The justices, in an order Monday, say they will hear arguments next year in a case involving eight Shell station operators in Massachusetts who are fighting changes in lease terms that they say were intended to convert stations run by franchisees to company-owned facilities.

A federal jury awarded the gas station operators $3.3 million. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld some aspects of the verdict and overturned others.

Shell, owned by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, and the station operators all appealed to the Supreme Court. The Obama administration also asked the court to intervene and rule in Shell's favor.

The case turns on provisions of the 30-year-old Petroleum Marketing Practices Act. Appeals courts around the country are divided on the issue.

The cases are Mac's Shell Service v. Shell Oil, 08-240, and Shell Oil v. Mac's Shell Service, 08-372.

A long-running legal battle between American International Group Inc. and an investment firm led by its former chief executive, Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg, is due in federal court Monday. Control of more than $4.3 billion is at stake.

At issue are tens of millions of shares Starr International Co. holds in the giant insurer, as well as tens of millions of shares Starr sold in recent years.

Were the insurance giant to prevail, AIG said Thursday that it intends to use any cash it wins to help pay back the debt it owes the federal government, which rescued it from the brink of bankruptcy in September. Any winnings that it gets in stock, currently worth a far smaller amount than the cash Starr has generated from selling other stock, will be used toward employee long-term compensation.

Mr. Greenberg is expected to testify in the trial, before a jury in federal district court in lower Manhattan. Both sides have retained name-brand counsel, David Boies for Starr, and Theodore Wells for AIG. The case could still settle.

For decades when Mr. Greenberg was at AIG's helm, the shares were used to fund a long-term compensation plan for AIG employees. But after he left in 2005, amid an investigation of AIG's accounting, the program ended and Starr, which is privately held, has been using the funds for other purposes, including investments. AIG says it should control the shares.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that 49-year-old Robert Powell of Hazleton falsified records to hide the true income of former Luzerne County judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan. They said Powell also transferred tens of thousands of dollars in cash to Conahan to avoid federal income taxes.

The former judges have pleaded guilty to accepting payoffs in exchange for placing juveniles in detention facilities operated by companies that Powell co-owned. Their sentencings are pending.

Powell's lawyer said Powell realized he made a mistake. He faces a maximum sentence of more than five years.

The Telegram & Gazette reports that Susan Johnson made the plea at her arraignment Wednesday in Worcester (WUH'-ster) Superior Court. She faces a variety of charges including armed assault with intent to murder and attempted murder. She was ordered held on $100,000 bail.

Prosecutors say the 39-year-old attacked the child in an apartment complex's laundry room in Gardner, about 70 miles northwest of Boston.

Authorities says she also tried to strangle the girl with a dryer's electrical cord.

Her lawyer says Johnson has a history of mental illness. She is scheduled back in court July 21.

A female nursery worker has been jeered and spat at when she appeared in court charged with sexual assault and making and distributing child abuse images.

Vanessa George, who worked at the Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth, was remanded in custody amid angry scenes in the city's magistrates' court.

George, 39, of Douglass Road, Plymouth, faces three counts of sexually assaulting a girl under 13 and one count of sexually assaulting a boy under 13.

She also faces three separate counts of making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children.

The court heard the charges range from January 2007 to this month.

George, wearing a white T-shirt and black trousers, spoke only to confirm her name and address. She entered no pleas, no application for bail was made and she will now appear at Plymouth Crown Court on September 21.

She was jeered and hissed by people in the public gallery as she emerged into the court, and when the charges were read out, parents cried and yelled and one man ran from the court in tears.

The casinos object to a law that forces them to transfer of millions of dollars to ailing horse tracks.

Last year, the state Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law. The high court let that ruling stand Monday without comment.

The renewal of the law in 2008 figures in the case against Blagojevich. FBI wiretaps on telephones in Blagojevich's home and the governor's office showed an alleged effort by the then-governor to shake down a racetrack owner for a sizable campaign contribution while the bill was pending. A lawyer for the owner, John Johnston, has said the contribution was not made.

Four secretly recorded conversations about the issue were played at Blagojevich's impeachment trial in the state Senate.