The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Microsoft Corp's appeal in a case that could have reshaped the standards used in court fights to determine if patents have been infringed.

Lower courts had found that the date-picker tool in Microsoft's Outlook calendar infringed a patent held by French telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent. The companies have an unresolved fight over damages.

In its appeal, Microsoft argued that a patent could be held invalid if evidence is presented in a court case that was not available at the time the patent was granted. It also said that the standard for invalidating a patent should be a "preponderance" of evidence, rather than "clear and convincing" evidence.

Courts are increasingly relying on military service records in deciding sentences for veterans accused of crimes.

Since 2008, 31 so-called veterans courts have been established to exclusively handle the criminal cases of veterans.

Veterans in those courts are typically sentenced to probation and counseling rather than prison and must stay clean and sober.

There's debate over whether such special treatment is fair. And even the supporters disagree over what crimes committed by veterans who suffer from post traumatic syndrome, severe brain injuries and other service-related maladies should qualify for leniency.

State and federal judges on Friday are expected to order prison sentences for the woman who has pleaded guilty to kidnapping in the 2002 abduction of Elizabeth Smart.

Wanda Eileen Barzee is set for back-to-back sentencing hearings in U.S. District Court and Utah's 3rd District Court.

The 64-year-old Barzee pleaded guilty to a federal kidnapping charge in November.

In February, Barzee also pleaded guilty but mentally ill in state court to a second-degree felony conspiracy charge for the attempted kidnapping of one of Smart's cousins.

As part of her plea agreements, Barzee has agreed to testify in pending state and federal cases against her now-estranged husband, Brian David Mitchell.

Smart was 14 in 2002 when she was kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom.

The man accused of plotting to kill Americans with a car bomb in Times Square appeared relaxed and obedient in his first appearance in a Manhattan courtroom, where he was told by a magistrate judge that he had the right to remain silent.

Authorities say Faisal Shahzad's willingness to talk kept him out of court for two weeks, speeding up the progress of an investigation into his May 1 plot to set off a homemade car bomb on a spring Saturday evening amidst hundreds of people enjoying the tourist haven.

Authorities said shortly after Shahzad's May 3 arrest that he had admitted driving the SUV bomb into Times Square and told authorities he had received terror training during a recent five-month trip to Pakistan.

His cooperation did not eliminate the need to bring him to court Tuesday to face five charges, including attempted use of weapons of mass destruction and attempted acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, each of which carry potential penalties of life in prison.

The Supreme Court has declined to take up a challenge from cable television operators to the 18-year-old requirement that they carry local broadcast stations on their systems.

The justices rejected an appeal Monday from Cablevision Systems Corp. The court upheld a federal "must carry" law, enacted in 1992 when cable TV systems faced much less competition than they do today.

Cablevision, the nation's fifth-largest cable TV operator, sued the Federal Communications Commission over its ruling that forced Cablevision to carry the signal of a distant home-shopping station on its Long Island cable systems. The federal appeals court in New York upheld the FCC's determination.

Cablevision said in court papers that "the monopolistic nature of the cable industry...has been replaced by vibrant competition."

The Obama administration urged the court to stay out of the case. It noted that being carried on cable systems "remains critical to broadcast stations' financial viability generally."

A bounced check for $40 tipped off a Chicago law firm to a trusted employee's scheme that, over nearly seven years, drained more than $880,000 from the firm's bank account, Cook County prosecutors said Wednesday.

Joan M. Sanchez, 52, 10445 Linder Ave., Oak Lawn, spent nearly $48,000 of the stolen money on lunches, State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said.

Sanchez had spent 24 years with the downtown firm of Kelly Olson Michod Dehann & Richter, including 21 years as office manager.

"It's a terrible breach of trust," said Stephen Cohen, an attorney with the firm.

Chicago police arrested Sanchez on Tuesday at her home, and Circuit Judge Maria Kuriakos-Ciesil set bail Wednesday at $100,000.

Alvarez said the thefts began in October 2002 and continued through April 2009. During that time, Sanchez wrote 234 unauthorized checks from the firm's business account, Alvarez said.

She said Sanchez forged the signature of one of the firm's partners on the checks, created fake entries in the firm's ledger to make it look as though the checks were issued to legitimate vendors and then voided the checks.

Prosecutors allege that Sanchez wrote 176 checks, totaling $836,500 and made payable to herself, and deposited them in her personal checking account at a Chicago bank.

Another 58 checks totaling $47,799 were written by Sanchez and made payable to a lunch club at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where she often dined with her mother, Alvarez said.

The scheme came to light while Sanchez was vacationing in Hawaii and a $40 reimbursement check drawn on the firm's bank account bounced, even though the ledger showed ample funds in the account, prosecutors said.

Cohen said the firm had little to say about the matter.

"The matter is in the hands of the state's attorney, and our position is they're handling it, and we don't want to do anything to jeopardize their case," he said.