The International Court of Justice has thrown out a case filed by Georgia accusing Russia and separatist militias of years of ethnic cleansing in two breakaway Georgian provinces that sparked a five-day war in 2008.

In a 10-6 ruling, President Hisashi Owada said Friday that the United Nations' highest court had no jurisdiction in the case because Russia and Georgia had not attempted to negotiate a settlement to their long-running dispute before filing it to the court at the end of the war.

Georgia complained to the court in 2008 that Russian authorities and militias allied to Moscow murdered thousands of ethnic Georgians and displaced some 300,000 people in a two-decade campaign of discrimination in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Jeffrey Immelt, the head of GE, is facing backlash from left-leaning groups who say that he shouldn’t be on the White House Jobs Council or any other panel in light of reports that the company last year made $14.2 billion in profit, paid zero in corporate federal taxes and actually received a $3.2 billion tax benefit.

GE disputes that claim and says it did pay all kinds of taxes last year, though notably, not federal taxes. But it also claims that it didn’t pay because it took hits for investment and other spending that is exactly what the tax code allows and is encouraged to help job creation.

Whatever the case, the optics are bad news for GE, which is facing increasing anger from the likes of former Wisconsin Sen. Feingold, MoveOn and even Jon Stewart.

In January, Obama named Immelt to head his new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness as part of an effort to improve the White House's strained relationship with the business community. Now Obama's relationship with liberals is on the rocks.

Gov. Mitch Daniels and his chief of staff were both deeply involved in Indiana's decision to outsource the automation of welfare intake, and they should provide depositions in lawsuits over IBM Corp.'s cancelled $1.37 billion contract in the project, a lawyer for the company argues in a brief filed this week in Marion Superior Court.

The brief filed Tuesday by IBM attorney Andrew Hull notes Daniels at one point told a state employee union representative that the decision to upgrade Indiana's welfare eligibility system would "be made by me and me alone" and that Daniels personally signed the contract with Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM.

It also contends Chief of Staff Earl Goode was directly involved in all stages of the project from its inception to, after Daniels fired IBM in October 2009, the creation of a hybrid system that uses both automated intake and more face-to-face contact between state case workers and clients.

"Both Governor Daniels and Mr. Goode were intimately involved in all stages of the project, including key events at issue in this lawsuit," Hull wrote in the brief.

A lawyer for four men who claim they were molested by a priest at their Northern California parish says he has temporarily withdrawn his clients' lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa.
Attorney Joseph George said Wednesday that he is working with a Minnesota lawyer with an international clergy abuse practice to expand the scope of the suits involving former priest Patrick Joseph McCabe.

McCabe is awaiting extradition to his native Ireland to face charges that he sexually abused young boys there in the 1970s and early '80s.

George says the Minnesota lawyer, Jeff Anderson, is traveling to Ireland this weekend to try to gather information showing that church officials in Dublin knew McCabe was a pedophile when they allowed him to transfer to St. Bernard's Parish in Eureka.

McCabe served in the parish from 1983 to 1985. He has denied abusing any children.

A Morgantown woman has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $140,000 from the law firm where she worked.

Forty-year-old Lisa Buttermore pleaded to three counts Wednesday in Monongalia County Circuit Court.

Each embezzlement charge carries a possible sentence of one to 10 years.

Assistant Prosecutor Stephen Fitz says he'll recommend five years of probation instead.

The Dominion Post reports that Buttermore also must make monthly restitution payments and forfeit money in her retirement account.

Buttermore didn't tell the court why she stole the money from Gianola, Barnum, Wigal & London between 2008 and 2010. She declined comment after the proceeding.