A political aide to former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich was convicted Tuesday of conspiring to use election-day robocalls in an effort to suppress black voter turnout during the 2010 gubernatorial election.

Paul Schurick was found guilty of all four counts he faced, including conspiracy to influence or attempt to influence a voter's decision whether to go to the polls through the use of fraud and conspiracy to publish campaign material without an authority line. A stoic Schurick comforted his wife in the courtroom after the Baltimore jury's verdict was read, but declined to comment.

His attorney, A. Dwight Pettit, said they will appeal.

Prosecutors argued the calls that went out on the evening of Election Day to about 110,000 voters in Baltimore city and Prince George's County — two jurisdictions with high percentages of black voters — were an effort by the Republican campaign to reduce the number of black Democrats voting in heavily Democratic Maryland.

Officials say a 13-year-old had a history of troubling behavior before he helped push a shopping cart that fell on a woman from a fourth-floor walkway at a New York City mall.

A city lawyer told a judge Tuesday the boy tried to run schoolmates over on his bike, threw things in the lunchroom and hit his mother's cat.

The attorney says the boy joked around at a police precinct after his Oct. 30 arrest and expressed more concern about his sneakers than about the woman who was seriously hurt.

The boy's lawyer says the teen needs and wants counseling for his behavioral problems.

The boy was charged as a juvenile and pleaded guilty in Family Court last month to assault. His sentencing was postponed Tuesday until later this month.

Bank of America agreed to pay $315 million to settle claims by investors that they were misled about mortgage-backed investments sold by its Merrill Lynch unit.

The settlement was disclosed in court papers filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and requires the approval of a judge.

The class action lawsuit was led by the Public Employees' Retirement System of Mississippi pension fund. The fund claimed that the investments were backed by poor quality mortgages written by subprime lenders Countrywide Financial Corp., First Franklin Financial, and IndyMac Bancorp, a bank that failed in 2008.

The settlement represents another attempt by Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. to put its legal issues behind it. In the first half of the year alone the bank put up $12.7 billion to settle similar claims from different groups of investors.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff has to approve the settlement, something that could prove difficult since the settlement includes no admission of guilt from Bank of America.

Just last week, Rakoff struck down a $285 million settlement that Citigroup Inc. reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The settlement would have imposed penalties on Citigroup even as it allowed the company to deny allegations that it misled investors.

New York City based Horwitz, Horwitz & Paradis, Attorneys at Law and Los Angeles based Kiesel Boucher & Larson LLP announced this morning that they have filed a nationwide class action lawsuit against Mountain View, California based CARRIER iQ, Inc. on behalf of a class comprised of all persons and entities who own an electronic device, including but not limited to, smartphones, feature phones, tablets, and electronic-readers (collectively, the "Electronic Devices"), in which CiQ's Mobile Intelligence software application is installed.

The class action complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that CiQ manufactures a software application that, unbeknownst to Class members, was embedded into a wide variety of Electronic Devices, including but not limited to, smartphones, feature phones, tablets, and electronic-readers, purchased by Class members over the past six years. Plaintiff further alleges that CiQ utilized its software application to illegally intercept, collect, and share the data and communications sent or received by Class members over their Electronic Devices in which CiQ's software application has been secretly installed for approximately six years.

More specifically, Plaintiff alleges that CiQ's software application enabled CiQ to illegally intercept and monitor all communications that are sent to, and received by, an Electronic Device in which CiQ's software is installed. CiQ's software does so by: (i) intercepting and recording all keystrokes depressed on the Electronic Devices; (ii) intercepting, reading and displaying the actual text of all text messages sent from, or received by, the Electronic Devices; and (iii) intercepting, reading and displaying all Internet browser searches conducted on private Wi-Fi networks

In commenting on the allegations of the Class Action Complaint, Plaintiff's attorney Paul O. Paradis remarked, "The vast nature of CiQ's illegal interception activities and the fact that the Company's illegal activities were able to be conducted without detection for nearly 6 years is frightening. In the digital age in which we live, the revelation of CiQ's illegal electronic interception activities is a watershed moment for privacy advocates around the world and serves as an alarming wake up call to all of us who are concerned about protecting the privacy of confidential communications of any type." Attorney Paul Kiesel added, "At this juncture of the litigation, it appears that in excess of 140 million class members were victimized by CiQ's illegal interception activities. That fact, in and of itself, is stunning."

Plaintiff alleges that CiQ's illegal interception and data collection and sharing activities violated both the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California's Invasion of Privacy Act, as well as other laws intended to protect Class member's privacy and property interests. Plaintiff seeks statutory damages, restitution, punitive damages on behalf of himself and all Class members, as well as an injunction enjoining Defendant from continuing the illegal practices complained of in the Complaint.

If you have any information concerning practices complained of in the Class Action Complaint or would like further information regarding this nationwide class action, please contact Paul O. Paradis at 212-986-4500 or e-mail at pparadis@hhplawny.com or Paul Kiesel at 310-854-4444 or email at kiesel@kbla.com.

Horwitz, Horwitz & Paradis, Attorneys at Law, and Kiesel Boucher & Larson, LLP have been retained as two of the law firms to represent the Class. The attorneys at Horwitz, Horwitz & Paradis, Attorneys at Law, and Kiesel Boucher & Larson, LLP have extensive experience in prosecuting class action cases, and have been appointed as Lead Counsel in numerous major class actions by federal and state courts across the United States and have obtained major recoveries on behalf of injured parties.

A British court Monday gave WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange permission to continue his legal battle to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations.

The decision means Assange does not face immediate deportation. British judges said Assange could apply to the Supreme Court to hear one specific point of his legal case — but there is no guarantee that the higher court will accept his request.

Assange's lawyers had argued that every European arrest warrant issued by police or prosecutors was flawed, because neither should be considered a judicial authority.

The High Court judges did not indicate whether they agreed with the argument, but said Assange's legal team should have the chance to ask the Supreme Court to grant them a hearing.

Assange seemed pleased by the ruling. Asked if it was a victory, he said yes. He had listened attentively to the hearing, frequently taking notes.

Assange now has 14 days to submit a written request to the Supreme Court, Assange's lawyer Gareth Peirce said.

The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear an appeal from Secret Service agents who say they should be shielded from a lawsuit over their arrest of a Colorado man who confronted Vice President Dick Cheney.

The justices will review a federal appeals court decision to allow Steven Howards of Golden, Colo., to pursue his claim that the arrest violated his free speech rights. Howards was detained by Cheney's security detail in 2006 after he told Cheney of his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Howards also touched Cheney on the shoulder, then denied doing so under questioning. Appellate judges in Denver said the inconsistency gave the agents reason to arrest Howards.

Even so, the appeals court said Howards could sue the agents for violating his rights — an unusual twist that the agents and the Obama administration said conflicts with other appeals court decisions and previous high court rulings in similar cases.

Justice Elena Kagan is not taking part in the case, probably because she worked on it while serving in the Justice Department.