Jurors found John White, 54, guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the death of Daniel Cicciaro despite the man's claims that he feared a "lynch mob" had come to attack his family.

The ruling came on the fourth day of deliberations following an emotional three-week trial in which defense attorneys invoked the nation's violent racist past in arguing the shooting was justified.

Jurors also found White guilty of criminal possession of a weapon.

White testified during the trial that he was trying to protect his family in 2006 when he brandished a gun after a group of angry white teenagers turned up at his house late at night to fight his son.

White claimed the gun went off accidentally, killing Cicciaro, 17.

Jurors had asked on Saturday to hear readbacks of testimony from White's wife and son.

A patent infringement lawsuit filed by AT&T against voice-over-IP telephony provider-Vonage has been settled, according to Vonage representatives.

The settlement brings an unusually speedy end to the lawsuit, which was filed by AT&T on Oct. 17. It alleged Vonage wilfully infringed an AT&T patent related to telephone systems that allow people to make VoIP (voice-over-Internet Protocol) calls using standard telephone devices. A breakdown in talks between the two companies over the issue led to the lawsuit, said AT&T at the time.

Less than a month later, on Nov. 7, the two companies said they had tentatively agreed to a settlement. At that time Vonage said it would pay AT&T around US$39 million under the terms of the settlement.

Final terms were not disclosed on Friday when, in a brief statement, Vonage said the dispute had been settled.

Vonage previously settled a patent suit with Verizon Communications for $80 million to $120 million, depending on the results of its appeal of a court ruling on two patents, and with Sprint Nextel for $80 million. As part of the Sprint Nextel deal Vonage agreed to license more than 100 patents covering technology for connecting calls from a traditional phone network to an IP network. The Verizon settlement came after a court found Vonage had infringed upon the carrier's patents.

Attorneys entered not guilty pleas for Brian David Franks, 27; William Thomas Coppock, 23; and Brian Alan Anderson, 22, all of Los Angeles.

They are among five men who have been charged with recklessly causing a Nov. 24 fire that swept through 4,000 acres of Malibu canyon land. Six firefighters were hurt battling the blaze, and 50 homes and 35 other buildings were destroyed.

Dean Allen Lavorante, 19, and Eric Matthew Ullman, 18, face arraignment in February. They and Anderson are free on bail.

The five are charged with recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury and recklessly causing fire to inhabited structures. They could face more than a decade each in prison if convicted.

Superior Court Judge Michael K. Kellogg, who works in the San Fernando Valley but lives in Malibu, took the unusual step of denying from the bench that his Malibu neighbors had pressured him.

"Nobody's putting pressure on me," he said. "No one ... has come down from Malibu and knocked on my door and said, 'Hey Judge, we know where you live!"

Kellogg scheduled a preliminary hearing for Jan. 7 to determine whether there is enough evidence to hold the three for trial.

After the hearing, defense attorneys said their clients were being scapegoated.

"The Malibu community and the political pressure by the governor and other factors," led to charges being filed, said Andrew Reed Flier, who represents Coppock.

Arson investigators said food wrappers and precut logs led them to determine the blaze started with an illegal campfire in a cave-like depression on state park land in Corral Canyon that was known as a favorite partying spot for young people.

Supermarket operator Safeway Inc. on Thursday said the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned it may have received raw ground beef products that contain salmonella.

The company said it might have received the products between Sept. 19 and Nov. 5 in five states -- Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada and New Mexico.

A specific product, retailer or establishment that is the source of the contamination has not been determined.

No illness has been reported in Hawaii or New Mexico. There has been a case in Idaho that does not have an apparent connection with Safeway, the company said.

The notice does not include fresh ground beef patties.

No Safeway product has tested positive for salmonella. The company said customers who have frozen raw beef products purchased between Sept. 19 and Nov. 5 should throw them away.

Salmonella can cause diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps within 72 hours of consumption. It is usually found in food contaminated with animal feces, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The nation's shoppers -- taking advantage of deep discounts and expanded hours -- jammed stores over the last weekend before Christmas to try to grab a hard-to-find Wii or scoop up bargains on other items. But the spending surge may not be enough to offset what is shaping up to be a mediocre December for some retailers.

Based on early reports on Sunday, mall operators including Macerich Co. said they were pleased with the spending spree over the weekend, but they were still counting on Christmas Eve and post-Christmas business to meet holiday sales goals in what has turned out to be a nail biter of a season.

Meanwhile, even as shoppers continued to snap up flat-screen TVs, video game software and other gadgets, benefiting stores like Best Buy Co., the apparel business remains challenging, analysts said.

Ed Schmults, chief executive of toy merchant FAO Schwarz, which operates stores in Chicago and New York, said Sunday that pre-Christmas business is below expectations despite a sales surge this weekend.

"It's almost kind of worth waiting and shifting through the hustle and bustle," said Carly Moore, of Chicago, who was heading to Macy's on the city's State Street shopping corridor to scoop up some discounted clothing. But she was still frustrated that she couldn't find Nintendo's Wii game console, after trying at least five stores.

Valerie Glodowski of Stevens Point, Wis., who was with her boyfriend at Wisconsin's Wausau Center Mall, said she started holiday shopping two weeks ago and waited until the last weekend to finish out of sheer laziness.

"I am just winging it," she said.

Many merchants, which had struggled through a sluggish December after a strong start to the season, are counting even more on the final days before Christmas to make their holiday goals. With the three days prior to Christmas accounting for as much as 15 percent of holiday sales, there's a lot of business left on the table.

Macy's Inc. is keeping several of its stores in the New York metropolitan area, including its flagship store in Herald Square, open until 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve. About 1,000 of Sears Holdings Corp.'s 1,387 Kmart stores are open for 64 hours straight, beginning at 6 a.m. Saturday and ending at 10 p.m. on Dec. 24, for the first time since 2002.

With Christmas falling on a Tuesday, shoppers were enticed to wait even longer this season to finish their holiday shopping. A challenging economy -- higher gas prices and a housing slump -- also made some shoppers hold off until the final days before the holiday. Retailers routinely discount items deeper as Christmas draws nearer.

"The gas prices and car insurance ... is up. I would say I'm spending less and worrying more about it," said Sondra Newton, of Warren, Mich., who was at Oakland Mall in Troy, Mich., a suburb outside of Detroit on Friday. "I used to just take their (her children's) list and get the top ones on it. Now I have to think about 'what can I get at the best deal.'"

Nevertheless, Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at International Council of Shopping Centers, is sticking with his December forecast for a 1.5 percent gain in same-store sales, or sales at stores opened at least a year. That would mean same-stores sales for the November-December period would be up 2.5 percent from a year ago.

"I think when the dust settles, stores will have met expectations, though they are modest," said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak RCT Corp., which tracks total sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets. He said he is still sticking with his 3.6 percent forecast for the November and December period, though he added, "some retailers will do OK, and others won't."

ShopperTrak is expected to release total sales for the week ended Saturday late on Monday.

Their lawyer, Mark Geragos, says he will refer the case to prosecutors for possible criminal charges against the insurer, Cigna HealthCare.

"All of the doctors there unanimously agreed that she needed and should have that liver transplant. And the only entity, if you will, who said no to that in the middle of that medical decision, was some piece of garbage who decided that making a couple of dollars, or saving them a couple of dollars, was worth more than the 65% chance over six months that she would survive," said Geragos.

"The only reason they approved it is because we had organized a protest in front of Cigna's corporate headquarters& and in the face of public pressure, they did it," he said.

By the time the approval came through Nataline had been on the liver transplant list for two weeks and her condition had deteriorated so badly that it was too late to have the procedure.

"I believe, the corporation knew, powers that be knew, that at that point approving the liver transplant was a 'gimme' because her condition deteriorated to the point where she couldn't receive the liver&she didn't have any chance of either, one, getting a liver or, number two, actually being able to receive it," he says.

Nataline, who was fighting leukemia, developed liver failure after complications from a bone marrow transplant she received from her brother last month.

Despite her already fragile health, Geragos says, "all of the doctors at the University of California Medical Center unanimously agreed that she needed and should have that liver transplant."

More than 6,000 liver transplants are performed in the United States every year, making it one of the most common organ transplants, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

Front-running Democrat Hillary Clinton, a New York senator seeking to be the first female president, won an effusive welcome at a mainly black Baptist church in snowy Waterloo, Iowa, where she criticized the Bush administration for failing to expand health care coverage and alienating foreign allies.

"Do we take a leap of faith and once again bind the wounds of those who hurt, create a country that we're proud of, assume the leadership and moral authority of the world that we should or will we continue to just slowly but surely fall backwards?" she said, also touching on the upcoming Christmas holiday.

Religion plays a big role in politics in the United States, where levels of belief and church attendance are much higher than in Europe.

Other issues weighing on the minds of voters in the run-up to the November 2008 presidential election include health care, immigration, the war in Iraq and a mortgage crisis.

Clinton's main rival, Sen. Barack Obama, also toured Iowa, bolstered by a new poll showing him alongside her in New Hampshire -- another early contest in the state-by-state process to nominate both parties' candidates for president.

Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani, a survivor of prostate cancer, returned to the campaign trail in New Hampshire after being hospitalized overnight last week with what he said was a "headache worse than I've ever had."

"I feel great now, I feel terrific. I've been tested out, everything came back 100 percent," Giuliani, a former New York mayor, said on ABC News' "This Week" program, adding his doctor would address the episode after Christmas.

"There's always the issue of cancer, so I'm going to have him put out a statement and then, you know, make everyone really comfortable that I'm OK."

Giuliani's battle with prostate cancer prompted him to drop out of the 2000 Senate race in New York against Clinton.

OBAMA SURGES, GIULIANI SLIPS

Giuliani, who plays heavily on his leadership in New York after the September 11 attacks in 2001, has led national polls of Republican voters but trails in New Hampshire and Iowa, which holds the nation's first nomination contest on January 3.

In New Hampshire's primary vote on January 8, Giuliani is fighting to keep up with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain of Arizona.