Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has returned to his hometown for his first court appearance since being indicted last month on tax and fraud charges.

Kilpatrick was arraigned Tuesday afternoon and a not guilty plea was entered at the request of his lawyer. Wearing orange jail clothes, Kilpatrick indicated that he can't can afford a lawyer and one will be appointed for him.

The judge could keep James Thomas on the job at the public's expense.

Kilpatrick is charged with tapping his charity the Civic Fund for cash and personal luxuries while he was mayor and not reporting it on his tax returns.

He has been serving time at a state prison for violating probation in a different criminal case. He will remain in federal custody while he awaits trial.

Don S. Williams has joined the Shanghai office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP as a partner in the firm's Corporate practice group.  Williams most recently practiced with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Shanghai, after spending more than a decade with the firm's Silicon Valley office.  

Williams' practice encompasses a broad range of general corporate and transactional matters, including venture capital and private equity financings, public offerings, and mergers and acquisitions.  He has represented private and public companies across many industries in connection with public offerings, venture and private equity funds in connection with portfolio investments, as well as both buyers and sellers in a large number of M&A transactions.  A Mandarin speaker, Williams works with both U.S. companies conducting business and raising funds in Asia and Asian companies conducting business and raising funds in the United States.

"Don is a top-notch transactional attorney and an excellent fit with both our Corporate practice group and Shanghai office.  His twenty years of investment and capital markets practice straddles both Asia and Silicon Valley, with expertise in venture capital and private equity financings, public offerings and mid-market M&A deals that dovetails well with our China practice as well as firmwide," said Guy N. Halgren, chairman of the firm. 

Commented Williams, "I am thrilled to be joining Sheppard Mullin, a top-notch firm with an impressive Corporate practice group that provides me with an excellent platform.  The firm's collegial culture and dedication to teamwork is very attractive to me."  

Williams received a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1993 and a B.A., with honors and distinction, from Stanford University in 1989. 

In June, Jon Atzen joined Sheppard Mullin's Corporate practice group in the firm's Los Angeles/Downtown office from DLA Piper in Los Angeles. 

Sheppard Mullin's Corporate practice group includes more than 100 attorneys firmwide.  The firm has fourteen attorneys based in its Shanghai office. 

GlaxoSmithKline Plc agreed to pay about $460 million to resolve a majority of lawsuits alleging the company’s Avandia diabetes drug can cause heart attacks and strokes, people familiar with the accords said.

Glaxo, the U.K.’s biggest drugmaker, agreed to settle about 10,000 suits for an average of at least $46,000 apiece, the people said. The company had been facing more than 13,000 suits alleging Glaxo hid the drug’s heart-attack risk, according to a UBS AG analyst. The settlements come as Glaxo is set to face its first Avandia trial in federal court in Philadelphia in October.

“This is exceptionally good news given the market has discounted $6 billion liability,” for Avandia litigation, Gbola Amusa, an analyst at UBS in London, said in an interview. “We had outlined an absolute worst-case scenario where $500,000 per case would have to be paid.”

Glaxo, the U.K.’s largest drugmaker, is settling Avandia claims as a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel is meeting today to consider whether Avandia’s ability to control blood-sugar levels outweighs a possible increase in heart attacks, strokes and deaths from cardiovascular disease. Mary Anne Rhyne, a spokeswoman for Glaxo, declined to comment.

To identify the source of a class-action lawsuit involving thousands of alleged victims and defendants representing virtually the entire egg industry in America, look no further than a Main Street restaurant in Falconer.

According to local attorney Arthur Bailey, the case began with a cup of coffee at T.K. Ribbing's in the spring of 2008.

"I am the beginning of it," said Bailey, who listened to owner Steve Ribbing as he voiced his frustration over the price of eggs. He told Bailey that he could purchase large quantities at the local grocery store cheaper than he was currently getting them from his wholesaler.

Bailey, whose experience lies with fraud, malpractice claims and class actions, agreed the situation was "economically backward."

He said Ribbing's complaint was quickly referred to James Pizzirusso, a partner with the Hausfeld LLP firm, and a lawsuit was filed in a federal district court in September 2008.

With media attention beginning to focus on soaring prices, the Justice Department declared its intention to investigate the egg industry. Within a month of Ribbing's orignal lawsuit it appointed a team of lawyers from Hausfeld to begin a class-action suit.

Bailey, who is not currently among the lead counsel, said he enjoys a working relationship with Hausfeld that has lasted three decades. He said he provides a service for the firm by scouting potential cases. His son, Arthur Bailey Jr. serves as an associate attorney for the firm's San Francisco office.

"Die Hard" director John McTiernan pleaded guilty Monday to lying to FBI agents and a judge during the investigation of Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano in a wiretapping case.

McTiernan, 59, entered his plea to two counts of making false statements to the FBI and one count of perjury for lying to a federal judge while trying to withdraw a guilty plea. He could face up to a year in prison.

Attorney S. Todd Neal, who represents McTiernan, said the plea will allow his client to appeal certain pretrial rulings made by a federal judge.

"We continue to believe that the charges against him were developed in an unfair way," Neal said. "The FBI should not be in the business of ambushing citizens with surprise phone calls in which they ask 'questions' for which they already know the answers."

McTiernan previously pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents in 2006 about the investigation of Pellicano. The director later withdrew that plea, arguing he didn't have adequate legal representation.

Pellicano was convicted in 2008 of wiretapping film producer Charles Roven for McTiernan and of bugging the phones of celebrities and others to get information for clients.

Rebuffed twice by the courts, the Obama administration is taking another crack at a moratorium on deep-water drilling, stressing new evidence of safety concerns and no longer basing the moratorium on water depth. But those who challenge the latest ban question whether it complies with a judge's ruling tossing out the first one.

The new order does not appear to deviate much from the original moratorium, as it still targets deep-water drilling operators but defines them in a different way.

Last week, a federal appeals court rejected the government's effort to restore its initial offshore deep-water drilling moratorium, which was issued following the catastrophic Gulf oil spill in April. The moratorium was first blocked last month by U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman.

The Justice Department said Monday it will file a motion with the U.S. District Court seeking a dismissal of that case, because the old moratorium is no longer operative, making the challenge moot. The department also will ask the appeals court to set aside Feldman's order of last month.

Carl Rosenblum, a lawyer for the plaintiffs who sued to block the moratorium, said they are reviewing the new moratorium and "we have substantial concerns about its consistency with Judge Feldman's order." He wouldn't elaborate or say if they planned to challenge it in court.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he decided to put in place a new moratorium because of "evidence that grows every day of the industry's inability in the deep water to contain a catastrophic blowout, respond to an oil spill and to operate safely."

A man accused of shooting and wounding two eighth-graders outside their middle school pleaded not guilty Monday by reason of insanity.

Bruco Strong Eagle Eastwood, 32, entered his plea in Jefferson County District Court, and was ordered to undergo a mental evaluation at the state Mental Health Institute in Pueblo. The evaluation would take at least 45 days.

Eastwood faces 15 charges, including attempted first-degree murder in the Feb. 23 shootings outside Deer Creek Middle School in south suburban Denver. Teachers tackled and restrained Eastwood until deputies arrived.

He faces decades in prison if convicted of the charges or an indefinite amount of time in a mental health institute if found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Before Eastwood accepted the plea, District Judge Christopher Munch told him that "commitment could be the rest of your life." Eastwood nodded that he understood.

Prosecutors are seeking access to observations of Eastwood's actions in jail and conversations between Eastwood and a psychologist made on a jail phone.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Jensen said during Monday's court hearing that because Eastwood is making his mental health an issue in the case, Eastwood's private medical records are no longer private.