David Syre, owner of Bellingham-based Trillium, would pay $50,000 to the SEC; his company would pay an additional $75,000. The defendants would be permanently barred from violating securities laws, and the SEC would end its civil case against them.

The deal must be approved by U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour.

The company, caught in a tangle of increasingly complex financial transactions designed to make it appear profitable, collapsed in 2004, leaving investors with more than $600 million in worthless securities.

The SEC's complaint, originally filed in September 2005, detailed deals in which Met sold land to Trillium and other developers.

The agency charged that Met, either directly or through its subsidiaries, disguised the fact it had financed all or most of the purchase price of the deals, so that it could improperly book the paper profits immediately.

In 2002, shortly before the end of its fiscal year, Met sold two vacant parcels in Everett and Texas to a Trillium-controlled entity called Jeff Properties for nearly $24 million.

Met also loaned the buyer most of the money needed for the purchase, replacing passive assets with supposedly profitable loans that would strengthen the company's numbers at a time it sought to raise money from investors.

In separate cases, the SEC in March settled civil fraud charges against former Met executives Robert Ness and Thomas Masters, who agreed to pay fines.

Dan Sandy, a business associate of Met and Trillum, also agreed to pay a $50,000 penalty.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly also extended parts of the consent decree — part of the 2002 antitrust settlement, which is set to expire Nov. 12 — to no later than Jan. 31, 2008, to allow time to consider the arguments made by both sides.

Two separate groups of states filed motions last week asking Kollar-Kotelly to monitor Microsoft through 2012.

In one court filing, the states of New York, Maryland, Louisiana and Florida said they were concerned that the oversight may not have "enough traction to enhance long-term competition" among makers of computer operating systems.

Kollar-Kotelly gave Microsoft until Nov. 6 to oppose the motions, a week longer than the original deadline.

The judge gave the U.S. government a Nov. 9 deadline to submit an amicus brief, and said the states must file additional responses by Nov. 16. She also canceled a status hearing that was slated for Nov. 6.

The antitrust settlement reached among Microsoft, the federal government and 17 states barred the software maker from certain anticompetitive behaviors and sought to keep it from using its operating system monopoly to quash competition in other types of software.

Deandre Witherspoon, 24, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder in the killings of Orlando Herron, 13, and Darren Johnson, 11. The two were found shot in the head inside their ransacked home in February.

Authorities have said the boys were the victims of a drug-related robbery of their older cousin, an admitted drug dealer who survived being shot at the home.

Witherspoon, the sixth and final suspect in the case, avoided a potential life sentence by agreeing to the plea. His trial was set to begin Tuesday.

He now faces 22 to 40 years when he is sentenced Nov. 12.

Separate juries earlier this month returned guilty verdicts against Sonya O'Neal, 38, and Robert Reed, 36. They face mandatory sentences of life in prison when they are sentenced Wednesday.

Prosecutors said Witherspoon hatched the plan to rob the boys' cousin of drugs and money, and O'Neal did the shooting. Three others have pleaded guilty.

Film footage apparently showing a man's teenage killers appearing in court has been posted on YouTube.

Earlier this month, Glasgow's High Court heard that three of the youths had boasted about the killing of William Smith, 21, in a clip that was reportedly posted on the video-sharing website.

Now, what appears to be more film of the youths taken during a hearing at the High Court, has also surfaced on the website.

The clip, called "Gorbals" which runs for two minutes and 44 seconds, appears to show the teenagers from behind, sitting in the dock with a judge working in the background.

They are made to stand up just before the video ends.

It has been posted by a webuser called "chrismccann1888", and has already had more than 120 views.

Mr Smith was attacked with wooden sticks and punched and kicked in Glasgow's Gorbals area on December 29 last year. He died several days later in the city's Southern General Hospital.

Jason McFadden, 19, George O'Connor, 18, Iain Stevenson, 19 and Alexander Harvey, 18, admitted the culpable homicide of William Smith, 21. They were jailed for eight years.

Whoever shot the film faces a potential contempt of court charge, for which the maximum sentence is two years in jail and an unlimited fine.

Jones' attorney, James Ecker, said his client could have been sentenced to years in prison if she had not reached a plea agreement.

"She's very happy, she's continuing going to church and she has a job," Ecker told The Associated Press. "She's very happy and her family's very happy."

Jones was the last of four defendants to plead guilty in the September 2006 shooting in which basketball players Sam Ashaolu, Shawn James, Kojo Mensah, Aaron Jackson and Stuard Baldonado were injured.

The gunman, William B. Holmes III, 19, was sentenced Friday to up to 40 years in prison. Another shooter, Derek Lee, 19, was sentenced Oct. 23 to up to 14 years in prison. The two shots fired by Lee did not hit anyone, authorities said.

Jones was a member of the group that sponsored the dance, and invited a group of friends, among them Holmes and Lee, to the on-campus party. She knew some of the men were armed and asked a doorman if people attending the dance were being frisked, which they were not, authorities said.

Another girl, Erica Sager, 19, who knew the two gunmen, flirted with the basketball players, sparking the fight between the two groups. Sager had pleaded no contest to a riot charge and was sentenced to probation.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Lawrence O'Toole on Tuesday harshly criticized Jones for inviting the gunmen to the party. Jones burst into tears and apologized for her actions after O'Toole sarcastically told her she could have also chosen to hang out with gangsters Bonnie and Clyde if they were available.

Three of the players who were shot, James, Mensah and Jackson, have recovered and are expected to start this season. Ashaolu, who still has shrapnel lodged in his head, is back in school, but does not expect to return to the team until next season.

Baldonado has been suspended due to several arrests this year. It is unlikely he will to return to the university. In April, he sued Duquesne University, alleging it failed to provide adequate security at the dance.