Beatles recordings may soon be legally available online after Apple Corps Ltd. settled a royalties dispute with EMI record label, the two companies said Thursday.

"It was settled on mutually acceptable terms last month," Apple Corps and EMI said in a joint statement. They refused to provide details of the settlement.

Apple Corps Ltd. is owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison. The company sued EMI Group PLC in 2005 to recover what the band said was more than 30 million pounds (60 million U.S. dollars) in unpaid royalties. EMI releases Beatles recordings under the Apple label.

Apple Corps is a zealous guardian of The Beatles¡¯interests. In February it settled a long-running trademark dispute with computer company Apple Inc. over the distinctive apple logo and name.

The Beatles have consistently refused to license their songs for music download sites, despite the desire of EMI to do so.

The legal settlement leaves EMI and Apple Corps free to negotiate a new royalties agreement that would include Internet sales.

Neither company would comment Thursday on whether such an agreement was imminent. At a news conference last week, however, EMI Chief Executive Eric Nicoli said the company was seeking to make the Fab Four catalog available online

PORTSMOUTH - A local attorney was arrested Friday on four charges alleging he used the address of his downtown law office to register three cars, in spite of living in Kittery, Maine.

According to Katie Daley, spokeswoman for the New Hampshire Highway Patrol, Richard Foley, 53, was charged at the Newington Police Department on three felony counts of title fraud.

If convicted, according to Daley, Foley could be sentenced to a maximum of seven years in prison. The convictions could also be punishable by a maximum $4,000 fine for each of the four felony counts.

Foley was also arrested on a misdemeanor count of tampering with public records, punishable by up to one year in prison and a $1,200 fine.

The Division of Motor Vehicles Highway Patrol reports that Foley's arrest followed a two-month investigation. That investigation, according to the state, was based on information that Foley was using his 414 State St. law office to claim New Hampshire residency for the purpose of registering and titling three of his own vehicles.

Daley said the state is not releasing the attorney's Kittery street address.

Automobiles registered in New Hampshire are not subject to an excise tax, as is the case in Maine, where auto insurance is also mandated. The amount of the Maine tax is determined by the age of the vehicle and the suggested retail price.

Following his arrest, Foley was released on $4,000 personal recognizance bail and is scheduled to be arraigned May 23 in Portsmouth District Court.

In his 25-page statement, Gonzales apologized for embarrassing the eight U.S. attorneys and their families by letting their ousters erupt into a political firestorm that has engulfed the Justice Department since January. He maintained the firings were not improper, but said he remembers having only an indirect role in the plans beyond approving them.

"I have nothing to hide, and I am committed to assuring the Congress and the American public that nothing improper occurred here," Gonzales said in prepared testimony released before he appears Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The panel, which oversees the Justice Department, is investigating whether the firings were politically motivated.

"I am sorry for my missteps that have helped to fuel the controversy," he said.

Gonzales added: "In hindsight, I would have handled this differently. ... Looking back, it is clear to me that I should have done more personally to ensure that the review process was more rigorous, and that each U.S. attorney was informed of this decision in a more personal and respectful way."

The earlier quake, with an epicenter 16 kilometers underground in central Mie prefecture, also affected nearby prefectures including Nara, Shiga, Aichi Nagano, Wakayama, Ishikawa and others. The focus of the second quake was also in central Mie prefecture.

A part of the stone wall of Kameyama Castle fell in Mie prefecture due to the earlier quake. Shinkansen bullet train service in the area was briefly suspended and later resumed. Parts of expressways in the areas were also closed due to the quake.

Electronic device maker Sharp Corp. temporality suspended its liquid crystal production lines for safety checks at its flagship plant in Kameyama, Mie prefecture, Kyodo said.

Some 4,300 households in Mie prefecture temporarily went without electricity and over a dozen houses and buildings were damaged in Kameyama city, the report said.

U.S. gasoline stockpiles fell sharply over the past week, while inventories of crude oil and other refined fuels increased, the Energy Department reported Wednesday.

In the week ending April 6, the nation's gasoline supplies plunged by 5.5 million barrels to 199.7 million, the department said in its weekly survey of petroleum inventories.

Analysts had been expecting a 1.3 million barrel decline in gasoline inventories.

The sharp fall in gasoline supplies came amid strong demand as summer driving season is coming soon.

Gasoline demand averaged 9.4 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, or 2.5 percent higher than the year-ago period, according to the department.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, however, rose by 700,000barrels last week to 333.4 million. But the gain was smaller than the 1.6 million barrels expected by analysts.

Meanwhile, stocks of distillate fuels, which include heating oil and diesel, increased by 100,000 barrels to 118.1 million barrels. That was defying analysts' expectations of a decline of 900,000 barrels.

The figures for commercial crude oil inventories do not include the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which currently holds crude oil of about 689 million barrels.

A former Manhattan Beach police sergeant has been found guilty of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Las Vegas.

Shawn Michael Shelton, 40, once the fastest-rising officer in his department, could face the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison following the Clark County District Court jury’s decision, reached Friday night after two hours of deliberations.
 
Following two days of testimony, jurors concluded that Shelton was guilty of first-degree kidnapping, sexual assault with a minor under 16 years old, battery with intent to commit sexual assault with a minor under 16 years old, and use of a minor in pornography, court information officer Michael Sommermeyer said.

Jurors acquitted Shelton of one count of robbery. A charge of transmission of the AIDS virus previously was dropped. Shelton is HIV positive.

The guilty verdicts came after jurors listened to the boy, now 15, describe how he was sitting at a bus bench outside a mall May 21, 2006 , when Shelton pulled up, displayed a badge and told him he was a police officer. He persuaded the boy to get into his Hummer.

The boy told jurors that Shelton said he was investigating a homicide, handcuffed him, drove him into the desert and forced him to perform oral sex in the back seat, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

During his testimony, the boy described the .50-caliber bullet hanging on Shelton’s key chain and the brand of cigarettes Shelton smoked. Police found the cigarettes in Shelton’s Hummer when they arrested him May 26 in Corona, the newspaper reported. Besides the identification, prosecutors had key forensic evidence to pin the crime on Shelton, who had been an experienced detective. Following the oral sex, the boy wiped his mouth with his T-shirt. The act absorbed Shelton’s DNA into the cloth, the newspaper said.