The bank where Bernard Madoff kept his clients' money is defending itself against allegations that it should have done more to stop his massive fraud.

JPMorgan Chase said in a court filing late Tuesday that it violated no federal rules and had no obligation to probe Madoff's investment scheme.

A court-appointed trustee sued the bank this month for $6.4 billion, claiming it suspected Madoff was a fraud but did almost nothing.

JPMorgan's court filing says that if the trustee were to get his way, it would impose "broad investigative duties" on banks that don't currently exist.

The bank also wants the case moved from bankruptcy court to district court. It says the suit is akin to a huge class action, more properly heard by a jury.

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.

A former lawyer for a financial adviser to celebrity clients was arrested Thursday on money-laundering charges filed in New York alleging he helped conceal the adviser's Ponzi-like scheme.

Attorney Jonathan Bristol pleaded not guilty Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. He was released on $1 million bond.

An indictment alleges that Bristol hid investor money stolen by Kenneth Starr — a one-time adviser to Wesley Snipes, Sylvester Stallone and Martin Scorsese — in secret escrow accounts.

Prosecutors say Bristol raided the accounts in January to pay $1 million to settle a claim by a disgruntled Starr client. They say another $100,000 was used to cover bills from Bristol's law firm.

In April, Bristol also used the escrow accounts to help Starr siphon $7 million in investors' money to buy Starr a five-bedroom, six-bath condominium, the indictment says. Prosecutors had previously alleged that $5.75 million of the total was stolen from a 100-year-old heiress.

The Idaho Supreme Court on Monday lifted a lower court order that prevented ConocoPhillips from moving giant refinery parts along a rural highway across the state.

In a 3-2 decision, the court said that Judge John Bradbury of Idaho's Second Judicial District Court and the Supreme Court itself, had no authority to rule on a permit issued by Idaho's highway department allowing the movement of giant coking unit parts along the U.S. Highway 12.

"The district court lacked jurisdiction, as does this Court, to consider respondents' petition for judicial review," wrote Justice Warren Jones in the court's opinion announcing the decision.

Residents along Highway 12 had sought to block a contractor for Conoco from moving giant coking unit drums, weighing up to 323 tons (293 metric tons) and stretching 225 feet (68.58 meters), from the port of Lewiston, Idaho, to the state's border with Montana.

The revelation that BP's Texas City refinery emitted toxic benzene for more than a month has ignited a furor in the port community that has suffered its share of deadly industrial accidents and toxic spills.

Thousands of residents who fear they may have been exposed to the known carcinogen released at the oil refinery from April 6 to May 16 have been flooding parking lots and conference halls where local trial attorneys hosted information sessions and sought clients for class-action lawsuits against the oil giant.

BP faces the new challenge just as it is reaching a key milestone in another crisis — plugging the Gulf of Mexico well that blew out in an oil spill disaster that is costing the company billions of dollars.

On Wednesday, more than 3,400 people lined the hallways and sidewalks around the Nessler Center to sign on to a $10 billion class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday in Galveston federal court by Friendswood attorney Anthony Buzbee.

The lawsuit alleges the release of 500,000 pounds of chemicals - including 17,000 pounds of benzene - has jeopardized the health and property values of people who live and work in the area. At the nearby College of the Mainland, a separate town hall meeting drew a crowd of 600.