Former Rep. Wes Cooley, who represented Oregon's 2nd District in Congress from 1995 to 1997, is charged with six counts of concealment money-laundering and one count of subscribing to a false tax return.

He is accused of participating in the scheme from December 1999 until April 2004. In 2002 alone, Cooley took $1.1 million from investors, laundered it to conceal the fraud scheme and falsified his tax return to avoid paying taxes, prosecutors said.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 38 years in prison.

According to the indictment, Cooley and two other men, George Tannous and De Elroy Beeler Jr., lured victims into purchasing unregistered stock in Bidbay.com Inc. by telling them the company would be acquired by eBay for $20 per share. Cooley was the vice president of Bidbay.

Prosecutors said eBay had no plans to buy the company and even sued Bidbay.com for trademark infringement over the use of "bay" in its name.

Tannous and Beeler both pleaded guilty to charges related to the case.

Cooley's attorney, Richard Moss, said his client cooperated with the investigation but might have difficulty recalling things that happened several years ago.

"He's 76, but he's not a young 76," Moss said. "He's not in good health."

In 2005, a civil jury in St. Louis found Cooley and Tannous lied to investors in the Internet startup. The two were ordered to pay $2.2 million to 11 investors.

Cooley denied any involvement in fraud, testifying that he had suffered three strokes and could remember nothing from the previous 15 years of his life. He now lives in Palm Springs.

Ricardo Ortiz was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. Thursday.

The 46-year-old was the fifth Texas inmate to die this year and the second of two executions in consecutive nights this week in the nation's most active death penalty state.

Ortiz was condemned for the retaliation slaying of 22-year-old Gerardo Garcia more than 11 years ago. Authorities say Garcia was killed so he couldn't testify about bank robberies the pair was suspected of carrying out.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Thursday to delay the execution. Ortiz had argued he should get federal money to pay for help filing a state clemency request.

Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record for a U.S. company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent from a year ago.

The previous record for annual profit was $40.6 billion, which the world's largest publicly traded oil company set in 2007.

The extraordinary full-year profit wasn't a surprise given crude's triple-digit price for much of 2008, peaking near an unheard of $150 a barrel in July. Since then, however, prices have fallen roughly 70 percent amid a deepening global economic crisis.

In the fourth quarter alone crude tumbled 60 percent, prompting spending and job cuts in an industry that was reporting robust, often record, profits as recently as last summer.

With piles of cash and diversified operations, the majors like Exxon Mobil have fared better than many smaller oil and gas companies, but Friday's results show no one is completely insulated from the ongoing malaise.

Irving, Texas-based Exxon said net income slid sharply to $7.8 billion, or $1.55 a share, in the October-December period. That compared with $11.7 billion, or $2.13 a share, in the same period a year ago, when Exxon set a U.S. record for quarterly profit. It has since topped that mark twice, first in last year's second quarter and then with earnings of $14.83 billion in the third quarter.

The president picked the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act for the first piece of legislation to sign as president.

He appeared before a packed East Room audience for a ceremony, and Ledbetter stood at his side.

His entrance in the room was met with hearty cheers from the many labor and women's groups represented there. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman speaker in the history of Congress, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were present. Clinton went further than any woman previously in her campaign for the presidency, although she ultimately lost the Democratic Party competition to Obama.

The measure is designed to make it easier for workers to sue for decades-old discrimination. He said "this is a wonderful day."

The law effectively nullifies a 2007 Supreme Court decision that said workers had only 180 days to file a pay-discrimination lawsuit.

Ledbetter said she didn't become aware of a pay discrepancy until she neared the end of her 19-year career at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Gadsden, Ala. She sued, but the Supreme Court in 2007 said she missed her chance.

The court said in its 5-4 ruling that a person must file a claim of discrimination within 180 days of a company's initial decision to pay a worker less than it pays another worker doing the same job. Under the new bill, given final passage in Congress this week, every new discriminatory paycheck would extend the statute of limitations for another 180 days.

Congress attempted to update the law to extend the time, but the Bush White House and Senate Republicans blocked the legislation in the last session of Congress

Opponents contended the legislation would gut the statute of limitations, encourage lawsuits and be a boon to trial lawyers. They also argued that employees could wait to file claims in hopes of reaping larger damage awards. The bill does not change current law limiting back pay for claimants to two years.

Prosecutor Christopher Lawson says McGowan was upset because the judge refused to remove public defender Jeffrey Martin from the case.

McGowan had smuggled a bag of feces into court and spread it on Martin's hair and face before flinging the excrement at jurors. No jurors were hit.

McGowan has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping for robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and other counts in connection with a 2007 home invasion.

The April 28 shooting occurred near Harrison's car wash in North Philadelphia. Investigators said the shots came from a gun owned by Harrison, but said they have conflicting accounts of who fired it.

Dwight Dixon said he will appeal Tuesday's misdemeanor conviction for filing a fictitious report. Police said he initially gave them a fake name and told them two unknown men shot him during a robbery attempt.

The judge dismissed two related misdemeanor counts.

Dixon later said Harrison was the shooter and filed a civil suit filed against the NFL player.

Eighteen-year-old Mercades Nichols pleaded guilty Tuesday to battery and tampering with a witness. The State Attorney's Office said a kidnapping charge was dropped.

Nichols was among a group of teens arrested in 2008 and accused of attacking a 16-year-old classmate. The attack was recorded on video and broadcast around the world.

Nichols also agreed to plead guilty to charges of battery, assault and violation of an injunction in an unrelated case, in which she was accused of stalking a former boyfriend.

Under the plea agreement, Nichols could spend a maximum of three years on probation and won't spend time in jail. She is scheduled be sentenced in March.