Fielding served as General Counsel to President Reagan from 1981-86 and deputy counsel under President Nixon from 1970-72, and is regarded by observers as having the political experience that Bush may need to face challenges to executive authority from the new Democratically-controlled Congress. Fielding, 67, leaves his position as a partner at Wiley, Rein and Fielding in Washington, DC.

Micron Technology Inc. (MU.N: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Tuesday it has settled a class-action lawsuit that will reduce its previously announced first-quarter profit by up to $80 million.

The lawsuit, which followed a 2002 U.S. Justice Department inquiry into the memory chip industry, covered people and entities that bought a type of computer memory known as DRAM directly from suppliers from April 1999 through June 2002.

The Supreme Court Monday denied EchoStar's appeal of a lower court decision preventing the company from offering distant network TV station signals to its subscribers. That December 1 cut-off came after a years-long legal tussle with broadcasters over EchoStar's ability to determine with subs were and weren't eligible to recieve the signals. The decision does not affect the ability of EchoStar subs to receive distant signals via outside company National Programming Service. After a federal appeals court mandated the cut-off and NPS was recruited to provide EchoStar subs with distant signals, broadcasters went to court to try to block the move, but were rebuffed.

Intuitive Surgical Inc. said Monday the California Institute of Technology filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the company in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based medical equipment manufacturer said the lawsuit is without merit and has filed an action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking declaration that the company isn't infringing Cal Tech patents.

Intuitive Surgical shares fell $2.88, or 3.06 percent, to close at $91.20 on the Nasdaq Stock Market Monday.

A lawyer who avoided paying income taxes for almost 25 years will spend 45 days in jail and pay $1.5 million after pleading guilty to failing to file tax returns, prosecutors said Monday.

Francis K. Decker Jr., who specialized in defending tobacco companies, pleaded guilty Friday, admitting he failed to file personal state and city tax returns since 1998 on $4.5 million in gross income, prosecutors said.

Because Decker, 70, was a partner at a Manhattan law firm, no taxes were withheld from his pay, and he made no quarterly estimated income tax payments as required by law, prosecutors said. However, they said, he signed statements telling the firm he had filed returns and paid his taxes.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said Decker, who has homes in Brooklyn and Quogue worth $2 million each, was caught when state officials did a routine review of license databases and found he was a licensed lawyer in New York but was not paying taxes.

A condition of Decker's plea deal is that he must settle with federal tax officials, if necessary, said Assistant District Attorney Daniel Castleman.

Morgenthau said Decker had not filed tax returns since 1982. He said it was ironic that a person who paid no income taxes for decades could avoid detection more easily than someone who occasionally paid but sometimes cheated.

The statute of limitations did not cover income tax offenses before 1999, but Decker agreed to pay going back to 1982.

Besides spending 45 days in jail, Decker will pay a $10,000 fine on each of two counts of failure to file, prosecutors said. He also must pay $779,757 in state and city personal income taxes, interest and penalties for 1999 through 2005 and $720,000 to settle any tax liability for 1982 though 1998. He will be sentenced Feb. 1.

Decker's lawyer, Jonathan Davidoff, said his client "has accepted responsibility for his actions and is very sorry for his past behavior."

"By accepting responsibility," Davidoff said, "Mr. Decker has not only agreed to pay New York state back for past taxes but also is paying society back by pleading guilty and serving the sentence recommended by the district attorney's office."

Illegal immigrants in the US who have been arrested and released within US borders appear to exhibit a markedly high rate of reincarceration, according to a report released by the US Department of Justice on Monday.

The report...judgmentally selected a sample of 100 criminal histories, which we reviewed for evidence of arrests of criminal aliens subsequent to June 30, 2003. The criminal histories for 73 of the 100 individuals documented at least one arrest after that date. Those 73 individuals accounted for a total of 429 arrests, with 878 charges and 241 convictions. These figures represent an average of nearly six arrests per individual. The charges for the 73 individuals ranged from traffic violations and trespassing to more serious crimes, such as burglary or assault....If this data is indicative of the full population of 262,105 criminal histories, the rate at which released criminal aliens are rearrested is extremely high.

The report also found that "most incarcerated aliens are being released into the U.S. at the conclusion of their respective sentences because of a lack of resources to identify, detain, and remove these aliens."