A rural Virginia sheriff accused of taking bribes in exchange for promising not to interfere with a cockfighting ring has pleaded guilty to racketeering.

According to court documents, former Page County Sheriff Daniel Presgraves entered the plea Friday. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

Presgraves had faced racketeering, conspiracy and other charges, including that he sexually assaulted and harassed female employees. Another indictment in June charged him with lying to an FBI agent.

Those charges were dropped as part of the plea agreement.

Nathaniel Nicholson pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Jim Nicholson was the highest-ranking CIA official ever convicted of espionage when he pleaded guilty in 1997 to a conspiracy charge that sent him to prison for more than 23 years. He had been accused of selling information to the Russians about the CIA agents he trained and passing along other secrets.

Both Nicholsons were indicted in January on new charges of conspiracy, money laundering and acting as an agent of a foreign government. Jim Nicholson was accused of sending his son back to his Russian handlers from 2006 to 2008 to squeeze more money out of them.

Under the plea agreement, the 25-year-old Nicholson admitted taking money from the Russians and promised to testify, if required, against his father in the new case. In return, federal prosecutors have agreed to recommend a sentence that could result only in probation.

During a hearing before U.S. District Judge Anna Brown, Nathaniel Nicholson admitted traveling to San Francisco, Mexico City, Lima, Peru and Nicosia, Cyprus, to meet with agents of the Russian Federation on behalf of his father.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the cap, imposed by the Federal Communications Commission, was "arbitrary and capricious," and threw out the restriction.

Fearing a cable monopoly, Congress in 1992 directed the FCC to set limits on how many customers cable TV operators could reach nationwide.

The FCC set the 30 percent limit, but that was thrown out twice before by the courts. Two years ago the cap was reinstated, prompting the new challenge from Comcast.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said he had disagreed with the commission's decision to re-impose the cap in 2007 because he felt the rule was vulnerable to a challenge given that it was already overturned in 2001. He said that the commission's cap was based on "aging data and questionable assumptions" that didn't adequately reflect the entry of new competitors to cable operators.

James Davis, 60 years old, is cooperating with federal prosecutors, who are mounting a case against the chief executive of Stanford, R. Allen Stanford. Mr. Stanford was hospitalized Thursday morning because of a rapid heart beat.

Mr. Davis is facing up to 30 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to commit mail, wire and securities fraud as well as mail fraud and conspiracy to obstruct a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. The government is seeking $1 billion from Mr. Davis.

"I did wrong. I'm sorry," Davis, the former Stanford chief financial officer said outside a Houston courthouse, after pleading guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges. "I apologize. I take responsibility for my actions."

Mr. Davis doesn't have the money, his attorney David Finn said.

Mr. Davis's assets have been frozen. He is living in Michigan and working a $10-an-hour manual labor job on a family farm in order to pay for his legal fees, Mr. Finn said.

Recently released court records show the claims also cover a miner who narrowly avoided a crushing death only to commit suicide months later. The money will support two children of Brian Keith Pritt, who was haunted by survivor's guilt and shot himself in the head, according to a family lawyer.

"He lost many of his close friends," Fred Silvester said Wednesday.

While judges have signed off on trust funds for children of miners and rescuers who died in the disaster at Crandall Canyon, many details remain confidential. Only the payouts for children under 18 require a judge's approval.

The settlement, announced May 12, was characterized as the largest in Utah mining history. Case files at 3rd District Court in Salt Lake City are packed with sealed envelopes holding confidential payout terms approved Aug. 13. Other settlements for minor children are pending in 7th District Court in Price, near Crandall Canyon.

The lawsuits were filed against Pepper Pike, Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp. and three of its subsidiaries or affiliates; engineering consultants Agapito Associates Inc. of Grand Junction, Colo.; mine co-owner Intermountain Power Agency and its partner in a coal-fired Utah power station, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

A unit of Seiko Epson Corp agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiring to fix prices for liquid crystal screens sold to mobile phone maker Motorola Inc, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.

Epson Imaging Devices Corp, which was known as Sanyo Epson Imaging Devices Corp at the time of the conspiracy, agreed to pay a $26 million fine for the conspiracy involving LCD panels that were used in Razr mobile phones from late 2005 through mid-2006, the government said.

The company was charged with agreeing with unnamed co-conpirators in Japan to charge certain prices for so-called Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display panels and issuing price quotations in line with those agreements, the Justice Department said.

In addition to the guilty plea, which is subject to court approval, Epson also agreed to continue with the ongoing antitrust investigation.

An attempt to reach the company for comment was not immediately successful.

Attorneys for parent Martin Gill and his two children argued Wednesday in Miami that there's no rational basis to exclude gay people. Gill and his partner have adopted two young brothers.

State lawyers contend the Legislature should make such decisions. They claim the judge wrongly legislated from the bench in striking down the law last year.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Gill, calls Florida's gay adoption ban the broadest such law in the nation.

It will likely be months before the appeals court issues a ruling, which could then be appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.