De Beers, the world's largest diamond importer, settled a class action lawsuit Monday worth $297 million, which would be divided roughly in half between consumers and diamond merchants and resellers.

The lawsuit charged that De Beers and its subsidiaries violated antitrust, unfair competition and consumer-protection laws by monopolizing diamond supplies, and conspired to control the diamond prices by fixing and raising them as per their discretion.

The South African company, which controls 40 percent of the world's diamond trade. was also charged with false advertising.

Under the settlement, De Beers would pay $22.5 million to the "direct purchaser class members and $272.5 million to "indirect purchaser class members."

Consumers who purchased diamonds from De Beers directly or indirectly between 1994 and 2006 will be eligible to receive a rebate. The rebate amount will be determined based on the quality of the diamond.

The case is being heard in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey. The next hearing in the case is set for April 14.

The annual "March for Life" rally was due to begin at noon (1700 GMT) on the sprawling National Mall and take protesters past the Capitol, the seat of the US legislature, to the Supreme Court, where on January 22, 1973, the country's highest justices voted seven to two that a state law in Texas that banned abortion, except to save a woman's life, was unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court decision, enshrined as "Roe v. Wade" for the key figures in the case, gave the United States some of the least restrictive abortion laws in the world and galvanized religious opposition groups into action against it.

On the eve of the march, anti-abortion activists crowded into the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception at Catholic University in Washington to pray for abortion to be banned, officials at the university said.

While local media reported that thousands had attended the all-night vigil, university officials were still counting heads on Tuesday morning, spokeswoman Jackie Hayes said.

More than 1,000 "pro-life" advocates from around the United States spent the night sleeping on floors at the university ahead of the march, the school's website said.

The Reverend David O'Connell, president of Catholic University, attended a breakfast "with President George W. Bush and pro-life leaders" at the White House Tuesday morning, the website added.

Norma McCorvey -- originally given the pseudonym "Jane Roe" for the landmark case -- was due to hold an anti-abortion news conference alongside Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul in Washington ahead of the march.

McCorvey was first brought before a court in Dallas, Texas, in 1970 by two women lawyers seeking the right for the then-homeless, 22-year-old single mother to terminate her third pregnancy.

The defendant was Henry Wade, the district attorney representing the state of Texas.

The Texas court's ruling favored "Roe," but it still did not strike down Texas's state laws banning abortion.

So that by the time the case came to the Supreme Court and its decision in favor of universal abortion rights nationwide was handed down, McCorvey had already had her third child, which she put up for adoption.

Years later, she converted to Catholicism and became an anti-abortion activist.

"I believe that I was used and abused by the court system in America. Instead of helping women in Roe v. Wade, I brought destruction to me and millions of women throughout the nation," McCorvey told lawmakers in 2005.

Roe versus Wade is seen as increasingly vulnerable to being overturned, as the court has turned more conservative with recent appointments and it requires only five of the nine Supreme Court judges to vote in favor of changing the decision to permit the 50 states to set their own abortion bans.

In April, the high court took the first step in rolling back abortion rights in more than a generation by banning a controversial late-term termination procedure.

Public opinion has remained fairly constant over the years with some 25 percent of Americans believing abortion should be available on demand, 25 percent saying that it should be totally banned, an 50 percent holding that it should be legal but restricted.

Two Feathers Elk and Bison Ranch in McMinville, Tenn., and the North American Deer Farmers Association are asking a federal judge to declare Kentucky's law unconstitutional, arguing that it illegally restricts interstate commerce.

"We don't believe they are interpreting the law properly," said Shawn Schafer, executive director of the deer farmers association, an 800-member group based in Lake City, Minn.

The farm and the group have sued Jonathan Gassett, the commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, and Karen J. Alexy, division director of wildlife for the department, on Friday in U.S. District Court in Lexington.

Phone calls to Gassett and Alexy after 5 p.m. Friday were not immediately returned.

But Morgain Sprague, general counsel for the fish and wildlife department, has sent the attorney for Two Feathers ranch a letter warning that any animals confiscated in Kentucky would be destroyed. He said the law is Constitutional and is being interpreted correctly.

"Your clients are free to use the interstates surrounding the Commonwealth of Kentucky to import cervids into Tennessee," Sprague wrote.

Kentucky state law bans the importation of elk and deer to protect the state's elk and white-tailed deer herds from chronic wasting disease. State officials have enforced the law to prohibit anyone from bringing deer or elk across state lines, even if the animals are destined for another state.

Violating the law is a felony, punishable by up to $10,000 in fines and five years in prison.

That has posed problems for Two Feathers ranch, which wants to ship animals to and from Kansas and pass through Kentucky on the interstate, Schafer said. The ranch applied to Kentucky for permits to transport the animals across state lines but was refused, Schafer said.

But Schafer said he believes the ban violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The Kentucky law is also discriminatory because it allows deer and elk farmers in the state to move their animals around, he said.

Schafer said Kentucky is the only state his group knows of that interprets the law to ban deer and elk from even crossing state lines.

"When I take a load of horses down to Florida, I don't have to call ahead and check with all the states in between to make sure it's OK to drive through," Schafer said.

In September, Wildlife and Fisheries agents arrested Timothy Cory Looper of Livingston, Tenn., as he passed west of Paducah with a load of elk and deer. The animals were destined for a hunting lodge in Tennessee, but the state destroyed the animals.

Looper was charged with six felony counts of illegally importing elk and deer into Kentucky. His case is pending.

Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarthy had suspended Allstate on Wednesday from writing new policies because it had not fully complied with a subpoena to testify about its property insurance business.

The 10-day stay by the Florida First District Court of Appeal allows Allstate's more than 1,100 Florida agents to continue doing business, the insurer said in a statement.

In addition to car insurance, Allstate provides home insurance in Florida through Allstate Floridian Insurance and Allstate Floridian Indemnity, two independent subsidiaries of the parent company.

Allstate officials had appeared before state regulators earlier this week to testify on proposed rate increases of up to 41 percent in Allstate's property insurance business.

But state officials called off the hearing when Allstate officials refused to answer questions and to provide specific documents.

State investigators have been trying to determine if Allstate and other companies colluded to prevent property insurance rates from dropping despite legislative action last year to reduce premiums.

The issue is a major one in Florida, which has been reeling from a deteriorating real estate market and huge increases in premiums after eight hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, when insurers paid out about $35 billion in claims.

The suspension mainly affected new auto policies, since Allstate had said previously it planned to reduce its homeowner policy exposure in Florida while increasing its 14 percent share of the state's auto insurance business.

Denver-based law firm Holme Roberts & Owen LLP said Friday it is opening a London office in partnership with two British attorneys. HRO said that the London firm Grant Dawe LLP -- formed in 2006 by Tony Grant and Jonathan Dawe -- and HRO attorney Paul Thompson will form a London-based partnership as HRO Grant Dawe LLP.

The Denver firm has often worked with Grant and Dawe in the past.

The partnership "will combine Grant Dawe's successful niche corporate practice in the UK with a major U.S. law firm with a significant presence in the United States and a strong international emphasis," HRO said Friday in a statement. HRO already has an office in Munich.

HRO, founded in 1898, is one of Denver's oldest and largest law firms, with about 150 lawyers locally and 250 worldwide.

Besides Denver, London and Munich, the firm has offices in Boulder, Colorado Springs, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and San Francisco.

http://www.hro.com

Presidential candidate Barack Obama accused former President Bill Clinton of distorting his words as the Democratic race in South Carolina heated up on Monday.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential hopefuls kept their focus on economics as they began campaigning for the Jan. 29 primary in Florida.

Obama, who was edged out by the ex-president's wife Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Saturday caucuses in Nevada, had harsh words for Bill Clinton, who is beloved in many Democratic circles _ including among many blacks, who could be key to a win in South Carolina's weekend primary.

The former president "has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling" by making statement that are not supported by facts, Obama said in an interview broadcast Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The Clinton campaign has suggested it would continue pointing out inconsistencies in Obama's record.

Republicans are preparing for delegate-rich Florida, where the race remains wide open despite John McCain's recent wins in South Carolina and New Hampshire. A win in Florida would afford the candidate a whopping 57 delegates and a huge jolt of energy in the run-up to Feb. 5, when 22 states hold nominating contests.

Clinton and Obama have been locked in a fierce battle for the party's nomination in a history-making campaign that pits a black man and a woman. Obama won the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and Clinton emerged triumphant in New Hampshire, five days later.

Their campaign has vacillated between congenial exchanges, a dispute on race and, before Nevada's contest Saturday, charges of dirty politics. So far, no clear front-runner has emerged, making the Jan. 26 contest in South Carolina, where blacks make up about 50 percent of the Democratic electorate, particularly important going into the Feb. 5 de facto national primary.

Trailing candidate John Edwards is looking to make the Democratic contest a three-way race with a strong showing in South Carolina, which neighbors his home state of North Carolina.

Edwards got 4 percent of support in Nevada, compared with Clinton's 51 percent and Obama's 45 percent.

On Sunday, Obama took to the pulpit at Martin Luther King Jr.'s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on the eve of the federal holiday marking the civil rights hero's birth 79 years ago. He based his speech on King's quote that "Unity is the great need of the hour."

Obama is counting on blacks to stick with him in South Carolina to halt his losing streak in the last two state races, and his campaign has worked to overcome concerns among black voters that he would not be able to win an election in white America. He lost Nevada despite winning 83 percent of blacks, who made up 15 percent of the total vote.

Gibson filed the suit on behalf of Keith Kay, Orlando Perez and Shannon Smith, who became incensed when Xbox Live's service was plagued with connectivity issues over the holidays. Smith contacted Microsoft in December in an attempt to determine the cause of the outage, but got in touch with Gibson when he received no response.

As Gibson explained to MTV, the class action suit is a valid way for disgruntled Live subscribers to be heard: "When you have one person who is mad and they can't get a response, and they can't get their complaints addressed by a company like Microsoft, the only way to get their attention is in numbers." According to Gibson, more than 50 people have joined Kay, Perez, and Smith in the suit.