She says her complaints to ethics authorities about Sasso's allegedly unjust behavior and her cooperation in an FBI inquiry about Sasso's handling of a case caused a backlash among her superiors because the judge was a "political ally, friend and crony" of the firm.

As for sexual harassment, the suit says D'Onofrio and other women complained about unwelcome sexual comments and touching by DiFrancesco, but no corrective action was taken.

D'Onofrio recently underwent reconstructive surgery after a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2006. Before the surgery, DiFrancesco "asked her if she was planning on ‘getting really big boobs,'" the suit says.

In a telephone interview after the suit was filed, DiFrancesco said of that allegation, "It's absolutely not true. I can't recall saying those things and I know I would not have said things in those ways."

As for the rest of the personal charges against him, "a couple of things were fabricated," he says.

"It's not something I like to read, and I'm very unhappy about it and I'm very angry about it," says DiFrancesco, who was acting governor in 2001 at the end of a 25-year career in the state Legislature.

The suit names the firm, not individual partners, one of whom is Assemblyman Christopher Bateman, R-Somerset.

According to the complaint, DiFrancesco once asked D'Onofrio if she planned to wear a bathing suit to a professional function. In 2002, he asked her to stay a night in his hotel suite in Atlantic City after a League of Municipalities meeting and then go to a Beach Boys concert with him.

Oscar Allen, of Williamsburg, Va., waived indictment and pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to a criminal information charging him with conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce to aid in illegal gambling and to sponsor a dog in animal fighting.

According to court documents, in or about 2001, Allen -- known as "Virginia O" -- bred a litter of puppies for Bad Newz Kennels, the name of Vick's dogfighting operation, for use in animal fighting. One of the puppies was a male pitbull named Magic. In or about 2002 or 2003, Allen also sold Vick and his co-defendants a female pitbull named Jane, according to the documents. Both dogs are mentioned by name in court documents in Vick's case.

Allen also acknowledges that he gave members of Bad Newz Kennels, comprised of Vick, Purnell Peace, Quanis Phillips and Tony Taylor, advice on the operation of a dogfighting kennel and attended dogfights at Vick's rural Virginia home, 1915 Moonlight Road, in Surry County. Allen also stated that he was present in April 2007 when Vick, Peace and Phillips tested dogs to determine if they would be good fighters. The dogs that did not test well were executed, but Allen said he was not present.

Court documents specifically refer to Bad Newz Kennels and Vick's address, but refer to the co-defendants as M.V., P.P., Q.P. and T.T.

Allen, 67, will be sentenced Jan. 25, 2008, in Richmond in front of Judge Henry E. Hudson, who will also sentence Vick and his co-defendants. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He was released with conditions.

Vick and his co-defendants also face state charges in Virginia. Another hearing in that case is scheduled for Nov. 27.

In the federal case, Phillips and Peace will be sentenced Nov. 30. Vick will be sentenced on Dec. 10, the same day the Falcons play New Orleans on "Monday Night Football" without the quarterback who has been suspended indefinitely by the NFL. Taylor, the first of the co-defendants to reach a plea agreement, will be sentenced Dec. 14.

The new $15 billion price tag attached to Facebook was more a reflection of Microsoft's need to do a deal with the company rather than an indication of its true worth, analysts said today.

Fears that the internet industry - which has hosted a string of multi-billion dollar deals in recent months - was entering another bubble similar to the one it experienced seven years ago were also dismissed, with analysts pointing out that in most cases investment had come in areas that showed significant growth potential.

Yesterday Microsoft announced that it would buy a 1.6 per cent stake in Facebook for $240 million, ending a months-long bidding war with Google, its arch rival, which was also keen to share a piece of the lucrative advertising revenues that Facebook is expected to start generating.

As part of the deal, which values Facebook at roughly 100 times its estimated $150 million revenues, Microsoft will have exclusive right to serve ads on Facebook's platform, expanding an agreement which was already in place for ads on the US site.

Microsoft's investment, which makes Facebook's 23-year-old chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, worth an estimated $3 billion - at least on paper - follows a string of high-value deals in the internet sector, including Google's acquisition of DoubleClick, the advertising platform, for $3.1 billion, and Microsoft's previous purchase of aQuantive, another server of internet ads, for $6 billion.

The deal gave rise to a wave of blog entries with titles like 'Facebook's funny money', and recalled the early valuations of Yahoo!, the search firm, which had a price to earnings multiple of 1,000 in March, 2000.

Tournament sponsors who comply with the reporting requirement don't need to withhold taxes on the winnings. If the sponsor does not report the winnings, though, the IRS will enforce the reporting requirement and require the sponsor to pay any tax that should have been withheld from the winner. The withholding amount is normally 25 percent.

Tournament winners must provide their taxpayer identification number or Social Security number to the tournament sponsor. If they don't, the sponsor must withhold 28 percent of the winnings. Taxpayers must also report their winnings on their own to the IRS, as they have been required to do in prior years.

The breakdown, drawn from Nielsen's rating service, typically provides viewers' ages, gender, marital status and other personal data that help advertisers choose the audience most likely to be interested in their product or service.

New York-based Nielsen has been selling demographic data to television stations and advertisers for years.

Google's access to the information is significant because it gives the Mountain View-based company more tools to draw upon as it tries to target television ads as effectively as it has done on the Internet.

Because it processes more than 1 billion search requests per day, Google hasn't needed as much outside help to learn about the interests of its Internet users.

"This is another indication that Google is very serious about selling more ads in the mainstream media," said Brad Adgate, director of research for Horizon Media, which helps advertisers buy television ads.

Since May, Google has been delivering television ads for about 14 million subscribers to EchoStar Communication Corp.'s Dish network and Astound Broadband cable service.

The set-top boxes used by EchoStar and Astound enabled Google to track when commercials were watched and for how long. By drawing on Nielsen's data, Google will now have information on what kinds of viewers are watching the commercial.

"This was a missing piece of puzzle for us," said Keval Desai, Google's director of product management for TV ads.

Desai said Google is "thrilled" with its progress so far in TV advertising but declined to provide any financial specifics.

Even as it expands its ad platform into TV, radio and print, Google continues to make most of its money from text-based ad links posted next to search results and other online content.

Google's formula has been so profitable that it now has a market value of about $210 billion, second only to Microsoft Corp. in the high-tech industry.

The Google alliance appeals to Nielsen because the rating firm is trying to develop new measurement techniques and extend its reach into more digital media, such as iPods and mobile phones.

"The relationship with Google...is a prime example of the ways Nielsen is embracing new technologies, platforms and relationships worldwide to serve clients more completely," Nielsen Chairman David Calhoun said in a statement.

Reached Tuesday, Kirk declined to say why he and his wife, Erika, 73, decided to settle the suit rather than fight the IRS in a trial scheduled for next month.

"Let's let it lie for the moment," he said. "It's a long story, but an interesting one."

In a lawsuit filed in March, the IRS claimed Kirk put the home in his wife's name to avoid paying taxes dating to 1995.

In depositions, the couple insisted that she owns the house. However, government attorneys pointed out that on tax returns in 2001, 2002 and 2003 he deducted about $8,000 each year in mortgage interest.

While acknowledging he signed the returns, he insisted: "It's my wife's home, and that is it."

During an August deposition, he said he has been harassed by the IRS since he left the governor's office in 1971, having sealed his place in history as the state's first Republican governor since Reconstruction and the most flamboyant chief executive of either party - ever.

"I left the governor's office broke, b-r-o-k-e, because if you don't steal, it's not a very good job," he told government attorneys. "And I've been harassed by the IRS ever since. They had a system, started with the Carter administration, saying, 'Oh-oh, anybody who has been a politician has got money.' They've been rattling the cage forever."

He declined to say how much he made annually or exactly what he does for a living. He bristled when IRS attorneys attempted to question him about his 2001 tax return that reported $183,540 in earnings.

"I try to have people pay me for advice," he said. "Some of them take that advice and some don't pay me. It's not an easy business. I have no assets. I came out of being governor broke, and it hasn't changed."

The IRS declined comment on the settlement that must be approved by U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks.

The investment bank said it wrote down $7.9 billion in fixed-income instruments called collateralized debt obligations and from defaulting subprime mortgages _ more than the $5 billion writedown it estimated earlier this month. The result was a net loss for the quarter of $2.3 billion, after total revenue plummeted 94 percent.

The worse-than-anticipated loss signaled to investors that the financial sector may be in a more dire situation than feared because of the credit squeeze that was triggered in part by spikes in mortgage defaults. Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors' 10 a.m. EDT report on existing home sales was projected to show a drop in September for the seventh straight month.

The technology sector appeared to be losing momentum from earlier in the week. Amazon.Inc. said late Tuesday its quarterly profit more than quadrupled, but it only beat per-share estimates by a penny. Investors didn't see enough reason to bring the Internet retailer's shares, already at their highest level since 1999, even higher.