Four families whose daughters were sexually assaulted by predators they met on popular internet social network MySpace sued owner News Corp this week for negligence and fraud, the lawyers representing the families said in a statement.

The families, from New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, filed suits in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday. The suits involve five girls, ranging in age from 14 to 15 years old, who the lawyers said were lured to meet with older MySpace members and sexually assaulted.

One 15-year-old girl was drugged and assaulted in 2006 by an older MySpace user, the lawyers said. The user pleaded guilty to sexual assault and is serving a 10-year sentence, they said.

Last year, the parents of a 14-year-old girl in Austin, Texas, sued MySpace for $US30 million after she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old man she met on the network.

"In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users," Jason Itkin, an lawyer at law firm Arnold & Itkin LLP, which is representing the families, said in a statement.

Ulmer & Berne LLP, a major Ohio-based law firm with four offices throughout the Midwest, announced today that two of its partners, Jeffrey S. Dunlap and John J. Haggerty, have been elected to take on larger roles within the Firm.

Jeffrey S. Dunlap has been named chair of the Firm's Employment & Labor Group. Mr. Dunlap replaces Thomas H. Barnard who has served as chair of the group since 1995 and has over 35 years of experience in employment and labor matters. Mr. Barnard will continue to actively participate in the Firm's Employment & Labor Group.

As a partner with Ulmer & Berne, Mr. Dunlap represents clients in a wide range of employment and commercial disputes. He has significant experience in employment discrimination cases, complex business and securities litigation and unfair competition matters. In addition to handling matters in trial and appellate courts, Mr. Dunlap has extensive experience in arbitration and mediation. A frequent speaker on a number of legal topics, he also drafts employment contracts and counsels clients regarding employment policies and procedures. Mr. Dunlap was recently named as an Ohio Super Lawyer for 2007.

John J. Haggerty has been named chair of the Firm's Business Litigation Group. Mr. Haggerty replaces Ronald H. Isroff who has been chair of the practice group since its inception and has been litigating business disputes for more than 35 years. Mr. Isroff will continue to actively practice and contribute his expertise to the Firm's Business Litigation Group.

As a partner with Ulmer & Berne, Mr. Haggerty's practice focuses on complex commercial, product liability, mass tort, and class action litigation. He is the former general counsel and a member of the board of directors of ICI Paints. Mr. Haggerty represents companies in nationwide litigation, including tobacco, lead paint, asbestos and welding rod litigation. He has extensive trial experience in both federal and state courts throughout the United States. Mr. Haggerty was recently named to The BTI Client Service All-Star Team for Law Firms for 2007. This honor was awarded to only 113 attorneys across the nation for their ability to deliver "the absolute best client service". John also received top billing in Ohio by Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business in the publication's most recent 2006 guide.

Ulmer & Berne LLP, established in 1908, is one of Ohio's largest law firms, as well as one of the fastest growing in the Midwest. A full-service firm with 185 attorneys in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Chicago, Ulmer & Berne represents publicly traded and privately held companies, financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies, family businesses, international joint ventures and affiliations, investor groups, start-ups and emerging businesses, public bodies, and nonprofit organizations.

For more information, visit www.ulmer.com

UK Business + Law News - HFW's Senior Partner, Roderic O'Sullivan, will retire on 30 April 2007, after 36 years as a partner in the firm. Richard Crump will join HFW's Managing Partner, Greg Gray, and Deputy/International Partner, Marcus Bowman, who have both been re-elected, unopposed, for further terms in office.

Roderic has been a Partner at HFW since 1973 and he became Senior Partner in 2003 - his practice having centred on advising international transport and energy companies. His appointment as Senior Partner coincided with the restructuring of HFW into industry focussed practice groups. Apart from London, HFW has offices in Paris/Rouen, Piraeus, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai and in 2006 opened offices in Dubai and Melbourne.

Richard is recognised by the independent legal directories as a shipping lawyer who is a market leader in his field. He joined HFW as a trainee in 1979, becoming a partner in 1987. Chambers UK 2007 directory says "Richard Crump is the 'perfect all rounder" and is recommended for traditional dry work and major casualty cases. His reputation is built on a 'straightforward practical and intelligent' approach".

In December 2006 HFW was awarded the Chambers Global Shipping Law Firm of the Year Award.

Roderic said 'It will be with very great pleasure that I hand over to Richard Crump whom I have known since 1978 when interviewing him to join our firm whilst he was an undergraduate at Oriel College Oxford. His formidable contribution and commitment to HFW has been justly rewarded with his election to the Senior Partner role".

Richard comments "When I joined HFW in 1979 there were 16 Partners and offices in Paris and Hong Kong in addition to London. There are now 97 Partners and the firm has nine global offices. It is a great privilege to be associated with this dynamic firm which I believe is well placed for the future. I look forward to continuing to develop and expand the business, with my Partners, in our chosen fields. Globalisation and the expansion of international trade have favoured our core areas of Shipping & Transport, Trade & Energy and Insurance & Reinsurance together with our Corporate & Commercial capability and we will seek to capitalise on this further".

Greg Gray added "I have great respect for Richard, having been in practice with him for over 20 years. I have no doubt that together we will be able to further the interests of our worldwide clientele, as HFW approaches its 125th year".

www.hfw.com

WASHINGTON – Former Congressman Robert W. Ney has been sentenced to 30 months in prison to be followed by two years of supervised release and fined $6,000, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced today.

Ney, 52, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, before Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, who also ordered the defendant to serve 100 hours of community service for each year of supervised release.

Ney pleaded guilty on October 13, 2006, to a two-count information charging him with conspiracy to commit multiple offenses – including honest services fraud, making false statements, and violations of his former chief of staff’s one-year lobbying ban – and with making false statements to the U.S. House of Representatives. The named co-conspirators in the charges to which Ney pleaded guilty include Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, Tony Rudy, and Ney’s former chief of staff Neil Volz. All have previously pleaded guilty in this investigation and are cooperating with law enforcement officials.

“Today’s sentence makes it clear that our government is not for sale. Former Congressman Ney now faces 30 months in prison for abusing his position of trust as a representative of the American people,” said Assistant Attorney General Fisher. “The Justice Department will continue to pursue and prosecute public officials who compromise the integrity of elected office for private benefit.”

“The foundation of good government rests on the leap of faith Americans take that our public officials act in our interests. When an elected official violates that faith through the illegal exploitation of public office for personal gain, confidence in government suffers,” said Assistant Director Chip Burrus of the Criminal Investigative Division, FBI. “Most public servants are law abiding and honest and I want to emphasize that point, but when an official chooses to sell his integrity as we see here today, the FBI stands ready to work with our partners and restore the confidence in government to which Americans are entitled.”

Ney was a Congressman representing the 18th District of Ohio from 1995 through the present. In 2001, Ney became chairman of the House Committee on Administration, a position he held until January 2006. Ney admitted that he engaged in a conspiracy beginning in approximately 2000 and continuing through April 2004, wherein he corruptly solicited and accepted a stream of things of value from Abramoff, Abramoff’s lobbyists, and a foreign businessman, in exchange for agreeing to take and taking official action to benefit Abramoff, his clients, and the foreign businessman.

Specifically, Ney admitted that he corruptly solicited and accepted things of value from Abramoff and his lobbyists – including international and domestic trips, meals and drinks, concert and sporting tickets and tens of thousands of dollars of campaign contributions and in-kind contributions such as free fundraisers – with the intent to be influenced and induced to take official actions. Ney admitted that the actions he agreed to take, and took, to benefit Abramoff, his lobbyists and their clients, included opposing legislation at Abramoff’s request, the insertion of statements into the Congressional Record at Scanlon’s request, and supporting an application of a license for a contract to install wireless telephone infrastructure in the House of Representatives.

Ney also admitted that he accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of gambling chips from a foreign businessman who was hoping to sell U.S.-made airplanes and airplane parts in a foreign country. Ney agreed to help the businessman with obtaining an exemption to the U.S. laws prohibiting the sale of these goods to the foreign country and with obtaining a visa to travel to the United States. Ney also admitted conspiring to aid and abet violations of the federal one-year lobbying ban by his former chief of staff Neil Volz. This case was prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Mary K. Butler, M. Kendall Day and James A. Crowell IV of the Public Integrity Section. The case was investigated by a task force of federal agents including special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of the Interior Office of the Inspector General, the General Services Administration Office of the Inspector General, and the Criminal Investigation branch of the Internal Revenue Service. The investigation has received assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. The broader investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff is being conducted by federal agents from the above-named agencies as well as prosecutors in the Public Integrity and Fraud Sections of the Criminal Division and prosecutors in the Criminal Tax Section of the Tax Division.

In a sharply worded speech directed at the third, and equal, branch of the government, Gonzales outlined some of the qualities the Bush administration looks for when selecting candidates for the federal bench. He condemned what he termed activist judges with lifetime appointments who "undermine the right of the people to govern themselves."

In nominating a judge, "we want to determine whether he understands the inherent limits that make an unelected judiciary inferior to Congress or the president in making policy judgments," Gonzales said in the 20-minute speech to American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. "That, for example, a judge will never be in the best position to know what is in the national security interests of our country."

Gonzales did not cite any specific activist jurists or give examples of national security cases.

Pressed later for examples, he noted that Congress approved the Military Commissions Act, which authorizes military trials for terrorism suspects, four months after the Supreme Court ruled the trials would violate U.S. and international law.

"I don't think the judiciary is equipped at all to make decisions about what's in the national security interests of our country," Gonzales said. "How would they go about doing that? They don't have embassies around the world to give them that information. They don't have intelligence agencies gathering up intelligence information. ... It was never intended that they would have that role."

Carl Tobias, a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, said it is inevitable that courts would decide some of the most contentious questions involving national security.

"Some of the most difficult issues are about national security, how to balance national security and civil liberties - especially in the context of domestic surveillance and enemy combatants," Tobias said. "Those are critically important issues that the courts are being asked to resolve."

Gonzales, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, also characterized efforts to retaliate against unpopular rulings as misguided. He mentioned a failed South Dakota proposal to sue or jail judges for making unpopular court decisions.

He also urged Congress to consider increasing the number of federal judges to handle heavy workloads and to offer them higher salaries to lure and keep the best ones on the bench.

The US Senate passed the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007 by a 96-2 vote Thursday, but declined to create a Senate Office of Public Integrity to investigate ethics breaches. The bill was the first major initiative taken by the Senate in the new Democrat-dominated session of Congress. The measure regulates lobbying activities by preventing lawmakers from accepting gifts and travel from lobbyists, requiring stricter reporting of lobbying activity, preventing spouses of lawmakers from lobbying the Senate and extending the period a former senator must wait before undertaking lobbying activities to two years. The final text passed by the Senate, however, did not include a provision which would have required disclosure of grass-roots lobbying. Senators voted 55-43 not to include that provision in the bill.

The bill also requires clearer reporting of home state projects, denies pension benefits to those convicted of serious crimes and requires lawmakers to pay the full price fare when traveling on chartered planes. Opponents of the bill complained the measure discouraged free speech by deterring petition drives, but majority leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) called the measure "the most significant legislation in ethics and lobbying reform we've had in the history of this country."

The family of a California woman who died after participating in a radio station's water-drinking contest to win a Nintendo Wii will sue the station, their lawyer said on Thursday.

Jennifer Strange, 28, a mother of three, died from suspected water intoxication after taking part in last Friday's competition, 'Hold Your Wee for a Wii'. About 20 people tried to out-drink each other without going to the toilet.

Sacramento station KDND-FM responded by sacking ten members of staff, including several DJs, and cancelling the 'Morning Rave' programme. The DJs had joked about people dying from water intoxication and teased Strange about her distended stomach.

"The station knew this was a dangerous and potentially deadly stunt, but flippantly dismissed the dangers," lawyer Roger Dreyer said in a statement. "Hearing the tape [of the radio show], it's very clear they knew of the dangers and could foresee that this could lead to Jennifer's death."

The station could not be reached for comment because its phone number was continuously engaged on Thursday evening.

Police are also investigating the death for possible criminal charges.

An excess of water in the body can lead to the dilution of vital fluids. That in turn can lead to swelling of the brain, seizures, comas, an irregular heartbeat and in some cases death.