Alvord pleaded guilty last month to drunken driving, third-degree assault and reckless driving in Multnomah County Circuit Court. He also pleaded no contest to hit-and-run driving.

On Thursday, Judge Michael McShane sentenced him to 22 months in prison.

Defense lawyer Jim O'Rourke told the court that Alvord booked himself into a 30-day residential treatment center. He pushed his insurance company to settle with his victim for $1.25 million. Once he is out of prison, he has agreed to sit beside the man he injured, Norman Larkin, and tell other drunken drivers what happened when he made the decision to drink and drive.

Larkin says he now considers Alvord "a new friend." The 51-year-old Larkin suffered a broken pelvis and broken legs when Alvord's car jumped onto the sidewalk Feb. 7 and pinned him against a utility pole.

Fourteen people saw the crash and some followed Alvord, 61, as he drove off. They boxed him in less than a mile away.

Alvord had a blood-alcohol level of 0.30 percent, approaching four times the legal intoxication threshold.

Larkin acknowledges he was angry and in a lot of pain for a few weeks but says he now believes Alvord is truly remorseful.

News reports say a Taiwan court has imposed a life sentence on former President Chen Shui-bian after convicting him of corruption.

Friday's verdict came as hundreds of Chen supporters demonstrated outside a downtown Taipei court holding flags and banners saying "free him" and "Chen's innocent."

Six TV stations say a three-judge Taipei District Court panel has found the 58-year-old Chen guilty on multiple corruption counts.

Chen was charged with embezzling $3.15 million during his 2000-2008 presidency from a special presidential fund, receiving bribes worth at least $9 million in connection with a government land deal, laundering some of the money through Swiss bank accounts, and forging documents.

The Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled that a pizza shop must pay for weight-loss surgery for an obese employee to ensure the success of another operation for a back injury he suffered at work.

The decision is raising concern among businesses bracing for more such claims.

Boston's The Gourmet Pizza cook Adam Childers of Schererville weighed 340 pounds when he was injured by a freezer door. Doctors said he needed back surgery, but it wouldn't be successful unless he had weight-loss surgery first.

Boston's argued it shouldn't have to pay because Childers' weight was a pre-existing condition.

But a workers' compensation board and the court said the company had to pay because his weight and the accident created a single injury.

The White House plans to nominate the judge who presided over the Bernard Madoff case to the appeals court that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor served on, Sen. Charles Schumer said Wednesday.

Schumer said in a statement that his office told the White House that U.S. District Judge Denny Chin "would be an outstanding choice" for an appointment to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.

One of the four openings on the appeals court was created Sotomayor was elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court. She heard her first case as a justice on Wednesday.

Chin, 55, sentenced Wall Street swindler Madoff earlier this summer to 150 years in prison for cheating thousands of people out of billions of dollars.

Schumer praised Chin in his two-sentence statement, saying: "Even in the most high-profile of cases, he has been unflappable, erudite and steadily applied the law." Chin did not comment publicly on Schumer's statement Wednesday.

Chin was widely celebrated for his decision to jail 71-year-old Madoff immediately after he pleaded guilty to fraud charges in March and for sentencing him to the maximum prison term in June. Yet Chin also has gained respect for his compassion on the bench.

In November 2007, he cited then-83-year-old Oscar Wyatt Jr.'s age and military service during World War II as he sentenced the Texas oilman to a year and a day in prison for his role in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal.

Nine months earlier, he reversed a jury verdict, saying evidence did not support the fraud conviction of a former New York Stock Exchange floor supervisor who once oversaw all trading in General Electric Co. stock.

An appeals court panel upheld on Wednesday the conviction of a pharmacist for conspiracy to unlawfully distribute prescription drugs through a Wichita-based Internet pharmacy.

But the panel from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver also threw out the conviction of a co-defendant who worked as a computer technician for Red Mesa Pharmacy.

Pharmacist Jerry Lovern and computer technician Robert Barron were convicted in February 2008 of one count of conspiracy and three counts of unlawfully distributing controlled substances.

Prosecutors said Red Mesa Pharmacy distributed more than 9,200 orders between December 2005 and March 2006 for prescriptions approved by doctors who did not physically examine the buyers or have any communication with them. The prescriptions cited included Ambien, a controlled drug used for insomnia; and phentermine, a stimulant that is sometimes contained in prescription drugs used for weight loss.

Red Mesa's owner, Dr. Wilbur Hilst of Wewoka, Okla., is serving a 33-month sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully distribute prescription drugs.

Finally, auction day has come for the Phoenix Coyotes. It's two days, actually.

The NHL franchise is to be sold at auction in a two-day hearing that began Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in downtown Phoenix.

Only two bids have been made.

One by Canadian billionaire James Balsillie is contingent on moving the team to Hamilton, Ontario, over the overwhelming opposition of the NHL.

The other is by the NHL, which says it will resell the team outside of the bankruptcy process, either to an owner who would keep the team in Glendale or, failing that, to someone who would relocate the franchise. Balsillie and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman were in the crowded courtroom when the hearing began.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

PHOENIX (AP) — Finally, auction day has come for the Phoenix Coyotes. It's two days, actually.

The NHL franchise is to be sold at auction in a two-day hearing that begins Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in downtown Phoenix.

Only two bids have been made. One by Canadian billionaire James Balsillie is contingent on moving the team to Hamilton, Ontario, over the overwhelming opposition by the NHL.

The other is by the NHL, which says it will resell the team outside of the bankruptcy process, either to an owner who would keep the team in Glendale or, failing that, to someone who would relocate the franchise.