Psychology Professor Anita Blanchard has a pretty sweet deal with her employer. Even if the 40-something mother of three leaves her job at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the state of North Carolina guarantees her premium-free health insurance that will cover 80% of her health care costs for life. But's there's a hitch: she can't gain too much weight or start smoking. If she does, she could be on the hook for an additional 10% of her ...

Two Florida school administrators face contempt charges and possible prison time for saying a prayer at a school luncheon. Frank Lay, principal of Pace High School, and Athletic Director Robert Freeman are accused of violating a consent decree banning employees of Santa Rosa County schools from endorsing religion. They face a non-jury trial September 17 before U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers. The statute under which they are charged carries a maximum penalty of up to six months in prison, subject ...

Former Enron Corp. chief Jeffrey Skilling, convicted three years ago of fraud, is scheduled to be resentenced Thursday after a federal appeals court vacated his 24-year sentence earlier this year. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana, affirmed Skilling's conviction in January but dumped the sentence handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake in Houston, Texas. Skilling was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months in jail for deceiving investors and employees ...

Bernard Madoff has decided not to appeal the 150-year prison sentence he received for operating the biggest investment fraud in history. "We are not going to appeal," Madoff attorney Ira Lee Sorkin told CNN on Thursday. Sorkin said he met with Madoff this week at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan. "Even if the Court of Appeals sends it back, certainly a guidelines sentence under the circumstances would give him a life sentence," he added. Citing crimes ...

The Institute of Medicine , the nation's most influential medical advisory group, has updated its guidelines for weight gain during pregnancy for the first time since 1990. The revised recommendations, released May 28, which also include the first advice regarding exercise during pregnancy, reflect new data on prenatal health as well as several recent shifts in the obstetric landscape — pregnant women in the U.S. are now older, more likely to deliver multiple births and ethnically more diverse than ...

Co-pilot Rebecca Shaw traveled all night as a passenger aboard FedEx planes before she got on the commuter plane that nosedived into a house near Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 passengers on an icy February evening. The 24-year-old, with a year of experience, was living in Seattle, Washington, and commuting to Newark, New Jersey -- where the fatal Continental Flight 3407 operated by Colgan Air Inc. originated, according to investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board hearings this week. ...