Insurance companies can use a person's credit report to determine rates, the Michigan Supreme Court said Thursday in declaring that state regulators exceeded their authority when they banned the practice as discriminatory.

The decision ends a legal battle between insurance companies and Gov. Jennifer Granholm's administration that has reached three courts since 2005.

The industry says people with strong credit reports make fewer claims and deserve lower rates than people with weak credit reports. The Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling, said Michigan law allows companies to offer people with good credit lower rates.

"It is difficult to see how offering discounts to some insureds on the basis of good insurance scores is inconsistent with the (law's) general purpose of availability and affordability of insurance for all consumers," Justice Maura Corrigan wrote in the majority opinion.

Defense attorneys plan to seek the release of a Kansas doctor and his wife while they appeal their convictions on charges they conspired to profit from illegally prescribing painkillers to patients who later died.

Jurors found Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, guilty Thursday. Prosecutors linked their suburban Wichita clinic to 68 overdose deaths.

The Schneiders also were found guilty of unlawfully writing prescriptions and health care fraud.

No sentencing date has been set. Each faces up to a life sentence.

Linda Schneider's attorney, Kevin Byers, blames the guilty verdict on a national crackdown on doctors caught in the middle of a federal policy dispute over the drugs.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan reversed the district court's ruling that ordered the nation's largest police department to turn over secret "field reports" to protesters who sued the city over their arrests.

The ruling said that the city "met its burden of showing that law enforcement privilege applies to field reports — even as redacted by the district court — because the reports contain detailed information about the NYPD's undercover law enforcement techniques and procedures."

Before the convention, members of the NYPD's Intelligence Division went undercover and infiltrated protest groups that wanted to disrupt the convention. Information in the undisclosed documents "reinforces the city's assertions that the public faced a substantial threat of disruption and violence during the RNC," the appeals court wrote.

However, officials say the 2,763 filings in the metro area represent a 35 percent increase compared with May 2009.

Experts say soft housing prices, a bleak employment scenario and other financial issues continue to plague many Phoenix-area residents.

Chapter 7 filings, which provide a fresh financial start for debtors, accounted for 83 percent of the total. That's the third straight month that they've been above 80 percent.

Fifty-seven-year-old William Calderwood was acquitted Friday of 55 counts of aggravated arson in Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) County Common Pleas Court. He was convicted of one count of burglary.

The fiery Jan. 25 blast damaged 72 homes on Cleveland's west side. Prosecutors say Calderwood stole appliances, furniture and pipes from the vacant house and tampered with its gas line before the explosion.

Calderwood's attorney, Patrick Leneghan, says he is elated about what he calls a "fair and just" verdict.

Calderwood will be sentenced Wednesday and faces a maximum of five years in prison.

The Vatican will make the arguments in a motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds filed in Louisville, Ky., but it could affect other efforts to sue the Holy See.

The Vatican's U.S. attorney, Jeffrey Lena, said it will include a response to claims that the 1962 document "Crimen Sollicitationis" — Latin for "crimes of solicitation" — barred bishops from reporting abuse to police.

Lena said Sunday there is no evidence the document was even known to the archdiocese in question — much less used — and that regardless it didn't mandate that bishops not report abusive priests.

Goldman Sachs' legal headaches don't start and end with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Reports surfaced late Thursday that federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Goldman and its employees, over whether it may have committed securities fraud in its mortgage trading operations.

A representative for the firm would not confirm reports of an inquiry, but said they were not surprised given the scrutiny the firm has endured in recent weeks, adding they would cooperate with any requests for information.

The latest legal action builds on the high-profile civil case brought against the company last month by the SEC, in which the agency charged the firm and one of its employees with defrauding investors in the sale of securities tied to subprime mortgages.

In many ways, the agency's case has become a game changer for Goldman. Not only has it tarnished the gilded reputation of Wall Street's top firm, it also exposed the company to series of new legal attacks across a number of fronts.

Since the SEC announcement, top German and British officials, including UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, have demanded investigations into the firm's dealings, opening the door to additional regulatory probes.