The locked-out NFL players don't want to go back to collective bargaining with the league. They have now made a move to allow their former union boss to be present if court-supervised talks take place between the two sides.

Attorneys for the NFL and the players held a conference call Friday to discuss mediation with U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson, who is currently deciding whether to lift the lockout.

League spokesman Greg Aiello confirmed the call took place and said Nelson wanted details to remain private. Jeffrey Kessler, a lawyer for the players, declined to comment.

The most notable development Friday was the formal addition of DeMaurice Smith as an attorney for the players. Smith is the executive director of the NFL Players Association, which is now officially a trade association and not a union. Lawyers who practice in a different state must file for approval through the court.

NFLPA spokesman Carl Francis confirmed that the move allows Smith to participate in any mediation sessions that might take place under Nelson's supervision.

After a hearing Wednesday on the players' request for an injunction to stop the lockout, Nelson urged both sides to resume talks toward a new labor pact. Negotiations broke down last month.

Both sides expressed a willingness to talk again after the hearing, but the NFL wants to resume negotiations before a federal mediator in Washington while the players prefer to remain in Nelson's court.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision that breathed new life into a decades-long water-rights dispute on the Great Plains has renewed concerns among southern Nebraska farmers about what could happen to their livelihoods.

The dispute centers on the Republican River, from which Kansas contends Nebraska took more than its share of water in 2005 and 2006. In addition to some $72 million in damages, Kansas is seeking to force Nebraska to stop irrigating about 500,000 acres in the Republican River basin — about half of the basin's 1.2 million irrigated acres and nearly 9 percent of the basin's total 5.8 million acres.

"That would be devastating to our operation and just the whole economy here," said Dan Nelsen, 30, who farms 5,000 acres — half of them irrigated — near Curtis, Neb. "Irrigation plays a big part in our operation. It keeps our cow and calf operation viable. Without that, we'd have to liquidate our herd."

The Kansas attorney general's office maintains Nebraska hasn't lived up to its end of a 1943 pact among Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado that governs the Republican River's use. The Supreme Court earlier this week gave Kansas permission to file a new petition over allegations that Nebraska used 25.7 billion gallons more in water from the river in 2005 and 2006 than it was due.

According to Jasper Fanning, general manager of the Upper Republican River Natural Resources District, if Kansas were to get its way, scores of farms in southern Nebraska and even the state's entire economy would be hurt.

Republican state Sen. Jane Orie's lawyer wants her public corruption retrial barred because of double jeopardy and wants the Pennsylvania Superior Court to recuse the trial judge from presiding over it.

Orie is scheduled to be retried Monday on conflict of interest and other public corruption charges alleging that she used her legislative staff to do campaign work for herself and another sister, State Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin.

The appeal filed Friday by Orie's attorney, William Costopoulos, is expected to delay Monday's retrial although the appeals court did not immediately issue such an order. In essence, Costopoulos claims that prosecutors were aware of possible problems with the documents Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey Manning found to be forged days before bringing them to the attention of the judge.

The Arizona Supreme Court has turned down an appeal for a man convicted and sentenced to death for murdering a Phoenix police officer.

The justices ruled unanimously Friday in the case of Donald David Delahanty in the May 2005 killing of Officer David Uribe. The officer was shot after he pulled over a car in which Delahanty was a passenger.

According to testimony, Delahanty had said several times before the day of the shooting that he would kill any police officer who pulled him over.

Delahanty was sentenced to death for the murder of Uribe. He also was convicted of various other charges that he tried to burn the car in which he was riding and that he tried to arrange killings of a witness and the witness' mother.

Massachusetts hands out more than $2 billion in business tax breaks annually with no mechanisms for reviewing their effectiveness or recouping lost revenue if the exemptions fail to produce the desired results, an analysis by the state auditor shows.

Auditor Suzanne Bump reviewed 92 business tax breaks or credits, many dating back decades, and determined that only seven had so-called sunset clauses, automatic reviews of a law after a fixed period of time, and only 10 had clawback provisions allowing the state to get back some of the taxes if a company doesn't meet job creation goals or other benchmarks.

The tax breaks on the books containing no sunset or clawback provisions would total $2.1 billion in foregone revenue during the fiscal year starting July 1, Bump concluded. The auditor planned to present her findings Thursday at a hearing of the Legislature's Revenue Committee.

Taxing authorities from three states have filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against former billionaire Tim Blixseth.

The petition says the real estate baron owes $2.3 million in California, Idaho and Montana. It was filed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Nevada.

Blixseth rose to fame and fortune after founding Montana's ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club. He left the winter playground for Bill Gates and others before its 2008 bankruptcy. Creditors say he made off with $286 million.

Earlier allegations of unpaid taxes in Montana have been contested by Blixseth as unfounded.

He told The Associated Press Wednesday that the bankruptcy petition stemmed from Montana's "bogus" claims and pledged to fight it.

Blixseth's value was once pegged by Forbes magazine at $1.3 billion. Court documents now put the figure at roughly $230 million.