MLM Counties News. Notices. Need-to-know Information.

Twenty-one death row inmates won an order barring use of sodium thiopental, an imported drug given as anesthesia prior to administration of lethal injections.

Hanjuan Jin, a former Motorola Inc. software engineer charged with stealing trade secrets from the company, was found guilty and acquitted of economic espionage to benefit a foreign government.

A new Wisconsin photo identification law unconstitutionally burdens the rights of senior citizens, minorities and other voters, the American Civil Liberties Union claimed in a federal lawsuit.

The three Republican members of the five-person House of Representatives Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, including Speaker John Boehner, told a U.S. judge that a lesbian woman’s fundamental rights aren’t burdened by the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Oracle Corp., the world’s second-biggest software maker, will pay more than $199.5 million to settle allegations it overbilled the U.S. government for nine years.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan lost a bid for dismissal of a joint U.S.-state lawsuit accusing the state’s biggest health insurer of driving up competitors’ costs through preferential-pricing hospital contracts.

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, standing trial for the second time on political corruption charges, was convicted on 17 counts by a federal jury in Chicago. The twice-elected Democrat was accused by prosecutors of attempting to trade official acts, including the appointment of a U.S. senator to replace Barack Obama in 2008 for personal favors and campaign cash.

A planned cap on the debit-card swipe fees charged to merchants by the biggest U.S. banks is “discriminatory,” a lawyer for one of the affected banks told a U.S. appeals court panel. Timothy D. Kelly, a lawyer for TCF National Bank, told the St. Louis-based court last week that it should reverse a trial judge’s decision denying the bank’s bid to block the cap while the lender challenges its legality. The provision is scheduled to take effect July 21. The limit on per-transaction charges is part of the Dodd- Frank financial overhaul. Banks with more than $10 billion in assets won’t be allowed to collect more than the cost of providing the service, making profit impossible, TCF claims.

The 32-team league is appealing U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson’s order directing them to end their embargo on player transactions and access to team facilities. Nelson ruled on April 25 that the suing players had shown a likelihood they would be irreparably harmed if the lockout continued.

President Barack Obama lost the second of four court challenges to his health care law as a federal judge in Florida ruled that the measure went beyond the pow-er of Congress to regulate commerce.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the U.S. government over an alleged policy of killing American citizens who are suspected of terrorism.