In a courtroom in Wichita, the day begins much as it has for the past 49 years: Court is in session, U.S. District Judge Wesley Brown presiding. But what happens next is no longer routine; it's a testament to one man's sheer determination.

As lawyers and litigants wait in respectful silence, Brown, who is 103, carefully steers his power wheelchair behind the bench, his stooped frame almost disappearing behind its wooden bulk. He adjusts under his nose the plastic tubes from the oxygen tank lying next to the day's case documents. Then his voice rings out loud and firm to his law clerk, "Call your case."

Brown is the oldest working federal judge in the nation, one of four appointees by President Kennedy still on the bench. Federal judgeships are lifetime appointments, and no one has taken that term more seriously than Brown.

"As a federal judge, I was appointed for life or good behavior, whichever I lose first," Brown quipped in an interview. How does he plan to leave the post? "Feet first," he says.

In a profession where advanced age isn't unusual — and, indeed, is valued as a source of judicial wisdom — Brown has left legal colleagues awestruck by his stamina and devotion to work. His service also epitomizes how the federal court system keeps working even as litigation steadily increases, new judgeships remain rare, and judicial openings go unfilled for months or years.

Massachusetts hands out more than $2 billion in business tax breaks annually with no mechanisms for reviewing their effectiveness or recouping lost revenue if the exemptions fail to produce the desired results, an analysis by the state auditor shows.

Auditor Suzanne Bump reviewed 92 business tax breaks or credits, many dating back decades, and determined that only seven had so-called sunset clauses, automatic reviews of a law after a fixed period of time, and only 10 had clawback provisions allowing the state to get back some of the taxes if a company doesn't meet job creation goals or other benchmarks.

The tax breaks on the books containing no sunset or clawback provisions would total $2.1 billion in foregone revenue during the fiscal year starting July 1, Bump concluded. The auditor planned to present her findings Thursday at a hearing of the Legislature's Revenue Committee.

Federal authorities have charged two men with running an insider trading scheme that netted more than $30 million with information stolen from law firms.

Garrett Bauer is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J., on Wednesday afternoon. Matthew Kluger will make his first appearance in federal court in Alexandria, Va.

They're accused of trading on inside information stolen from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a law firm with offices in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong.

Authorities also allege the decades-long scheme used information stolen from prominent New York law firms Cravath Swaine & Moore and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

A Pennsylvania bus company involved in a crash that killed the driver and a passenger in New Jersey has been taken off the road by federal transportation officials.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has taken away permission for Super Luxury Tours Inc. to operate.

Speaking at a U.S. Senate hearing in Washington earlier Wednesday, New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg said Super Luxury's safety record is in the bottom 1 percent of motor coach companies.

A bus operated by the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., company crashed on the New Jersey Turnpike as it traveled from New York City's Chinatown to Philadelphia on March 14, killing the 50-year-old driver and a passenger and injuring several other passengers.

Evidence suggests the bus was southbound on the turnpike near Interchange 9 in East Brunswick when the vehicle went off the road onto the grassy median before striking a concrete overpass support. The cause of the crash remains under investigation, and authorities have not ruled out the possibility that the driver may have been affected by a medical issue.