The Supreme Court on Tuesday reaffirmed the limits on contributions that political parties can raise, and rejected a challenge by the Republican Party that the restrictions violated free-speech rights.

The justices sided with the Obama administration and affirmed a ruling that upheld the limits, a cornerstone of the 2002 federal campaign finance law designed to regulate the influence of money in politics.

Republican Party attorneys had sought to end the limits and cited the Supreme Court's ruling in January that corporations can spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress.

That decision has been denounced by President Barack Obama for turning loose a flood of special-interest money into the U.S. political system before the November congressional elections, when Democratic control of Congress is in jeopardy.

It also has provoked efforts by Democrats in Congress to adopt legislation to blunt the impact of the ruling and has become a major issue at the Senate confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan, who Obama has nominated to the Supreme Court.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is paying $755,000 to settle a lawsuit with a former staff lawyer who accused the agency of blocking his investigation of a prominent hedge fund.

The SEC settlement of Gary Aguirre's wrongful termination claim resolved a long-running controversy that prompted scrutiny in Congress and by the SEC inspector general. The settlement was announced Tuesday by the Government Accountability Project.

Aguirre was fired by the SEC in September 2005. He went public in 2006 with allegations of interference by SEC officials in the probe of Pequot Capital Management and improper deference to a Wall Street executive whom Aguirre wanted to interview. That prompted an investigation by Republican staff of the Senate Judiciary and Finance Committees.

The SEC initially took no enforcement action in the case, which was started in 2004 and closed in 2006. The agency reopened it in January 2009 after documents emerged in a divorce proceeding showing that Pequot began paying $2.1 million to a key witness in the case in mid-2007.

Last month, Pequot and its founder and chairman, Arthur Samberg, agreed to pay a total of $28 million to settle the SEC's charges of insider trading of Microsoft Corp. shares. The SEC alleged that the hedge fund traded Microsoft shares on confidential information provided by a former employee of the technology giant whom it later hired.

Pequot, whose core hedge fund was liquidated last year, and Samberg, a well-known money manager and philanthropist, neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.

The $755,000 being paid to Aguirre represents his salary for four years and 10 months plus his attorneys' fees, according to the Government Accountability Project, a group that works with whistleblowers. The group said it may be the largest settlement of its kind.

Under terms of the settlement, which was approved by a judge at the federal Merit Systems Protection Board, Aguirre agreed to drop two related cases against the SEC.

A former trucker serving at least 75 years in prison for knife attacks on women in New Jersey and Massachusetts will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to similar charges in Pennsylvania.

Forty-five-year-old Adam Leroy Lane pleaded guilty Monday to charges stemming from the July 2007 murder of a Pennsylvania woman and an attack on another. The plea deal allows him to escape the death penalty.

Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover sentenced Lane to life imprisonment for the murder of Darlene Ewalt outside her Harrisburg-area home. Lane was also sentenced to a consecutive 10- to 20-year term for attacking a woman in her rural home north of York.

Prosecutors say the North Carolina man randomly attacked his victims at their homes near the highways he traveled.

BP PLC has several options to explore in dealing with the worst environment disaster in U.S. history, but the oil giant may file for bankruptcy if it faces a never-ending flow of claims, lawyers and bankers said Tuesday.

"BP has many options besides bankruptcy and is a long way from exhausting those," said Loretta Cross, a national managing partner at Grant Thornton's corporate-advisory and restructuring-services group, during a conference call organized by the American Bankruptcy Institute.

The Deepwater Horizon platform exploded on April 20, killing 11 people. It sank two days later, triggering a massive oil leak that's still spewing oil and gas. BP shares have plummeted on concern that the company could be overwhelmed by tens of billions of dollars in claims and other liabilities.

Cross, who specializes in energy-company reorganizations, estimated Tuesday that BP needs roughly $30 billion in cash outside of what the company can generate from its balance sheet.

A 36-year old Dutch man conned thousands of pounds out of show jumpers and horse riding fans by claiming to be the son of a big boss at IBM.

George Carlo Schouten of Finchampstead, Berkshire said his old man was helping out by sponsoring his show jumping team, a Reading court heard yesterday.

He convinced one of Britain's best female riders to join the fictional team and persuaded others to spend thousands of pounds on providing IBM-branded clothes and other kit for the team.

Nearly three dozen alleged members and associates of the New York-based Lucchese crime family have pleaded not guilty to state racketeering, conspiracy and money laundering charges in New Jersey.

Among the defendants who appeared in court in Morristown on Monday was Nicodemo Scarfo Jr., son of former Philadelphia crime boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo.

Also charged are Joseph DiNapoli of Scarsdale, N.Y., and Matthew Madonna of Seldon, N.Y., alleged members of the Lucchese family's three-man ruling panel.

An indictment alleges a litany of offenses under the racketeering charge, including gambling, theft, aggravated assault and bribery.

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan says she considers recent high court decisions expanding gun rights to be "settled law."

Kagan was asked at her confirmation hearing about two recent decisions, including a 5-4 ruling Monday, which essentially guaranteed citizens' Second Amendment rights to have guns, no matter where they live.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California decried growing gang violence in her state, saying officials need leeway to deal with it.

Kagan responded that "once a court decides a case as it did, it's binding precedent." And she said judges must respect a precedent unless it proves unworkable or new facts emerge that would change the circumstances of a case.