Attorneys for the locked-out NFL players arrived at federal court on Tuesday to meet with the judge who will oversee court-ordered mediation with the league.

The attorneys met with U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan, with Hall of Fame defensive end Carl Eller in attendance. All declined comment.

The NFL's attorneys are scheduled to meet with Boylan on Wednesday before the sides begin mediation Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson ordered the mediation on Monday with the lockout at one month and counting. Nelson is still considering a request from the players to lift the lockout imposed by owners after the players dissolved their union, clearing the way for the court fight.

The meetings will help get Boylan caught up with the arguments on both sides, setting the table for the first face-to-face negotiations between the players and the league since talks broke off March 11 in Washington and the collective bargaining agreement expired.

Gov. Mitch Daniels and his chief of staff were both deeply involved in Indiana's decision to outsource the automation of welfare intake, and they should provide depositions in lawsuits over IBM Corp.'s cancelled $1.37 billion contract in the project, a lawyer for the company argues in a brief filed this week in Marion Superior Court.

The brief filed Tuesday by IBM attorney Andrew Hull notes Daniels at one point told a state employee union representative that the decision to upgrade Indiana's welfare eligibility system would "be made by me and me alone" and that Daniels personally signed the contract with Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM.

It also contends Chief of Staff Earl Goode was directly involved in all stages of the project from its inception to, after Daniels fired IBM in October 2009, the creation of a hybrid system that uses both automated intake and more face-to-face contact between state case workers and clients.

"Both Governor Daniels and Mr. Goode were intimately involved in all stages of the project, including key events at issue in this lawsuit," Hull wrote in the brief.

The Delaware Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by billionaire Ron Burkle in a lawsuit challenging a poison pill plan adopted by Barnes & Noble Inc. after he doubled his stake in the company.

After hearing arguments Wednesday, the court on Thursday affirmed a judge's ruling last year upholding the poison pill plan, which limited a shareholder's stake in the company to 20 percent.

Burkle argued that New York-based Barnes & Noble had created an unfair playing field favoring the family of chairman and founder Leonard Riggio, which owns more than 30 percent of its common stock.

Burkle waged an unsuccessful proxy fight after the ruling but said he would continue to press for changes at the nation's largest brick-and-mortar book seller.

Rupert Murdoch's News America Marketing has agreed to pay a whopping $125 million to settle a years-long lawsuit brought by tiny Insignia Systems Inc. that alleged Murdoch's people unfairly interfered and lied in attempt to take business from the Plymouth company, which provides in-store promotions.

The settlement, which is more than Insignia's market value and more than four times its 2009 revenue, was reached a day after the trial commenced before U.S. District Judge John Tunheim in Minneapolis.

The deal was announced after the markets closed Wednesday. Insignia's stock has traded lately at more than $6.50 per share, a five-year high and partly in anticipation by traders that Insignia would win a favorable outcome in light of recent, similar settlements reached by other competitors of News America, which is part of Murdoch's News Corp. holdings. Insignia shares closed at $7.57, up 3 percent in Wednesday's trading.

Under the settlement, New York-based News America will pay Insignia $125 million and Insignia will pay $4 million in return for a 10-year business arrangement that gives Insignia access to some News America clients. Insignia had sought more than $250 million in damages.

A former business owner has pleaded guilty to scamming the Virginia Unemployment Compensation Program to pay his employees.

Timothy Lynn Skinner pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court in Roanoke to theft of public money.

U.S. Attorney Timothy J. Heaphy says the 45-year-old resident submitted reports to the unemployment program falsely stating that his business, Tim's Machine Shop, had laid off employees.

The employees received about $30,000 in unemployment benefits while still working for Skinner's business. Skinner paid the workers the remainder of their regular wages in cash.

Heaphy says Skinner's business saw significant savings as a result of the scam.

Skinner faces up to 10 years in prison.

BP's compensation fund for Gulf oil spill victims has issued a final settlement payment to just one of the thousands of people and businesses waiting for checks, records show, and that $10 million payout went to a company after the oil giant intervened on its behalf.

BP won't identify the business, citing confidentiality, but acknowledges it lobbied for the settlement. The amount far exceeds smaller stopgap payments that some individuals and businesses have received while they wait for their own final settlements.

The Gulf Coast Claims Facility was set up in August to independently administer BP's $20 billion compensation fund in the aftermath of its April 20 oil well blowout off Louisiana.

As of this weekend, roughly 91,000 people and businesses had filed for final settlements, but the fund's administrator, Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, has said those checks won't start rolling out until February at the earliest. Thousands of people have received some money to tide them over until a final settlement amount is offered, but only one business listed as paid on the facility's website has so far received a check.

A BP spokeswoman called it "a unique situation in which an existing BP business partner and BP submitted a view on a specific claim" to the facility.