The subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. filed five proposed issues in its appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of a Feb. 5 decision halting its plans to move engine repair jobs to Columbus, Ga., Japan and Singapore.

U.S. District Court Judge Janet C. Hall in Bridgeport ruled in favor of the Machinists union, which sued Pratt & Whitney to halt efforts to shift the jobs. The union said the company violated its contract with the union that requires it to make every effort to preserve jobs in Connecticut.

Among the issues Pratt & Whitney said it may raise is its contention that Hall was wrong in how she interpreted the definition of "every reasonable effort" to preserve jobs. Pratt & Whitney said it is not required to save jobs if it results in lower profit.

The company also said Hall substituted her own judgment for Pratt & Whitney's business judgment in how it measures profit and financial performance.

In a request filed last week, Pratt & Whitney said a decision is needed soon to avoid financial harm because the company plans to shut two Connecticut plants immediately after its union contract expires in December.

The court said the two parties may file legal papers in April and May and an appeal may be heard as early as the week of May 31.

A lawyer for the union would not immediately comment. The union's chief negotiator did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc will ask a Canadian court on Wednesday to hear its appeal of a lower court decision allowing Shaw Communications Inc to buy the broadcast arm of bankrupt Canwest Global Communications Corp.

An Ontario Superior Court judge ruled on Feb. 19 that Shaw could acquire Canwest's television arm, putting a quick end to a last-minute bid for the assets, filed the night before by a consortium led by private equity fund Catalyst Capital and backed by Goldman.

The Catalyst consortium includes the Asper family, Canwest's founders. Leonard Asper was chief executive of Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Canwest, Canada's largest media group, until last Thursday when he stepped down to avoid potential conflict of interest concerns.

Goldman Sachs is a partner in Canwest's specialty TV arm after helping the media group acquire popular channels such as History Television and Food Network Canada from Alliance Atlantis in 2007 for C$2.3 billion.

It wants the Ontario Court of Appeal to set aside the deal that allows cable operator Shaw to buy the Canwest TV assets.

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts said Tuesday the scene at President Barack Obama's first State of the Union address was "very troubling" and that the annual speech to Congress has "degenerated into a political pep rally."

Responding to a University of Alabama law student's question about the Senate's method of confirming justices, Roberts said senators improperly try to make political points by asking questions they know nominees can't answer because of judicial ethics rules.

"I think the process is broken down," he said.

Obama chided the court for its campaign finance decision during the January address, with six of the court's nine justices seated before him in their black robes.

Roberts said he wonders whether justices should attend the address.

"To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I'm not sure why we're there," said Roberts, a Republican nominee who joined the court in 2005.

Roberts said anyone is free to criticize the court and that some have an obligation to do so because of their positions.

"So I have no problems with that," he said. "On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."

Breaking from tradition, Obama used the speech to criticize the court's decision that allows corporations and unions to freely spend money to run political ads for or against specific candidates.

Self-exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has won his libel case against a Kremlin-owned broadcaster that aired allegations he masterminded the murder of a former KGB agent in London.

The 64-year-old tycoon's victory against All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting is the latest round in the oligarch's battle against the Kremlin, which has long sought to bring him before a Russian court.

Berezovsky sued after the broadcaster, known by its acronym RTR, aired a show in which it was suggested he was behind the poisoning death of renegade Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006.

In the ruling at London's High Court, Justice David Eady awarded Berezovsky 150,000 pounds (about $225,000) in damages, saying: "There is no evidence before me that Mr. Berezovsky had any part in the murder of Mr. Litvinenko. Nor, for that matter, do I see any basis for reasonable grounds to suspect him of it."

Berezovsky, who was in court for the verdict, said in a statement he was pleased the court "has unequivocally demolished RTR's claims."

RTR, which did not take part in the hearings, called the judgment illegal. Speaking from Moscow, the broadcaster's lawyer Zoya Matviyevskaya said the company "does not recognize the decision of the court" and was ready to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The justices Monday agreed to decide whether drug makers can be sued outside a special judicial forum set up by Congress in 1986 to address specific claims about safety.

The so-called vaccine court has handled such disputes and was designed to ensure a reliable, steady supply of the drugs by reducing the threat of lawsuits against pharmaceutical firms.

The questions in the latest case are whether such liability claims can proceed, if the vaccine-related injuries could have been avoided by better product design, and if federal officials had approved another, allegedly safer drug. Oral arguments in the dispute will be held in the fall.

A longtime municipal attorney is alleged to have stolen at least $1 million - and perhaps as much as $3 million - from the village of Calumet Park, where he grew up, according to prosecutors and others familiar with the matter.

Mark J. McCombs, of Chicago, worked for nine years as the village's special counsel for development and is accused of a fraudulent billing scheme meant to bolster his position at the Chicago law firm where he worked until Friday.

Village records show McCombs billed the village for tens of thousands of dollars each month for work that apparently never was done. He helped himself to property tax revenue that flowed into accounts of Calumet Park's tax increment financing districts.

"The billing was a joke. He didn't do any work," said Burt Odelson, the village attorney.

Cook County prosecutors Friday charged McCombs, 50, of the 1300 block of Flournoy Street, with one felony count of theft of government funds in excess of $100,000. McCombs, who faces six to 30 years in prison if convicted, pleaded innocent. Bail was set at $25,000.

McCombs was an attorney and shareholder with Greenberg Traurig, a global law firm that employs nearly 1,800 attorneys and has offices in the United States, Asia and Europe. He's accused of billing the village at least $1 million for work he never performed, but a village official pegged the number at closer to $3 million.

McCombs wired the cash to his law firm in a scheme designed to boost his reputation as a moneymaker and to give him greater visibility and a higher pay rate at the firm, Assistant State's Attorney John Mahoney said in court.

Greenberg Traurig fired McCombs on Friday afternoon after learning of the charges and had no previous knowledge of his alleged misdeeds, according to Jill Perry, managing director of the firm.