An appeals court has rejected class-action status for a lawsuit prompted by efforts to kill off an invasive fish in Northern California.

The Sacramento Bee says the 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled last week that people suing the state had too little in common to comprise a single class and must sue individually.

In 2007, the state Fish and Game Department dumped thousands of gallons of poison into Lake Davis in Plumas County to kill the voracious northern pike. The lake was closed for several months.

The city of Portola and a number of businesses and property owners sued in 2009, arguing that the action caused a decline in tourism that hurt their income, property values and tax receipts.

A lawyer has pleaded guilty to not paying taxes on nearly $11 million in income while working at a major Wall Street law firm.

John O'Brien entered the plea Thursday in federal court in Manhattan.

The government had accused the 48-year-old O'Brien of failing to pay $2.5 million taxes on $10.8 million in income from 2001 to 2008. They say during that time, he splurged on a weekend home, international travel and a rare book business.

Prosecutors say O'Brien has agreed to pay $2.8 million in back taxes and interest. At his Nov. 16 sentencing, he faces a maximum of four years in prison, though the term will probably be shorter under sentencing guidelines.

A prominent Los Angeles attorney could face six months in federal prison for making illegal contributions to the 2004 presidential campaign of former Sen. John Edwards.

The U.S. attorney's office says Pierce O'Donnell pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of making illegal campaign contributions and agreed to a six-month sentence and a $20,000 fine. O'Donnell is set to be sentenced in November.

In a statement, O'Donnell's attorney Brian J. O'Neill says he and O'Donnell are pleased with the resolution.

O'Donnell acknowledged he provided some $20,000 to Edwards' campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination by reimbursing straw donors.

In 2006, O'Donnell was ordered to pay more than $155,000 after pleading no contest to using a false name while making political contributions to former Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn's campaign.

Several alleged victims of tabloid phone hacking in Britain will soon file lawsuits against a second newspaper group, Piers Morgan's former employer Trinity Mirror PLC, their lawyer said Friday.

Mark Lewis said the claims would be filed in "a few weeks," but would not disclose identities of his clients or say precisely when the papers would be presented at court.

Lewis represents the family of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl abducted and murdered by a pedophile in 2002. The revelation a month ago that her voicemail messages had been accessed by the News of the World tabloid while she was still missing outraged British opinion, and triggered a crisis for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

The phone hacking scandal centers on allegations that journalists eavesdropped on private phone messages, bribed police for information and hacked email accounts.

So far the crisis has centered on Murdoch's media empire, leading him to shut down the News of the World and abandon a bid to take over British Sky Broadcasting. Several former executives of the newspaper have been arrested by police investigating the eavesdropping.

But there have also been allegations of hacking by other newspapers. This week Paul McCartney's ex-wife, Heather Mills, claimed in a BBC interview that she was hacked by a Trinity Mirror journalist in 2001.

A developer promising a multi-billion dollar makeover for impoverished north St. Louis won a legal battle Tuesday as the Missouri Supreme Court rejected a challenge to a state law directing tens of millions of dollars of tax credits toward his project.

The seven-member Supreme Court was divided in its reasoning but united in the ultimate result of its ruling, which secures state financing for the developer to assemble and maintain large swaths of land. Eventually, Paul McKee's NorthSide Regeneration LLC wants to build 10,000 homes and millions of square feet of office space in a two-square-mile area north of downtown St. Louis.

A lawsuit by two local residents took issue with a 2007 state law enacted with McKee's project in mind. That law authorizes up to $95 million of tax credits to offset part of the cost of buying and maintaining large amounts of property in impoverished areas. NorthSide Regeneration so far has received about $28 million in tax credits.

Tax credits reduce the amount of state income tax owed by a taxpayer. The lawsuit claimed the credits were similar to getting cash from the state and thus violated the Missouri Constitution by granting public money to a private person or corporation. A Cole County judge ruled against the plaintiffs in March 2010 and the case was appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Workers who filed a class-action lawsuit against a Kansas slaughterhouse for unpaid wages and overtime have asked a federal judge to bar Creekstone Farms Premium Beef from discovering their immigration status during the litigation.

The employees have asked U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren for a protective order prohibiting the Arkansas City meatpacker from receiving from the named plaintiffs — or any other workers who opt into the lawsuit — any information pertaining to their present names or any other names they may have used.

They also seek to avoid having to disclose their place of birth, Social Security number and any present or prior addresses. The plaintiff's motion also seeks an order protecting the workers from having to turn over to Creekstone Farms any tax returns or any other tax forms filed under any of their identities or having to disclose the dates and times of entry into the United States. They also want to avoid turning over all identification documents likely to lead to the discovery of their immigration status.

Their attorney, Mark Kistler, told The Associated Press Tuesday that the courts already have decided that these types of information which could lead to discovery of immigration status should be protected from discovery during a lawsuit.