A federal appeals court overturned a lower court Thursday and ruled against an Oregon lawyer once wrongly suspected in a terrorist bombing.

Brandon Mayfield was arrested in 2004 and held for two weeks after his Portland home and office were searched and bugged. The FBI relied on a fingerprint from the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people.

It turned out the fingerprint didn't belong to Mayfield, who got an apology and $2 million from the federal government.

Mayfield wants to overturn two parts of the USA Patriot Act passed after 9/11 that ensnared him.

A district judge sided with him in 2007. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Mayfield can't challenge the act because the settlement limited his legal options.

A court approved chicken producer Pilgrim's Pride Corp. plan for reorganization on Thursday, and the company said it expects to emerge from bankruptcy court protection this month.

Pilgrim's Pride filed for Chapter 11 protection last year facing high debt related to its buyout of rival Gold Kist Inc. in 2007 and rising feed costs that left much of the industry in a slump.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Texas approved the reorganization plan Thursday, the company, based in Pittsburg, Texas, said in a news release.

The plan includes selling a majority stake worth $800 million to Brazilian beef giant JBS. The transaction includes paying off Pilgrim's Pride's creditors in full and distributing new shares to current holders.

The deal, which was announced in September, is unusual for a company in a bankruptcy case; more typically, creditors aren't repaid. The entire deal is valued at $2.8 billion.

Along with a deal to buy Bertin SA, one of Latin America's largest producers and exporters of milk products, beef and leather, buying Pilgrim's Pride would make JBS the world's biggest meat producer. The purchase of Gold Kist, worth more than $1 billion, had made Pilgrim's Pride the largest chicken producer in the U.S., with about 23 percent of the market before it filed for bankruptcy protection last year.

Lawyer William L. Robinson, who represents some of the companies sued, says the terms of the settlement are confidential.

He says the settlement involves all defendants, including Learjet, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and the plane's owners and contractors.

The former Blink-182 drummer was one of two survivors of a Sept. 19, 2008 plane crash that killed two pilots and two of his friends. Another survivor, celebrity disc jockey DJ AM, has since died of an accidental drug overdose.

Barker sued last November claiming the companies improperly operated and maintained the Learjet that overshot the runway and burst into flames.

An Indiana teenager accused of strangling his 10-year-old brother and dumping his body in a park has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Seventeen-year-old Andrew Conley showed no emotion during Friday's court appearance in Ohio Circuit Court in Rising Sun, the teen's hometown along the Ohio River about 90 miles southeast of Indianapolis.

His parents were at a viewing for his brother Conner Conley's body and did not attend the hearing.

Prosecutors say Conley confessed to police that he intentionally strangled his brother while they were wrestling at the family home on Sunday. They say Andrew Conley told investigators he had dreamed of killing someone since he was in eighth grade.

If convicted of murder, Conley could be sentenced to up to 65 years in prison.

A condemned Texas inmate is hoping the U.S. Supreme Court keeps him from the death chamber for the fatal slashing of an 11-year-old girl.

Bobby Wayne Woods is set for lethal injection Thursday evening in Huntsville for the April 1997 abduction, rape and slaying of Sarah Patterson, his ex-girlfriend's daughter.

But his attorneys contend his life should be spared because of a Supreme Court ban on executing mentally impaired people. Attorney Maurie Levin says his IQ hovers around 70 "the magical cutoff point for determining whether someone is mentally retarded."

State and federal courts repeatedly rejected Woods' mental impairment claims, though Texas' highest criminal court last year halted his execution hours before it was to occur.

West Virginia's Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against him, but the head of a bankrupt coal company is asking it to reconsider its recent decision in favor of Massey Energy Co.

For the third time, the court last month overturned the $50 million verdict that Hugh Caperton and his Harman Mining won against Massey.

A Boone County jury had found that Massey bankrupted them both by hijacking a coal supply contract. But the Supreme Court concluded 4-1 that a clause in the contract required that the case be heard in Virginia.

Caperton's Wednesday filing argues that the decision wrongly bars him from pursing his claims in that state. His filing also echoes criticisms made Tuesday by dissenting Justice Margaret Workman of the ruling's legal reasoning.