A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered a new sentencing hearing for convicted police killer and death-row activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, finding for a second time that the death-penalty instructions given to the jury at his 1982 trial were potentially misleading.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told prosecutors to conduct the new sentencing hearing within six months or agree to a life sentence. Abu-Jamal's first-degree murder conviction still stands in the fatal shooting of Officer Daniel Faulkner.

District Attorney Seth Williams said he would consider mounting another appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Defense lawyers for the former Black Panther, meanwhile, said the ruling addresses "an unfortunate chapter in Pennsylvania history."

"Pennsylvania long ago abandoned the confusing and misleading instructions and verdict slip that were relied on in Mr. Abu-Jamal's trial in order to prevent unfair and unjust death sentences," said Widener University law professor Judith Ritter, who argued the most recent appeal in November. "Mr. Abu-Jamal is entitled to no less constitutional protection."

A federal appeals court in New York has agreed that Connecticut school officials acted reasonably and constitutionally when they disciplined a student for an Internet posting she wrote off school grounds.

The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan sided with Burlington, Conn., school officials. They punished Avery Doninger by preventing her from serving as class secretary as a senior.

The court said administrators at Lewis B. Mills High School acted reasonably after she made the 2007 posting criticizing administrators for canceling a popular school activity.

Doninger sued the administrators, alleging violation of free speech and equal protection rights. A lower judge also said school officials were entitled to immunity.

A lawyer has pleaded guilty to an insider trading charge in New York City, raising to 20 the number of defendants who've done so in what authorities call the largest hedge fund insider trading case ever.

Jason Goldfarb told a Manhattan federal court judge Thursday he made a "horrible mistake" by agreeing to accept money and arrange for secrets about mergers and acquisitions to be passed to a securities trader.

Goldfarb was among more than two dozen people charged. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud. Sentencing is Aug. 19.

Goldfarb's 2009 arrest came as part of the Galleon Group hedge fund prosecution.

Galleon founder Raj Rajaratnam (rahj rah-juh-RUHT'-nuhm) is on trial now. Prosecutors say the Sri Lanka-born Wall Street heavyweight used "corporate spies" to get rich off inside trades. He insists he was merely a savvy investor.

An appeals court on Friday resurrected the case against four Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in a 2007 shooting in a Baghdad public square that killed 17 Iraqi citizens.

A federal trial judge in Washington, Ricardo Urbina, threw out the case on New Year's Eve 2009 after he found the Justice Department mishandled evidence and violated the guards' constitutional rights.

But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Friday that Urbina wrongly interpreted the law. It ordered that he reconsider whether there was any tainted evidence against four of the five defendants —former Marines Evan Liberty of Rochester, N.H.; Donald Ball of West Valley City, Utah; and Dustin Heard of Knoxville, Tenn.; and Army veteran Paul Slough from Keller, Texas.

The Justice Department has dismissed charges against the fifth defendant, Nick Slatten, a former U.S. Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn.

Blackwater security contractors were guarding U.S. diplomats when the guards opened fire in Nisoor Square, a crowded Baghdad intersection, on Sept. 16, 2007. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, and 20 others wounded in a shooting that inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq.

A citizen activist says he was wronged by the failure of a small Ohio city to give him 20 years of 911 tapes he sought, which were long ago recorded over. The city says he can prove no harm and that he didn't even want the tapes — he wanted the thousands in penalty dollars for requesting records that no longer exist.

Attorneys for both sides argued Wednesday before the Ohio Supreme Court, disagreeing on whether Timothy Rhodes was "aggrieved" by the failure of the city of New Philadelphia to retain the thousands of daily tapes he requested in 2007.

If the court decides in his favor, Rhodes and plaintiffs in about half a dozen similar suits around Ohio could collect big — and, their lawyers say, they will also have scored a big victory for government transparency.

Rhodes' attorney Craig Conley argued it is wrong to paint his client as a money grubber, after Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor asked whether only one party could "cash in" under the law as he read it.

"First of all, I don't agree with ... 'cash in.' The case law is clear: This is not compensation to the requesting party, this is a penalty designed to punish and deter," he said. "And without it, the right of access without a remedy is a meaningless right."

New Philadelphia attorney John McLandrich argued a decision in Rhodes' favor would "set off a gold rush" of citizens seeking records they know are no longer available. He said a person doesn't need a pure motive for wanting to look at the records, but they have to have some kind of motive.

A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit that claims that an inmate at a privately run jail was denied mental health treatment and did not shower or leave his segregated cell for nine months.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals said last week that the lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of American should not have been dismissed by a lower court in 2009. The divided court opinion said there was a genuine question about how much physical injury inmate Frank Horton suffered while incarcerated.

CCA spokesman Steve Owen said company lawyers are assessing the opinion and still deciding what the next step will be.

Mary Braswell filed a federal lawsuit in 2008 against CCA accusing the private prison operator of treating her grandson inhumanely at the Nashville jail and violating his constitutional rights.

She claimed that Horton was mentally ill and deteriorated severely while he locked up for a non-violent probation violation from December 2005 to April 2008.

Court records say that Horton has a history of mental illness, and he was segregated from the general population in the jail because of behavioral problems. CCA guards had to use force at times to get Horton to take a shower and to keep him from fighting with other inmates, the records say.