue that disappointed investors.

Goldman's stock dropped $1.89 to $143.79 in morning trading.

Goldman took a $550 million charge to cover the cost of the settlement with the SEC that was announced last week. Earnings were also reduced by a one-time, $600 million charge tied to a new tax on bonuses in Britain.

Excluding the one-time costs, net income after payment of dividends on preferred stock came to $2.75 per share, easily topping the $2.08 analysts forecast. Analysts typically exclude one-time charges from their estimates.

Revenue fell 36 percent to $8.84 billion, short of the $8.94 billion predicted by analysts.

The drop in revenue that a number of companies have reported is unnerving investors, who see it as a sign that the economic recovery is stalling. Banks, however, have their own revenue issues. Goldman's trading revenue fell along with that of competitors including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. that were hit hard by the spring plunge in the stock market. The drop in their revenue is adding to investors' concerns about how new federal regulations will affect banks' ability to profit from trading operations.

Another person accused of viewing President Barack Obama's student loan records at a U.S. Department of Education contractor in Iowa has pleaded guilty.

Patrick Roan pleaded guilty last week to a misdemeanor. The Iowa City man is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 12.

He was one of nine people indicted on charges of accessing Obama's student loan records while they were employed at Vangent Inc. in Coralville.

A telephone message left for Roan's attorney wasn't immediately returned. Court records did not indicate what sentence Roan could receive. A telephone message left for a U.S. attorney spokesman wasn't immediately returned.

Two others pleaded guilty last month.

Trial for one woman is set for Aug. 24. Trial for the remaining five defendants is set for Sept. 7.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has upheld a sexual abuse conviction of a former Jesuit priest who claimed he was falsely accused.

In a 7-0 ruling on Tuesday, justices ruled that Donald McGuire's prosecution 36 years after he allegedly abused two teenage boys in the 1960s was fair.

McGuire, a former spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa and her religious order of nuns, argued the delay hurt his ability to defend himself. Justices disagreed.

The men came forward in 2003 to report they were abused by McGuire during trips to a cottage in Fontana, Wis. in 1967 and 1968. At the time, McGuire taught the boys at the Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Ill.

McGuire was convicted on five counts of indecent behavior with a child. He is serving a 25-year prison term on separate, federal charges.

Angry creditors have thrown plans for an Aug. 4 auction of the Texas Rangers into jeopardy, saying they don't like the bidding procedures and arguing that the lease for the team's ballpark should be severed from the sale.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge D. Michael Lynn on Monday granted a motion to seal the creditors' request to reconsider the bidding procedures that are heavily controlled by Major League Baseball. Lynn approved the procedures last week after making some changes, including delaying the auction for two weeks to give potential buyers more time to secure financing.

Attorneys for Major League Baseball said the creditors' motion filed last week was rehashing arguments already rejected by the judge, including claims that the bidding process would prevent a fair and competitive sale.

Lynn set a Tuesday hearing to consider the objections and possibly rule on a separate lawsuit, filed by creditor JP Morgan Chase Bank, seeking to remove the Rangers Ballpark lease from the sale.

JP Morgan contends the team's parent company, Hicks Sports Group, transferred the lease to the team just before the bankruptcy filing without the bank's approval, as required in its loan agreement. The bank contends that the ballpark lease is not the team's property.