The U.N.'s highest court says Honduras has dropped a case accusing Brazil of meddling in its internal affairs by allowing ousted President Manuel Zelaya to stay at one of its embassies in 2009.

The International Court of Justice, widely known as the World Court, said Wednesday that Honduras asked to withdraw the case on April 30 and the request was granted May 12.

An intermim administration that came to power in Honduras after a coup filed the case back October 2009 while Zelaya was holed up at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Brazil then viewed Zelaya as Honduras' lawfully elected president.

Zelaya now lives in the Dominican Republic and is trying to negotiate a reconciliation that recognizes current Honduran President Porfirio Lobo.

The man accused of plotting to kill Americans with a car bomb in Times Square appeared relaxed and obedient in his first appearance in a Manhattan courtroom, where he was told by a magistrate judge that he had the right to remain silent.

Authorities say Faisal Shahzad's willingness to talk kept him out of court for two weeks, speeding up the progress of an investigation into his May 1 plot to set off a homemade car bomb on a spring Saturday evening amidst hundreds of people enjoying the tourist haven.

Authorities said shortly after Shahzad's May 3 arrest that he had admitted driving the SUV bomb into Times Square and told authorities he had received terror training during a recent five-month trip to Pakistan.

His cooperation did not eliminate the need to bring him to court Tuesday to face five charges, including attempted use of weapons of mass destruction and attempted acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, each of which carry potential penalties of life in prison.

Three of nine members of a Midwestern militia who are accused of conspiring to overthrow the government likely will be released from jail Tuesday until trial, a defense attorney said.

Prosecutors notified attorneys for Tina Stone, David Stone Jr., and Jacob Ward that they intended to withdraw their opposition to a judge's order releasing the three, lawyer Michael Rataj said.

"I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. They want to let her out," said Rataj, who represents Tina Stone. "Why they approached me and lawyers for two other defendants, I don't know."

The three were to appear Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Detroit, said Rod Hansen, a spokesman for the court.

Prosecutors will continue to oppose the release of the other six and met a Monday deadline to file new court papers with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts ordered the release of all nine members until trial under strict conditions, including electronic monitors. But the government appealed her ruling, and the 6th Circuit suspended it May 10.

Microsoft Corp., the world’s biggest software maker, agreed to pay VirnetX Holding Corp. $200 million and license technology to communicate privately over the Internet, ending a patent dispute.

“We believe that this successful resolution of our litigation with Microsoft will allow us to focus on the upcoming pilot system” for a virtual private network, Chief Executive Officer Kendall Larsen said yesterday in a statement.

VirnetX, which won a $105.8 million jury verdict in its patent-infringement lawsuit in March, was seeking a court order to block Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft from continuing to use the technology in its Windows operating system and Communications Server. The jury award also could have been tripled by the court’s judge.

Microsoft argued at trial that the patents were valued at no more than $15 million. Investors bet the patents were worth more, driving Scotts Valley, California-based VirnetX’s share price up almost 300 percent in the past 12 months. VirnetX had a market value of $267.9 million, based on the May 14 price.

VirnetX had been public in its desire to be bought to resolve the dispute. The agreement in which it obtained the patents from defense contractor SAIC Inc. included a provision that SAIC would get 10 percent of any proceeds if VirnetX were acquired by Microsoft, according to a company regulatory filing.

The patents relate to use of a domain-name service to set up virtual private networks, through which a website owner can interact with a customer in a secure way or an employee can work at home and access a company’s files. The technology stemmed from work performed for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to develop secure communications, VirnetX said.

Prominent Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger called "absurd" any suggestion the shot fired by police officer during a raid that killed a 7-year-old girl Sunday morning was the result of an altercation between the cop and the girl's grandmother.

Fieger said today at an hour-long press conference he has filed lawsuits on behalf of the family of slain Aiyana Jones in both federal and state courts. The federal lawsuit argues the police violated the girl's constitutional rights and it seeks an award of more than $75,000. The state suit contains four counts and seeks damages in excess of $25,000.

Fieger said a three-minute video taken of the raid shows the gunshot fired came from the porch of the two-story duplex on the 4000 block of Lillibridge shortly after a "flash-bang" grenade was thrown into the home, contradicting police accounts.

The Supreme Court says an American mother illegally moved her son from Chile to the United States during a custody dispute with the boy's British father.

The high court on Monday said an international child custody treaty demands that the child goes back to the South American country.

The parents separated in Chile, and the courts there had granted the father visitation rights. But the mother fled with the boy to Texas and filed for divorce. She asked the court there to change the father's visitation rights. The father asked that the boy be returned to Chile.

The justices say the mother can argue in the lower courts that her safety may be at risk in Chile. That is an exception that can overrule the requirement that the child be returned to Chile.

A German man who called himself Clark Rockefeller and who spun fantastic stories about his past is appealing his sentence for kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter in Boston.

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter is expected to appear before a tribunal in Suffolk Superior Court on Wednesday.

Gerhartsreiter was sentenced to four to five years in prison last year for kidnapping his daughter in 2008. They were found in Baltimore and the girl was unhurt.

Defense lawyers argued Gerhartsreiter was legally insane.

Gerhartsreiter used multiple aliases to move in wealthy circles in Boston, New York and Los Angeles after coming to the U.S. in the 1970s. At times, he claimed to be a physicist, an art collector, a ship captain and a financial adviser.