The Internal Revenue Service has issued a guide sheet for organizations that maintain donor-advised funds to help safeguard against abuses.

Donor-advised funds allow organizations to make contributions that are generally treated similarly to contributions to charities, providing them with greater tax benefits than donations to private foundations. The guide sheet includes a series of questions to establish whether the organization qualifies as a sponsoring organization.

In an explanation accompanying the guide sheet, the IRS describes several court precedents, including a 2006 case, New Dynamics Foundation v. United States, in which the court determined that the foundation did not qualify for a tax exemption because it permitted donors to use funds to serve their private interests.

"Donor-advised funds are intended to accomplish charitable purposes rather than to generate fees from securities trading for investment advisors," said the IRS explanation. "If the arrangement produces too much private benefit to the financial company, the organization does not qualify for exemption."

Brocade's special litigation committee emphasized that Sonsini, who had played controversial dual roles at Brocade as both its corporate counsel and as a board member, and his firm had maintained that they had been misled by Reyes.

The filings revealed that another reason was a $9.5 million "contribution" from Wilson Sonsini to defray legal expenses related to the scandal.

"These guys did a very thorough investigation and found it would be inappropriate to pursue a claim against the firm or any one of its lawyers," said Wilson Sonsini spokeswoman Courtney Dorman.

In its 307-page filing, the litigation committee said it would assert claims against the defendants under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, for violations of federal law.

The new Brocade suit also targets Stephanie Jensen, Brocade's former vice president of human resources, who was also convicted of federal crimes. It also names five other former

executives and three directors on Brocade's audit committee: Neal Dempsey, Mark Leslie and Seth D. Neiman.
Reyes' attorney Richard Marmaro said it is "sad" that the Brocade committee "has chosen to denigrate the accomplishments of so many past and present employees by recklessly suggesting that at the height of its success, Brocade was used as a racketeering enterprise."

Brocade was among the first companies to come under suspicion for secretly manipulating stock options to benefit insiders, foreshadowing a national scandal that raised suspicions at more than 200 firms. The scandal prompted criminal charges, the ousters of scores of executives and billions of dollars worth of financial restatements.

The Mexican-born Medellin, 33, faced lethal injection in a case that has drawn international attention after he raised arguments he wasn't allowed to consult the Mexican consulate for legal help after he was arrested in the girls' murders.

Late Monday, Medellin was moved from death row at a prison outside Livingston to Huntsville, where he would be the fifth Texas inmate executed this year. His transfer came after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected requests for clemency and a reprieve.

"The board's action is against the interests of the nation and risks the safety of thousands of American traveling and living abroad," said Donald Donovan, one of Medellin's lawyers, referring to the warning by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico of possible protests there Tuesday. "We must now rely on the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent Texas from breaking a commitment made by the president and Senate on behalf of the country as a whole."

The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, has said Medellin and some 50 other Mexicans on death row around the nation should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether a 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests. Medellin is the first among them who is set to die.

His attorneys contend he was denied the protections of the Vienna Convention, which calls for people arrested to have access to their home country's consular officials.

President Bush has asked states to review the cases, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that neither the president nor the international court can force Texas' hand. Medellin's supporters say Congress or the Texas Legislature should be given a chance to pass a law setting up procedures for new hearings before he is executed.

Charles Ehrlich entered his plea to reduced charges of attempted accessory to robbery and attempted burglary.

Ehrlich is one of five men who accompanied Simpson during a confrontation in September with two sports memorabilia dealers at a casino hotel room.

He's now the fourth to take a plea deal, leaving one co-defendant, Clarence "C.J." Stewart, facing trial with Simpson beginning Sept. 8.

Simpson and Stewart have pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping, armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon that could put them in prison for life if convicted.

Simpson has maintained that he was trying to retrieve personal belongings and family heirlooms, and that no guns were involved.

Simpson's lawyer, Yale Galanter, said he couldn't immediately assess the effect of Monday's plea.

In overturning a lower court ruling that had blocked the service, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the judge wrongly concluded that Cablevision, rather than its customers, would be making copies of programs, thereby violating copyright laws.

The next-generation technology would let any cable subscriber with a digital cable box store TV shows on computer servers rather than on a hard drive in their home.

Cablevision's system was challenged by a group of Hollywood studios that claimed the remote-storage DVR service would have amounted to an unauthorized re-broadcast of their programs. A lawyer for the studios did not immediately return a call for comment.

Cablevision, in arguing that control of the recording and playback was in the hands of the consumer, had relied on a landmark 1984 Supreme Court case which found Sony Corp. did not break copyright laws by letting viewers use videotape recorders to record shows for personal use.

Craig Moffett, a senior cable analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said the ruling "sent shock waves to every corner of the media landscape" by taking the availability of DVR-like function from 25 percent ot U.S. homes to nearly 50 percent.

That means many more viewers would be taping shows and watching them at their leisure, likely skipping many commercials. The ad-zapping ability of DVR devices has broadcasters and advertisers worried that fewer people will watch commercials.

The case has been closely watched in the industry as cable companies increasingly offer digital video recording services to their customers, and Moffett said it was likely to end up at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Security guards swiftly tackled and pinned the man to the ground following the incident in St. Peter's Square in June 2007.

The 28-year-old, who suffers from a bipolar disorder, was put Monday on four years' probation, the Waldshut-Tiengen state court in southwestern Germany said in a statement.

To avoid being sent to a psychiatric hospital during that period, he must begin psychotherapy and continue with medication he is already taking and undergo regular checkups, the court said.

He also was banned "categorically" from consuming alcohol and drugs, and must undergo regular urine tests, the court said. The man was not identified in the statement, in keeping with German court practice.

It said the man's health has "stabilized significantly" over the year since the incident, and that the conditions attached to Monday's verdict should encourage a further improvement.

The German-born pontiff was not harmed in last year's incident and appeared not to have even noticed. He did not look back and kept on waving and blessing the crowd.