The businessman, Kazuyoshi Miura, was arrested Friday in the U.S. territory of Saipan as he tried to pass through immigration control at the airport to take a flight home. Miura, 60, was convicted in Japan in 1994 of killing his wife, Kazumi Miura, but the verdict was overturned 10 years ago.

"Given that this case has been closed in Japan, the Justice Ministry and Japanese police should no longer have to respond to requests from the police for evidence or to cooperate with the investigation," said Miuri's lawyer, Shinichiro Hironaka.

Miura and his wife were visiting Los Angeles on Nov. 18, 1981, when they were shot in a parking lot. Miura was hit in the right leg, while his 28-year-old wife was shot in the head. The shooting caused an international uproar, in part because he blamed the attack on robbers, reinforcing Japanese perceptions of America as violent.

The arrest came after cold-case detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department worked with authorities in Saipan and in Guam, police said in a statement. Police did not make details on the arrest available.

At a bail hearing Monday in Saipan, Miura told the court the killing "took place several decades ago, and it is unlikely that I will destroy evidence or run away," according to the Kyodo News Agency.

The court, however, denied him bail. A preliminary hearing was set for March 5, said Rosie Ada, deputy clerk at Superior Court. An arraignment was also slated for March 10, she said.

Sean Bell, who had been spending his last night as a single man partying, was killed in a barrage of 50 police bullets outside a strip club.

The three police officers indicted in the shooting were to go on trial Monday in a case that has sparked protests and debate over excessive force and police conduct in New York City.

Bell's fiancee was expected to be the first witness at the trial, and she has said she plans to be in court every day.

"I feel like I need to know. I need to know why this happened," said Paultre Bell, who had her maiden name legally changed after her fiance's death. "I wake up one day and my world is turned upside down. I have to know why this happened; my family deserves to know."

Sean Bell, 23, was killed Nov. 25, 2006, hours before he was to marry the mother of his two children. He and two friends were confronted by undercover officers investigating reports of drugs and prostitution.

Detective Michael Oliver fired 31 shots, including the one that killed Bell. Detective Gescard Isnora squeezed off 11 rounds, and Detective Marc Cooper fired four times. Oliver and Isnora have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter; Cooper has pleaded not guilty to reckless endangerment.

Police union officials and defense lawyers have said the detectives believed Bell and his friends were going to get a gun, though no weapon was found. The officers opened fire after the car the three men were in lurched forward, bumped Isnora and slammed into an unmarked police minivan, authorities said.

After years in Fidel's charismatic shadow as Cuba's number two and defense minister, Raul Castro faces massive challenges, including preparing the transition of power to a newer generation and reforming the economy.

"Fidel is irreplaceable; the people will continue his work when he is no longer with us physically, though his ideas always will be here," Raul Castro, 76, told lawmakers in his acceptance speech late Sunday.

In the 19 months since he took over as temporary leader, Raul Castro has made some minor adjustments in the economy, while promising bigger changes.

But he has made it clear that everything will take place "within socialism" and that solutions to the country's problems will come "little by little."

People in the street voiced hopes that the new president would usher in long-sought economic reforms to improve their daily lives.

"This is the best that could have happened to Cuba," Carlos Muguercia, a 78-year-old craftsman said. "Raul already knows the situation. He knows how to solve problems, in any case the most serious ones."

Others were less enthusiastic at the dynastic succession.

"Raul is Fidel without a beard," argued one young man enjoying a beer at a bar in Havana's historic center.

In a sign that change may take time, Raul Castro said he would consult with his brother on major issues. And he vowed to be on guard against Cuba's powerful northern neighbor the United States.

Law firm Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLP, which has offices in Chicago and Washington, D.C., opened an office in San Diego on Feb. 13 that will serve as the center for its life sciences group.

The local office’s 13 attorneys and credentialed specialists offer corporate, patent procurement and patent portfolio management services to biopharmaceutical and other venture-funded and emerging companies.

Leading the team are Stephanie Seidman, a prominent biotechnology patent attorney who joins Bell Boyd as a partner from Fish & Richardson P.C., and partner David Fisher, who formerly managed San Diego’s Fisher Thurber LLP. He will lead the corporate and emerging company practice in the office.

Mike Abernathy, managing partner in the Chicago office, said the firm noticed a steady growth in corporate and venture capital clients during the last two and a half years as it developed its life sciences practice. Last year, he said the firm made in excess of $6 million in that area.

“We were looking to further that growth and started looking at other areas that had life sciences and were venture-funded, and we very quickly got to San Diego,” he said.

Seidman said the firm has “an excellent client base” mostly composed of emerging and startup companies that have received some venture funding and some that have been funded by Big Pharma.

Initial clients include Catalyst Biosciences Inc., the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation and Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Bell Boyd’s San Diego office is located at the Gateway at Torrey Hills, 3580 Carmel Mountain Road.

“We should see some movement of pent-up demand by this summer, but higher loan limits need to be implemented fully and promptly to have maximum benefit,” said Richard Gaylord, president of the realtors group and a broker with Re/Max in Long Beach, Calif.

"It is significant that plaintiffs nowhere allege that the government intended to harm human beings through its use of Agent Orange," the three-judge panel said.

Jonathan C. Moore, a lawyer for the Vietnamese plaintiffs, said he was deeply disappointed.

"It's both an unjust and an immoral outcome," he said, and promised to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A lawyer for the companies did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

Monsanto, Dow Chemical and more than a dozen other companies, including Hercules Inc., Occidental Chemical Corp, Thompson Hayward Chemical Co., Harcros Chemicals Inc. and Uniroyal Chemical Co. Inc., were named in the case.

In November 1961, President Kennedy approved the launch of Operation Trail Dust, a campaign of military herbicide operations in Vietnam designed to prevent the enemy from using vegetation for cover and sustenance.

Lawyers for Vietnamese people sued U.S. companies, saying the program caused miscarriages, birth defects, breast cancer, ovarian tumors, lung cancer, Hodgkin's disease and prostate tumors.

They said the military's use of Agent Orange violated international, domestic and Vietnamese law and that companies aided the violations or committed their own by helping the military. They sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and an environmental cleanup program.

Lawyers for the companies and the U.S. government had argued that there was no evil intent when Agent Orange was used to clear the Vietnamese landscape for troops.

Agent Orange has been linked to cancer, diabetes and birth defects among Vietnamese soldiers and civilians and American veterans.

In 2002, the United States and Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding providing for scientists from both governments to work together to determine the effects of Agent Orange on people and ecosystems, along with methods and costs of treatment and environmental remediation.

The United States, though, has never agreed it has a legal duty to provide funds or assistance to remediate harms allegedly caused by Agent Orange.

In a separate opinion, the appellate court also said companies are protected from lawsuits brought by U.S. military veterans or their relatives because the law protects government contractors in certain circumstances who provide defective products.

Electronic Arts Inc. is pushing ahead with a bid to take over upstart gaming rival Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., despite rebuffs from the smaller company.
EA said in a statement Sunday that it is making an all-cash bid of $26 per share, or about $2 billion, for New York-based Take-Two.

EA, the world's largest independent video game publisher, says it's releasing details of the proposal to get the attention of Take-Two shareholders after Take-Two's board turned down the deal. The offer represents a 64 percent premium over Take-Two's closing stock price Feb. 15, the last trading day before Redwood City-based EA made its proposal.

Take-Two did not immediately return messages seeking comment.