The Government has been accused of a "cavalier" attitude to personal information after it emerged that four CDs containing details from court cases have gone missing in the post.

In the latest embarrassing loss of potentially sensitive data, the computer discs vanished after being sent by recorded delivery.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) hand-delivered the four CD-Roms to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Court Administration (HMICA) on December 6.

The discs contained details of at least 55 magistrates' court defendants and other "restricted" data not released in open court, the Daily Mail reported.

They went missing after being posted on December 15, according to the paper.

A GMP spokesman said the CDs contain only "routine material" and were handed to HMICA by police in a "completely secure way" before going missing later.

The police spokesman could not confirm whether the discs contain details of witnesses, although he said they may have held defendants' names.

HMICA has launched an internal investigation into what has happened to the discs.

Shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert said: "Yet another data blunder suggests a cavalier attitude to the handling of personal information by Government agencies.

"We need to know whether this is a problem limited to these courts, or whether it is more widespread across the criminal justice system."

Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc., which is owned by Deutsche Telecom, asked the justices to overturn the ruling. They said in court papers that state and local governments try to "hide" taxes and fees by barring carriers from listing them as separate items, requiring the companies instead to fold them in with the rest of their charges.

Consumer advocates, who support the lower court's ruling, responded that wireless companies frequently add a confusing array of charges that are not always the result of government taxes. Such complaints led the Federal Communications Commission to extend "truth in billing" rules to cell phones in 2005.

The legal question in dispute is whether the FCC was correct when it ruled in 2005 that federal law prohibits the states from barring separate line items. Federal communications law bars state regulation of rates but allows states to regulate "other terms and conditions" of service.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the FCC in 2006, ruling that line items on bills were "other terms and conditions" that states could prohibit. The justices' decision Tuesday allows that ruling to stand.

The issue is not completely settled, however. The Justice Department's Solicitor General, the Bush administration's lawyer, urged the court to turn down the case, even though the Solicitor General disagreed with the appeals court's ruling.

That's because the appeals court sent the case back to the FCC, and the agency is considering additional grounds for preempting state regulation of the wireless industry, the Solicitor General said. As a result, the issue is not yet ripe for Supreme Court review, the Solictor General said.

A woman is appearing in court in connection with the discovery of explosives during a Garda raid of a home.

Two pipe bombs, a shotgun, ammunition and drugs were seized during the search at Barry Park, Finglas, in north Dublin, last Friday. The 22-year-old woman, arrested during the operation, is expected to appear before Dublin District Court on charges linked to the finds.

Army bomb disposal experts were called in to deal with the explosive devices at the time. Cocaine and herbal cannabis believed to have a street value of 10,000 euro was sent to the Garda Technical Bureau for forensic analysis. The woman was being held at Finglas Garda station under Section 2 of the Drug Trafficking Act.

Justice David Medina was indicted in the June fire at the couple's home in the Houston suburb of Spring that also damaged a neighbor's house, Medina's attorney Terry Yates told KHOU-TV. It caused a total of nearly $1 million in damage.

It was the second fire at the home in 10 years, and both blazes started in the garage.

Francisca Medina, the judge's wife, was charged with arson, the station reported.

Medina, 49, is a former district judge in Harris County, which contains Houston, and was appointed to the Supreme Court by Gov. Rick Perry in 2004.

The Harris County prosecutor told the station he will move to dismiss the case for lack of evidence.

A telecommunications executive once called the biggest tax cheat in U.S. history is getting hit with new Internal Revenue Service demands seeking hundreds of millions of dollars just as he starts a nine-year federal prison term.

The IRS sent Walter C. Anderson a notice of deficiency for more than $180 million and additional fraud penalties totaling more than $130 million, according to a recent court filing by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan B. Menzer disclosed the tax demands in a recent memo to a federal judge seeking permission to share grand jury testimony with the IRS. Anderson is suing the IRS from federal prison in New Jersey.

In his lawsuit, Anderson, who made his fortune in telecommunications and once backed plans to privatize the Mir Space Station, disputes the IRS calculations, denies committing tax fraud and says his guilty plea wasn't voluntary, court documents show.

Anderson pleaded guilty in September 2006 to tax-evasion charges for failing to report more than $350 million in income on his 1998 and 1999 tax returns.

Authorities said the unpaid taxes from Anderson could have funded hundreds of new police officers and teachers in the District.

At Anderson's sentencing last year, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman gave Anderson nine years in prison, but did not order him to make restitution to the IRS. The judge cited an error by prosecutors who failed to include probation as part of Anderson's plea agreement.

The ruling meant authorities would have to try to pursue restitution through civil courts.

A jury in 2006 had ruled that Janet Orlando had suffered sexual harassment and sexual battery when she was paddled at home security company Alarm One Inc. The jury punished the company with a $1 million punitive damage award.

But on Monday, a three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeal overturned that verdict, ruling that the jury had been given improper instructions. In particular, the jury wasn't instructed that one vital element of proving that sexual harassment occurred is showing the action was directed at a woman because of her gender.

Lawyers for Alarm One, an Anaheim-based, 300-employee company, said that the spankings were not discriminatory because they were given to both male and female workers and that Orlando and others willingly took part.

Orlando's attorney, Nicholas "Butch" Wagner, vowed to take the case to trial again.

"We may get more this time," Wagner said.

But K. Poncho Baker, the attorney who defended the company at trial in 2006, said that because the company has since gone into bankruptcy and its insurance was exhausted battling Orlando's claim and settling with three other co-workers, there may be little left to recover.

"Good luck retrying this one," Baker said.

Orlando quit the company in 2004, less than a year after she was hired at the Fresno office, saying she was humiliated during the company's team-building practices.

Employees were paddled with rival companies' yard signs as part of a contest that pitted sales teams against one another. The winners poked fun at the losers, throwing pies at them, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and swatting their buttocks.

The company has since abandoned the practice.