PharmaNet was formerly known as SFBC International Inc.

Under the settlement agreement, the class will be paid $28.5 million, of which $24.5 million will be in cash and $4 million may be either in cash or in stock, at the election of the company. The settlement requires contributions from a number of different defendants, and specifically requires certain of the company's former directors, officers and employees to make a personal contribution towards the settlement of the class' claims.

"We are pleased to have reached a settlement of this securities class action on terms that provide a significant benefit to the class, while permitting the company and its new management to focus on the future. We believe that the personal contribution portion of this settlement sends a clear message that shareholders will insist that the directors, officers and employees of publicly traded companies live up to their responsibilities to act as vigilant guardians for the interests of the shareholders they represent," said Paul Doane, director of ATRS.

The lawsuit alleges that American Home Mortgage and certain of its officers and directors violated Federal Securities laws. According to the complaint, throughout the Class Period defendants failed to disclose, among other things, that the Company was operating without adequate reserves for delinquent loan repurchases or an adequate strategic plan in relation to the volatility of certain of American Home Mortgage's loan products. As a result of defendants' failure to fully disclose that the Company was operating without adequate reserves in relation to the Company's prior sales of certain of American Home Mortgage's loan products or an adequate strategic plan for the repurchase of delinquent previously sold loans, defendants materially misrepresented to investors the true facts concerning American Home Mortgage's financial performance and prospects.

Then, on June 28, 2007, American Home Mortgage issued a press release announcing that it will take "substantial charges for credit-related expenses in the second quarter." The Company reported that the increase in losses was related to its practice of extending a three month timely payment warranty that the Company granted to loan buyers who purchased stated income loans. In response to this announcement, the price of American Home Mortgage stock declined from $20.91 per share to $18.38 per share on extremely heavy trading volume. Then, on July 27, 2007, after the close of the market, American Home Mortgage issued a press release announcing that its Board of Directors had determined to delay paying its dividend. In response to this announcement, on July 30, 2007, the NYSE halted trading in American Home Mortgage stock before the market opened.

If you are a member of the class, you may, no later than October 1, 2007, request that the Court appoint you as lead plaintiff of the class. Although your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision whether or not to seek appointment as a lead plaintiff, lead plaintiffs can participate in important decisions which could affect the recovery for class members.

If you wish to discuss this action, or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact us, toll free, at (888) 529 4787 or by email at info.newcases@kmslaw.com.

Kirby McInerney & Squire, LLP has specialized in complex litigation, including securities class actions, for several decades. The firm has repeatedly demonstrated its expertise in this field, and has been recognized by various courts which have appointed the firm to major positions in consolidated and multi-district litigation. The firm's efforts on behalf of shareholders in securities litigation have resulted in recoveries totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, and the firm's achievements and quality of service have been chronicled in numerous published decisions. More information about the firm, class actions in general, or about the role of the lead plaintiffs in a securities class action can be obtained through Kirby McInerney & Squire, LLP's website at http://www.kmslaw.com

It also has triggered a push in Congress this week to pass temporary legislation that would protect parts of a controversial eavesdropping program launched by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The administration and Democrats are at odds over how to address the issue, leading to concerns that it might not be resolved before Congress starts its August recess Monday.

This week, congressional leaders have alluded to the recent decision by the court, which was created in 1978 as part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a television interview Tuesday evening: "There's been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said Wednesday that "recent technical developments" had convinced him that "we must take some immediate but interim step to improve collection of foreign intelligence in a manner that doesn't compromise civil liberties of U.S. citizens."

Neither Rockefeller nor Boehner would elaborate, but U.S. intelligence and congressional officials familiar with the matter said they were referring to the FISA court ruling.

Boehner's remarks suggest that the ruling imposed new restrictions on the National Security Agency's ability to intercept communications that are between people overseas but that "transit" U.S. data networks operated by Internet service providers and telecommunications companies.

But other officials said the ruling's reach was broader, affecting cases "where one end is foreign and you don't know where the other is" — meaning warrants would be required even when it was unclear whether communications were crossing the United States or involved a person in the United States.

One official said the issue centered on a ruling in which a FISA court judge rejected a government application for a "basket warrant" — a term that refers to court approval for surveillance activity encompassing multiple targets, rather than warrants issued on a case-by-case basis for surveillance of specific terrorism suspects.

"One FISA judge approved this, and then a second FISA judge didn't," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the activities of the FISA court are classified.

The precise effect of the ruling is unclear, but a second official said that it "reduced the amount of intelligence we were collecting" on overseas terrorism suspects.

National Intelligence Director J. Michael McConnell has called attention to the issue in public testimony, telling a Senate committee May 1 that U.S. spy agencies are "actually missing a significant portion of what we should be getting" because of legal obstacles. But he has refused to identify the cause or nature of that intelligence gap.

The recent FISA court ruling was a blow to the Bush administration, which had bypassed the court when it launched the NSA program in 2001. The White House moved it back under the FISA court's supervision last year after Democrats won control of Congress and appeared poised to challenge the constitutionality of a program that monitored U.S. residents' communications without warrants.

The ruling comes at a time when U.S. intelligence agencies have warned that Al Qaeda has regrouped and is refocusing its energies on striking the U.S.

The issue has become the center of a fierce new debate on Capitol Hill over how to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a special court's approval before monitoring communications of people in the U.S. Public records show that the court rejects few of the government's requests: In 2005, for example, it approved 2,072 applications and denied none; in 2006 it approved 2,176 and denied, in part, one.

This week, unable to agree on a broader overhaul, the Bush administration and congressional leaders have turned instead to passing temporary legislation designed to address concerns raised about the recent court ruling. Even so, they remain at odds over the FISA court's role.

Democrats have proposed a temporary fix that would give the FISA court new authority to grant court orders covering "certain aggregated foreign collection while protecting rights and privacy of U.S. persons."

But the Bush administration has pushed for broader language eliminating any requirement for a court order in cases where the target is "reasonably believed to be outside of the United States." Instead, the attorney general would have power to authorize NSA surveillance of foreign targets and to compel Internet and telecommunications companies in the United States to comply with requests for data or access to the communications flowing through their networks.

That provision has prompted significant resistance from Democrats, many of whom have been calling for the resignation of Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales over allegations that he misled Congress or lied to lawmakers in testimony about NSA surveillance activities.

In an apparent concession to those concerns, the White House modified its proposal late Wednesday to include the national intelligence director in the approval process and to allow the FISA court to review certain activities.

Gonzales made a new attempt Wednesday to tamp down the controversy over his testimony, in which he has repeatedly said there were never serious disagreements within the Bush administration or the Justice Department over the warrantless surveillance program. His statements appear to be contradicted by testimony from other officials, including FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who said the program had raised serious concerns.

Gonzales acknowledged Wednesday that some NSA activities authorized by Bush after Sept. 11, 2001, "did precipitate very serious disagreement" within the administration. But he stood by remarks that the agency's warrantless tracking of international phone calls and e-mail of terrorism suspects — the activity the administration has described as the Terrorist Surveillance Program — did not generate serious dissent.

"This is not to say that the legal issues raised by the Terrorist Surveillance Program were insubstantial," Gonzales wrote in a letter to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It was an extraordinary activity that presented novel and difficult issues and was, as I understand, the subject of intense deliberations within the Department."

"While the vendor has fixed many of these flaws, many important vulnerabilities remain unaddressed," the report said.

The lab found, for example, that someone with only brief access to a machine could replace a memory card with one preprogramed to read one candidate's votes as counting for another, essentially switching the candidates and showing the loser winning in that precinct.

"The attack can be carried out with a reasonably low probability of detection assuming that audits with paper ballots are infrequent," the report said.

Browning asked Diebold Elections Systems to address the problems by Aug. 17, and expressed confidence that the company will do so before next year's primary election.

"To Diebold's credit, they have come to the table and been willing to get these changes made and get them made timely," Browning said.

A company spokesman said the deadline would be met.

"These are not major changes, and we are confident we can meet the deadline," said Mark Radke, who also said the company has worked well with the state. "We look forward to continuing this relationship and to continuing to improve the security of our elections systems."

Browning said that the memory cards are locked in machines and that only a few people have access to them in a setting where others wouldn't see them unscrewing machines, breaking seals and switching cards.

"It is not where you just walk up to a machine and pop out a card," he said.

Tampering with the software is much easier in a laboratory than trying to carry out the same actions during an election, Browning said. Still, he said, his office will advise county elections supervisors on steps that should be taken to ensure machines won't be tampered with.

Florida's voting system drew national attention in 2000, when dimpled, pregnant and hanging chads on punch card ballots held up a final count in the presidential election. Florida was eventually decided by 537 votes after the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in, handing the election to George W. Bush. The state has since banned the punch cards.

Currently, 15 of Florida's 67 counties use paperless touch-screen voting machines, while the rest use optical scan machines where a voter marks a paper ballot with a pencil and it is electronically scanned. Touch-screen machines are being scrapped because of a newly signed state law that requires a verifiable paper trail for all voting machines.

Doe's attorney, Thomas M. McNamara, said his client is seeking "the value of what McSheffrey and the diocese took from him that he'll never be able to regain. We'll let a jury decide what that is."

In 2005, the Hartford Archdiocese reached a $22 million settlement with 43 alleged clergy sex abuse victims. That settlement stemmed from abuse claims against 14 priests, including McSheffery.

McSheffery, now in his mid-70s, has been on administrative leave since 2002, when the first abuse allegations against him arose.

Doe, now in his 40s, can legally file the civil suit because of a state law passed in 2002 that extended the statute of limitations so that victims of child sexual abuse can file suits until they are 48.

New Haven attorney Hugh Keefe, who is representing McSheffery, had no comment on the most recent lawsuit, but emphasized that his client has not been convicted of any crime.

"Father McSheffery has not been found guilty either civilly or criminally in any court anywhere," Keefe said Wednesday.

The Rev. John Gatzak, director of communication for the Archdiocese of Hartford, said he had no comment specifically about the most recent lawsuit, but said such allegations "cause us to think of the pain on the part of the victims and to redouble the church's efforts to make sure such abuse never occurs again."

The lawsuit, which originally was filed in 2004, had alleged the Novartis unit was discriminatory in its pay, promotions, evaluations and treatment of women who take pregnancy leave. A Novartis spokesman declined to comment, saying the company had just received the judge's order and was reviewing it.