NEW YORK (AP) — Internet phone service provider Vonage Holdings Corp. has agreed to pay $3 million to 32 states to settle an investigation into some of its business practices.

In a filing on Nov. 16 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commis­sion, the company said it also agreed to provide refunds to affected customers.

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said his office received complaints from consumers who said they found it difficult to cancel their service with Vonage amid pressure from the company to keep their accounts. Texas officials said that Vonage also failed to clearly tell potential customers that they needed to have high-speed Internet service to use Vonage, which offers cheaper calls by sending voice data over the Internet just like e-mail and Web pages. Officials said those unable to use the service had to pay cancellation and other fees.

NEW YORK — A man has been imprisoned for 18 years for a murder he did not commit, a state trial judge ruled on Nov. 12.

The judge, John A. Cataldo, ruled that Fernando Bermudez had proven by clear and convincing evidence that he was actually innocent of a 1991 murder.

Bermudez had been serving a term of 23-years-to-life for the 1991 slaying of a teenager in front of a New York nightclub. All four eyewitnesses to the slaying had recanted their 1992 trial testimony, and no forensic evidence tied Bermudez to the crime.

ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, on Nov. 19 affirmed the recognition of same-sex marriages by a county executive and a state agency but, by a bare 4-3 margin, declined to extend full New York recognition to such marriages contracted in other states and countries where they are legal.

Rather, the four-judge majority importuned the Legislature to decide the question, as it did in 2006 when the court decided that same-sex couples have no constitutional right to wed within the state but left open the status of same-sex marriages contracted outside the state.

"We end, by repeating what we said in Hernandez v. Robles, expressing our hope that the Legislature will address this controversy; that it 'will listen and decide as wisely as it can; and that those unhappy with the result — as many ­undoubtedly will be — will respect it as people in a democratic state should respect choices democratically made,' " Judge Eugene F. Pigott Jr. wrote.

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. revised its controversial books settlement on Nov. 13 and revived the debate over who should decide the fate of orphan works: Google or the government.

Changes to the settlement were aimed at addressing concerns that Google had grabbed unfair control of orphan works — books whose rights holders can't be found — by including them in a class action settlement with authors and publishers over its book-scanning project.

The revised settlement creates an "independent fiduciary" that would oversee the unclaimed works. That fiduciary would be allowed to license the books to third parties, such as Google competitors, "to the extent permitted by law."

The case is proceeding in New York before U.S. District Judge Denny Chin.

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AP) — A United Nations appeals court on Nov. 16 overturned the conviction of the former Rwandan president's brother-in-law, who had been sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for organizing a massacre that left about 1,000 dead during the 1994 genocide.

The judge said that serious errors had been committed during Protais Zigiran­yirazo's 2008 conviction and sentencing, and ordered him to be released immediately.

At least 500,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed ­during Rwanda's genocide, which began after President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was brought down in April 1994. Zigiranyirazo, an influential member of the Rwandan government at the time, was his brother-in-law.

In a 30-page ruling, the appeals court said that it had reversed Zigiranyirazo's convictions for genocide and crimes against humanity because those convictions had "violated the most basic and fundamental principles of justice.''

Many in Rwanda were disappointed with the court's decision.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A former Florida judge whose legal career ended amid accusations about his relationship with a stripper was sentenced on Nov. 13 to serve one year of probation for bank fraud.

U.S. District Judge Eliz­abeth A. Kovachevich ordered Thomas E. Strin­ger, 65, to also do 150 hours of community service and pay a fine. Kovachevich said the light sentence was justified because of Stringer's long, distinguished legal career and service to the community. The former state appellate judge resigned in February, months after stripper Christy Yamanaka appeared on a Tampa television station and detailed how Stringer let her put money she made into his bank accounts.

SAN FRANCISCO — Wells Fargo & Co. will buy back an estimated $700 million in troubled auction-rate securities from California investors under terms of a settlement announced by state Attorney General Jerry Brown on Nov. 18.

The banking giant will also pay the AG's office $600,000 to cover investigation expenses and monitoring of the settlement's terms. In exchange, Brown will drop the civil lawsuit he filed against Wells Fargo in San Francisco Superior Court in April.

"Wells Fargo convinced thousands of investors to purchase auction-rate securities with promises of robust returns and liquidity but, when the market collapsed, investors were left out in the cold," Brown said.

In a separate deal reached with the North American Securities Administrators Association­, the San Francisco-based banker has agreed to repurchase nonli­quid auction-rate securities totaling approximately $700 million from non-California residents.

NEWARK, N.J. — A federal judge has approved a settlement by which a former board member of Tyco International Ltd. will pay $5.6 million to settle claims that New Jersey pension funds lost more than $100 million because of securities fraud.

New Jersey charged that Frank Walsh Jr. took a $20 million payment from Tyco, without disclosure to shareholders or other board members, for helping arrange the Princeton corporation's 2001 purchase of The CIT Group.

The state Department of Treasury's Division of Investments filed suit in 2002 against Tyco, its auditors and several individuals, including Walsh, seeking to recover from fraud, insider trading and accounting improprieties at Tyco. The complaint charged that state pension funds had suffered significant losses due to fraud, insider trading at Tyco, the failure to disclose millions of dollars in personal loan benefits and accounting improprieties.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge ruled on Nov. 18 that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina, a decision that could make the federal government vulnerable to billions of dollars in claims.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval sided with six residents and one business who argued the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish.

He said, however, the corps couldn't be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where two of the plaintiffs lived.

Duval awarded the plaintiffs $720,000, but the government could eventually be forced to pay much more in damages. The ruling should give more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities a better shot at claiming billions of dollars in damages.