A woman accused of laundering some of the $10 million her husband allegedly embezzled from a Tennessee company is scheduled to stand trial in federal court Feb. 1.

Federal court records say Danielle J. Williams withdrew more than $300,000 from accounts where her husband allegedly put the stolen money.

She pleaded not guilty Dec. 10. He trial will be held in U.S. District Court in Oxford.

Walter Thomas Williams III, also known as Thom W. Williams, was indicted in November on wire fraud charges for allegedly embezzling from his employer, Verso Paper Corp. in Memphis, Tenn.

Thom Williams, of Hernando, Miss., was a financial analyst for Verso.

A judge is hearing a request by Alabama Gov. Bob Riley to dismiss a lawsuit filed by legislators challenging a computer contract issued by Riley's administration.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tom King is conducting the hearing Thursday morning in Montgomery. King got the case after all of Montgomery's circuit judges stepped aside.

Members of the Legislature's Contract Review Committee filed the suit over the Riley administration's contract with Paragon Source. They want the unbid contract canceled. Officials in the Riley administration say Paragon is the only company that can do the work.

A woman accused of hiding her elderly mother's corpse for seven months in the family's North Carolina home asked Thursday for a court-appointed defense attorney.

Amy Stewart made her first court appearance before a district court judge in Wilmington.

The 47-year-old did not enter a plea. She was charged Wednesday with concealing a dead body, a felony. Stewart posted bond and was released from jail.

Police responded to the family's home Tuesday after receiving a 911 call and found the body of Stewart's 87-year-old mother, Blanche Matilda Roth, in a bedroom. Police estimate Roth died in May.

In the 911 recording an unidentified male caller told an operator, "We have an ... elderly lady in the house who has died and we need her taken to the morgue."

When asked how long ago the woman had passed away, the caller replied, "I don't know, I'm going to say a month." The caller confirmed that the woman died a month ago and was still in the house.

The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld a state ban on smoking by actors onstage, ruling that public health trumps actor's freedom of expression.

The court ruled 6-1 on Monday that a state indoor smoking ban applies to theaters. Observers called it the first decision by a state court upholding the extension of a smoking ban to theatrical performances.

Of 24 states with indoor smoking bans, 12 have exemptions or exemptions on a case-by-case basis for theatrical performances, according to the ruling.

The court said performances typically convey their message "by imitation rather than by scientific demonstration" and that there are alternatives to smoking on stage.

It also agreed with Attorney General John Suthers' argument that the state Legislature passed a narrowly tailored law to protect public welfare, not to limit speech.

Colorado's law bans using alternatives to tobacco cigarettes, such as cigarettes filled with cloves or tea leaves.

Erin Andrews plans to be in a Los Angeles courtroom when a man accused of secretly filming her nude enters an expected guilty plea to stalking.

A hearing is set for Tuesday afternoon for Illinois insurance executive Michael David Barrett to enter the plea. Andrews' attorney, Marshall Grossman, says the ESPN sideline reporter will attend and may call for a tougher sentence against Barrett.

Prosecutors have agreed to seek a 27-month prison sentence against Barrett, but he faces up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Barrett is suspected of renting hotel rooms next to Andrews three times and shooting two videos of her. He is accused of posting the videos online.

Andrews called the experience a nightmare in a September interview with Oprah Winfrey.

A teen who pleaded guilty to gang raping a South Florida woman and beating her young son has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Seventeen-year-old Avion Lawson pleaded guilty in August and testified against three other suspects in the 2007 attack. The others have all received life in prison.

Lawson, who was sentenced Monday, had faced a maximum 11 life sentences plus 50 years.

Lawson and the three other defendants were all teenagers when police say they barged into a 35-year-old woman's apartment, raped her repeatedly, beat her 12-year-old son and then forced her to perform oral sex on the boy.

The victims were doused in chemicals to clean the crime scene, and police say their attackers discussed setting them on fire before fleeing.

he Supreme Court said Monday it will decide how much privacy workers have when they send text messages from company accounts.

The justices said they will review a federal appeals court ruling that sided with Ontario, Calif., police officers who complained that the department improperly snooped on their electronic exchanges. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco also faulted the text-messaging service for turning over transcripts of the messages without the officers' consent.

Users of text-messaging services "have a reasonable expectation of privacy" regarding messages stored on the service provider's network, 9th Circuit Judge Kim Wardlaw said. Both the city and USA Mobility Wireless, Inc., which bought the text-messaging service involved in the case, appealed the 9th Circuit ruling.

The justices turned down the company's appeal, but said they would hear arguments in the spring in the city's case.

The appeals court ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Ontario police Sgt. Jeff Quon and three others after Arch Wireless gave their department transcripts of Quon's text messages in 2002. Police officials read the messages to determine whether department-issued pagers were being used solely for work purposes.

The city said it discovered that Quon sent and received hundreds of personal messages, including many that were sexually explicit.

Quon and the others said the police force had an informal policy of not monitoring the usage as long as employees paid for messages in excess of monthly character limits.