Wednesday's ruling by Braunschweig state court in northern Germany appears to strengthen Porsche's position, which still faces other court battles in connection with the 2008 takeover bid, German news agency dapd reported.

Two investors in the Braunschweig case had sought $6.1 million in damages claiming that Porsche published misleading information while it was secretly trying to take control of the much-larger Volkswagen.

Porsche's bid failed amid an unsustainable debt burden and the collapse of financial markets following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, eventually leading Volkswagen to take full control of Porsche.

Pennsylvania's highest court is weighing how to resentence prisoners who were given automatic life sentences as juveniles.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling outlaws mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles.

There are nearly 500 juvenile lifers in Pennsylvania, half from Philadelphia.

The state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday morning in a pair of representative cases.

The defendants are Ian Cunningham, serving life for a second-degree murder conviction in Philadelphia, and Qu'Eed Batts, convicted of first-degree murder in Northampton County.

Cunningham's case concerns lifers who have exhausted direct appeals but want to invoke the Supreme Court decision in new filings.

In the Batts case, lawyers will debate what term is appropriate for those sentenced to life without parole.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ended an Idaho woman's challenge of a law banning some abortions that might cause fetal pain, saying she didn't have legal standing to contest it because she wasn't charged with that crime.

The development came in a broader lawsuit filed by Jennie Linn McCormack, who is believed to be the first person in the nation to sue over bans on conducting abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the premise that the fetus might feel pain. Idaho and several other states have the bans.

However, the court didn't close the door on all challenges to the fetal pain law. McCormack's lawyer, who is also a doctor and her co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, can still fight the ban in federal courts.

The appellate court also ruled Tuesday that some other Idaho abortion laws are likely unconstitutional, including one barring medication-induced abortions.

The decision was largely a win for McCormack, a Pocatello resident who sued Bannock County Prosecutor Mark Hiedeman after she was charged in May 2011 with having an illegal abortion.

Hiedeman alleged that McCormack used drugs she obtained over the Internet to terminate her pregnancy, which was more than five months along. The law requires that health professionals be involved in ending a pregnancy, and it carries a possible five-year sentence for a conviction.

A Georgia county has been ordered to pay more than more than $4 million in damages and attorney fees to a billboard company as part of its ongoing fight to keep billboards out of Atlanta's northern suburbs.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the verdict is the latest blow to Fulton County in its long-running legal battle against billboard companies.

A U.S. District Court in Atlanta jury last month awarded the $3.97 million in damages to KH Outdoor, which sued the county in 2003. Last week, a federal judge ordered the county to pay $477,156 in attorneys' fees and expenses to the company's lawyers.

Adam Webb, a lawyer for the billboard company, declined to comment. Fulton County Attorney David Ware said an appeal by the county "remains a viable option."

New York's attorney general is investigating tax strategies of some of the nation's largest private equity firms, including Bain Capital, founded by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, an official familiar with the probe said Sunday.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is examining whether the firms have abused a tax strategy to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe. The practice involves converting some fees collected for managing accounts into fund investments, resulting in a lower tax rate.

Some tax experts who spoke to The New York Times, which first reported the investigation Sunday, believed the strategy was potentially illegal, though other experts said it was commonplace and proper.

The Democratic attorney general sent subpoenas to more than a dozen firms, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, TPG Capital, Sun Capital Partners, Apollo Global Management, Silver Lake Partners and Bain Capital, according to the official.

A former Sacramento County sheriff's deputy has pleaded guilty to a federal charge stemming from the illegal sale of dozens of weapons, some of which were used by criminals.

Prosecutors in Sacramento say Thomas Lu and fellow former deputy Ryan McGowan, both of Elk Grove, bought and sold handguns that cannot be legally owned by citizens in California.

Lu, age 42, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to one count of dealing in firearms without a license, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

He is agreeing to cooperate with investigators as part of a deal that could bring him a lighter sentence.

The deputies are charged with serving as straw buyers who trafficked in restricted handguns.