A federal judge in Virginia has ruled that a company is entitled to the value of about 5,900 artifacts it salvaged during six expeditions to the Titanic.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith in Norfolk granted a salvage award to RMS Titanic Inc. late Thursday.

However, the judge postponed until next year a decision on whether to simply give the company title to the artifacts or sell them and turn the proceeds over to RMS, a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions Inc. of Atlanta. The items are worth an estimated $110 million.

Until then, RMS can retain possession of the artifacts, which are being displayed in exhibitions around the world.

The Titanic sank in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland in April 1912, killing more than 1,500 of the 2,228 people onboard.

A former Denver-area postal worker has pleaded guilty to stealing DVDs, CDs, and iPods that he sold for over $85,000 over two years.

Former Highlands Ranch U.S. postal worker David Schmauder pleaded guilty Monday to two federal counts of theft by mail. He faces up to five years in prison for each count when he's sentenced Nov. 30.

Schmauder didn't return a phone call seeking comment.

Authorities say the 48-year-old Schmauder was arrested in January after postal special agents saw him open mail, put it in a plastic bag and then in his car. Officials say records show that a store in Littleton paid him a total of $85,174 for nearly 12,000 items. He also stole some items from Victoria's Secret which he gave to his wife.

The families of two Hungarian tourists killed in a duck boat accident on the Delaware River last month have filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Philadelphia.

Sixteen-year-old Dora Schwendtner and 20-year-old Szabolcs Prem were killed July 7 when a barge being pushed by a tug slammed into the stalled duck boat. The boat capsized and sank.

Lawyers for the victims' families say the suit was filed Tuesday, naming tour boat operator Ride the Ducks of Norcross, Ga., and others.

The suit seeks punitive damages and claims the deaths were senseless and preventable.

Ride The Ducks spokesman Bob Salmon says the company is always focused on safety.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by descendants of the Apache warrior Geronimo, who claimed some of his remains were stolen in 1918 by a student society at Yale University.

The lawsuit was filed last year in Washington by 20 descendants who want to rebury Geronimo near his New Mexico birthplace.

It claimed Skull and Bones members took some remains from a burial plot at Fort Sill, Okla., where Geronimo died in 1909.

Judge Richard Roberts last month granted a Justice Department motion to dismiss, saying the plaintiffs didn't establish the government had waived its right not to be sued without its consent.

He also dismissed the lawsuit against Yale and the society, saying the plaintiffs cited a law that applies only to Native American cultural items excavated or discovered after 1990.

Skull and Bones is not officially affiliated with Yale.

A New Jersey couple who gave their children Nazi-inspired names should not regain custody of them, a state appeals court ruled Thursday, citing the parents' own disabilities and the risk of serious injury to their children.

The state removed Heath and Deborah Campbell's three small children from their home in January 2009.

A month earlier, the family drew attention when a supermarket refused to decorate a birthday cake for their son, Adolf Hitler Campbell. He and siblings JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell have been in foster care.

A family court had earlier determined that there was insufficient evidence that the parents had abused or neglected the children. That decision was stayed until the appeals court could review it. On Thursday, the three-judge appeals panel determined there was enough evidence and that the children should not be returned.

A federal court has tossed a lawsuit filed by a candidate for the Wisconsin state Assembly who wants to use a racially charged phrase to describe herself on the ballot.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa says in the Wednesday order that Ieshuh (eye-EE'-shu) Griffin's lawsuit must be dismissed because it is a habeas corpus action, which requires the person bringing it to be in custody.

Randa did not discuss the merits of the lawsuit. Griffin is fighting a decision by the state board that regulates elections barring her from using the phrase "NOT the 'whiteman's b----'" to describe herself on the ballot.

Griffin tells The Associated Press she intends to refile the lawsuit as a civil rights action as well as appeal the judge's order on her original lawsuit.