A New Jersey Supreme Court justice who refused to participate in all decisions while a temporary judge is assigned to the bench has tempered his protest.

Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto said in an opinion published Wednesday that he will issue decisions in cases in which Judge Edwin Stern participates, so long as the judge's vote doesn't affect the outcome.

Rivera-Soto said he'll continue to defer a decision to vote in cases where Stern's position changes the outcome.

Rivera-Soto maintains it's unconstitutional to have a temporary justice on the court when a quorum of five is present. Chief Justice Stuart Rabner appointed Stern to fill a vacancy that occurred when Gov. Chris Christie did not reappoint Justice John Wallace in May, leaving the seven-member court one member short.

Democrats who control the state Senate have refused to consider Christie's choice to replace Wallace, corporate lawyer Anne Patterson.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Black has approved a previously disclosed $179 million settlement and entered a final judgment in a dispute between AK Steel and retirees at its Butler, Pa., steel plant.

The AK Steel retirees had filed a class-action lawsuit in June 2009 to stop the company from making changes to their health insurance benefits. It had started making retirees pay a portion of their premiums in January 2010.

West Chester-based AK Steel is the largest Dayton-area company, with more than $4 billion in revenue.

Under the terms of the settlement, AK Steel will continue to pay for the benefits through 2014 and also pay $91 million to two trusts to cover future benefits for hourly and salaries retirees.

In return, the company has been relieved of liability for any benefits after 2014, and the lawsuit was dismissed.

Two San Francisco newspapers engaged in a lengthy legal battle over predatory pricing have settled their dispute outside of court.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Bay Guardian and SF Weekly announced a settlement Monday but did not disclose its terms.

The Guardian filed an antitrust lawsuit against SF Weekly in 2004, accusing the paper of slashing advertising prices to drive the Guardian out of business. A San Francisco judge in 2008 ordered SF Weekly to pay $21 million to its rival.

SF Weekly has said its low-cost ads reflected fair competition and did not violate antitrust laws.

Both alternative weeklies are distributed for free and rely on ad revenue to continue operating.

A federal appeals court reinstated a 2009 jury verdict Tuesday that Microsoft Corp. infringed on patents held by software maker Uniloc Inc., reversing a judge's decision to the contrary, but it also granted Microsoft a new trial on damages.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the jury's April 2009 verdict on patent infringement was supported by "substantial" evidence, so it reversed a federal judge's decision in September of that year that overturned the jury's verdict.

Irvine, Calif.-based Uniloc makes software that prevents people from illegally installing software on multiple computers. In a lawsuit filed in 2003, Uniloc argued that Microsoft's "product activation" system used in Windows XP, Office XP and Office 2003 programs infringed on several parts of a related patent, and that the software maker had copied Uniloc's technology rather than develop similar work on its own.

The jury in 2009 had found this to be the case, and awarded Uniloc $388 million in damages. On Tuesday, the appeals court agreed on the patent infringement but called the jury's damages award "fundamentally tainted," and granted a new trial on the damages.

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from taking over greenhouse gas permits in Texas.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued the stay Thursday, pending further action by the court.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had asked the federal appeals court in Washington to block the EPA from taking over greenhouse gas permits starting Sunday until the court could review the case.

The appeals court noted that order issuing the stay "should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits" of Abbott's motion.

Earlier last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had declined to issue a stay that would delay the EPA's plans as Texas' lawsuit against the federal agency moved forward.

The city's campaign to scare smokers with grotesque images of decaying teeth or a diseased lung wherever tobacco products are sold was struck down Wednesday by a federal judge who concluded that only the federal government can dictate warnings that must accompany the promotion of cigarettes.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff handed a victory to the nation's three largest tobacco manufacturers and the retailers who sell their products when he ruled on the legality of a 2009 city Board of Health code change requiring the display of smoking cessation signs where tobacco products are sold.

"Even merchants of morbidity are entitled to the full protection of the law, for our sake as well as theirs," Rakoff said. He released the written decision just days before an agreement among the parties to delay enforcement of the rule was to expire on Saturday.

He said the federal Labeling Act, first enacted in 1965, sought to balance public and commercial interests with a comprehensive federal program to deal with cigarette labeling and advertising. He said it was created in part to prevent "diverse, nonuniform and confusing cigarette labeling and advertising regulations." Part of the law dictated that no state law could impose a requirement or prohibition with respect to advertising or promotion of cigarettes, he noted.

The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld a decision to levy corporate income taxes against fried chicken giant KFC.

At question is whether the state can impose income tax on revenue received by a company that doesn't have a presence in Iowa. KFC doesn't own any restaurants or have employees in Iowa. All KFC's in the state are owned by independent franchisers.

The Iowa Department of Revenue and Finance assessed KFC more than $248,000 for unpaid corporate income taxes in 2001.

Mark Schuling, the agency's director, says any corporation that collects revenue in Iowa should pay taxes.

KFC Corp., whose parent company is Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands Inc., challenged the assessment saying under Iowa law it was not subject to taxes because it didn't have property in the state.