A lawyer convicted for helping disgraced Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein never should have asked former colleagues to save him from the judge's wrath.

When Steven Lippman pleaded guilty to conspiring to help Rothstein break federal election laws, he asked former colleagues to write him letters of recommendation, hoping they would convince the judge to go easy on him.

No such luck.

Fort Lauderdale defense attorney Harris Solomon wrote that he doesn't believe there is anything positive to say about Lippman, calling him an "arrogant lawyer," the Sun Sentinel reported Friday.

Above The Law has the entire blistering letter:

Lippman was sentenced to three years in prison, fined $15,000 and ordered to pay $179,000 in restitution, Bloomberg reported Friday.

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The Obama administration had some harsh words Friday after a federal judge appointed by Obama said the government doesn't have a right to indefinitely detain anyone even remotely associated with terrorist groups.

Judge Katherine B. Forrest permanently blocked the government from enforcing the National Defense Authorization Act, claiming it was too vague and would have a "chilling effect" on free speech.

And now the Department of Justice is calling Forrest's ruling "unprecedented," arguing that the government has long had the authority to detain anyone it deems a threat to the county, The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reported Friday.

And on Monday, the Justice Department asked the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals to put the ruling on hold, according to Law Blog.

Forrest's ruling oversteps the court's authority and infringes on Obama's power to act as Commander in Chief, according to the government's court filings.

The Justice Department requested a stay of the ruling pending appeal, which Forrest denied Friday.

Carl Mayer, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the case has hailed the decision as a "huge and historic victory for democracy," saying he believes any challenges from the Obama administration will be shot down, RT reported over the weekend.

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The number of couples seeking postnuptial agreements during their marriage has increased over the past three years, according to a survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. 

The poll found that 51 percent of divorce attorneys questioned had noticed more couples signing the agreements, which function as contracts clarifying which spouse owns which assets or property.

Postnuptial agreements are similar to prenuptial agreements in that they determine who gets what after a divorce, among other provisions.

A previous AAML survey found that attorneys had also seen a rise in postnups from 2002 to 2007. 

So, why bother working out a contract after you’re already married? “I find that there are two basic reasons,” says AAML President Kenneth Altshuler. “One is there’s been a dramatic change in the financial circumstances of one party. If you win the lottery, or somebody all of a sudden inherits a large sum of money, or someone inherits a business from their family.”

In a perfect world, the couple might hope to share the new asset in perpetuity during a long and happy marriage. In reality, divorces happen and spouses can save an expensive and acrimonious court battle in the unfortunate event that they separate if they make it clear exactly who owns what.

The spectre of divorce can actually spur the signing of a postnup — the other reason Altshuler cites. “Typically there’s got to be something not going overly well in the marriage,” the attorney says. “All of a sudden, they start thinking, ‘Wow, if this doesn’t work out, this is going to become a major problem. Let’s talk about now what will happen  so we avoid fighting about it we get a divorce.’”

See reminders in the news of high-profile split-ups doesn’t hurt, either. When Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes pulled the plug on their marriage, word of a prenuptial agreement leaked out. Other couples might think such a contact is a good idea — and find it’s not too late, even if they’re already married.

Money Matters

Kenneth Altshuler

Postnups don’t have to be strictly about money. “It can really cover anything,” Altshuler says. “Property, assets, debt.” Custody of children isn’t something that can be contracted either before or during the marriage, but the couple can square away some of the financial questions of child rearing. “You can contract college expenses, trust funds, inheritences, how step-children will be protected,” he explains. “If you get an inheritance and you have children from a prior marriage, you want those children to benefit from that inheritance. That’s a good example of a postnup.”

Notably, 36 percent of the attorneys that the AAML surveyed noticed an increased in women seeking out the postnuptial agreement. Altshuler chalks the increases up to more financial sophistication and savvy between couples overall, and for women specifically as their education level and earning potential now frequently surpasses that of their spouse.

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Ultimately, a postnup can lay out any terms a couple wants it too, as long as it’s signed in good faith and doesn’t totally leave one partner out in the cold. “It has to be fair and not fraudulent and not coerced,” the attorney says. “If it’s something so blatently unfair that it shocks the conscience, it’s not going to be enforcable,” like leaving a stay-at-home spouse in a long marriage with nothing at all.

The idea of contracting assets might seem cold to a young couple in love, but a bit of cold calculation in the present can save a lot of trouble down the road.

“We deal with contracts all the time; what’s wrong with having a contract with my husband or wife?” Altshuler says. “It’s just to resolve or avoid future disputes between a married couple.”

Visit Lawyers.com to learn more about pre- and postnuptial agreements and divorce, and to locate an attorney in your area who can answer your questions.

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Researchers have found evidence suggesting that the United States may have developed three previously unknown computer viruses for use in espionage operations or cyber warfare.

The findings are likely to bolster a growing view that the U.S. government is using cyber technology more widely than previously believed to further its interests in the Middle East. The United States has already been linked to the Stuxnet Trojan that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010 and the sophisticated Flame cyber surveillance tool that was uncovered in May.

Anti-virus software makers Symantec Corp of the United States and Kaspersky Lab of Russia disclosed on Monday that they have found evidence that Flame's operators may have also worked with three other viruses that have yet to be discovered.

The two security firms, which conducted their analyses separately, declined to comment on who was behind Flame. But current and former Western national security officials have told Reuters that the United States played a role in creating Flame. The Washington Post has reported that Israel was also involved.

Current and former U.S. government sources also told Reuters that the United States was behind Stuxnet. Kaspersky and Symantec linked Stuxnet to Flame in June, saying that part of the Flame program is nearly identical to code found in a 2009 version of Stuxnet.

For now, the two firms know very little about the newly identified viruses, except that one of them is currently deployed in the Middle East. They are not sure what the malicious software was designed to do. "It could be anything," said Costin Raiu, director of Kaspersky Lab's Global Research and Analysis Team.

NEWSFORYOU

Kaspersky and Symantec released their findings in reports describing analysis of "command and control" servers used to communicate with and control computers infected with Flame.

Researchers from both firms said the Flame operation was managed using a piece of software named "Newsforyou" that was built by a team of four software developers starting in 2006.

It was designed to look like a common program for managing content on websites, which was likely done in a bid to disguise its real purpose from hosting providers or investigators so that the operation would not be compromised, Kaspersky said in its report.

Newsforyou handled four types of malicious software: Flame and programs code-named SP, SPE and IP, according to both firms. Neither firm has obtained samples of the other three pieces of malware.

Kaspersky Lab said it believes that SP, SPE and IP were espionage or sabotage tools separate from Flame. Symantec said it was not sure if they were simply variations of Flame or completely different pieces of software.

"We know that it is definitely out there. We just can't figure out a way to actually get our hands on it. We are trying," Symantec researcher Vikram Thakur said in an interview.

About a dozen computers in Iran and Lebanon that are infected with one of the newly identified pieces of malware are trying to communicate with command and control servers, according to Kaspersky Lab.

The researchers found a large cache of data on one of the command and control servers, but cannot analyze it because it is encrypted using a password that they said would be virtually impossible to crack.

They believe that it was encrypted so heavily because the people coordinating the attack did not want the workers using the Newsforyou program to be able to read potentially sensitive information.

"This approach to uploading packages and downloading data fits the profile of military and/or intelligence operations," Symantec said in its report.

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Cinemas in New York City are to fight a ban on selling supersized sugary drinks to filmgoers, which has been instituted on health grounds.

The ruling by the board of health, which has the backing of city mayor Michael Bloomberg, will make it illegal to sell sugary soft drinks in portions larger than 16oz from 12 March next year. As well as cinemas, the bylaw will affect restaurants and workplace cafeterias, though not supermarkets and convenience stores. Diet drinks, alcohol and fruit juices are exempted from the ban.

A coalition of groups opposed to the new bylaw is expected to go to court in an effort to overturn it before it hits the statutes, according to the Deadline film blog. Robert Sunshine, the National Association of Theatre Owners' New York spokesman, told the site his group was "opposed to anyone telling us what we can eat and what we can drink". With sweets and drinks accounting for more than 25% of revenues for most US cinemas, "somewhere along the line the profit will have to be made up," he said. "It's going to have a tremendous impact."

Bloomberg, however, has said that the bylaw is necessarily to help improve the health of New Yorkers. "This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," he said. "Simply by proposing limits on sugary drinks, New York City has pushed the issue of obesity – and the impact of sugary beverages – onto the national stage."

Soft drinks would become the latest in a long line of once popular filmgoing accessories to be banned. Cigarettes began to disappear from British cinemas in the early 70s, when the Rank group instituted non-smoking areas and theatres. Alcohol has long been unavailable in all but a few select cinemas which choose to serve it.

New York was one of the first US states (after California) to ban smoking indoors in 2003, and in May banned the practice in outdoor public spaces such as parks and beaches.

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Four registered sex offenders in California have successfully challenged the state's law forbidding them from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park.

William Taylor, Jeffrey Glynn, Julie Briley, and Stephen Todd argued they were forced to be homeless after being paroled.

Taylor and Briley also said they had to live in alley because a 2006 statute known as Jessica's Law imposed such harsh regulations on sex offenders, Courthouse News Service reported Friday.

California's Fourth Appellate District ruled last week the law is "unreasonable and constitutes arbitrary and oppressive official action."

Jessica's Law's requirements also restrict parolees' access to medical and rehabilitative programs, which are often located in populous areas, according to CNS.

 "We find the blanket residency restriction, as applied in San Diego County, excessive and unduly broad in relation to its purpose  — namely, to establish predator free zones around schools and parks where children gather," the court ruled. "The statute limits the housing choices of all sex offenders identically, without regard to the type of victim or the risk of reoffending."

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The Ninth Circuit is putting its foot down after an illegal immigrant who could have proven a man's innocence was deported ahead of the man's trial.

Jonathan Leal-Del Carmen was convicted of bringing illegal aliens into the country after a witness for the defense, who was an illegal immigrant, was deported before being allowed to testify in his favor, The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reported Friday.

And now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled "deportation of witnesses favorable to the defense is not permitted in our circuit."

What the ruling means is if an illegal alien can prove beneficial for the defense, that immigrant gets to stay in the country and can't be deported before he or she is useful in criminal proceedings.

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Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the Harvard graduate twins who just couldn't stop suing Mark Zuckerberg for creating Facebook, have finally found their calling: creating a Facebook-like website.

In some sweet twist of fate, they're even using money from the $65 million that Facebook forked over at the conclusion of a years-long litigation battle to do it.

"We want to get involved and really roll up our sleeves," Tyler Winklevoss told The Wall Street Journal.

The twins' new project, SumZero, isn't necessarily a Facebook competitor. It's a social network for investors founded by their long lost friend and fellow Harvard alum Divya Narendra. (He's the third guy hassling Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network.) Tyler and Cameron aren't involved in the day-to-day, but they did invest $1 million in the business. SumZero is the first investment made by their new venture fund, Winlevoss Capital, created in February.

Much like Facebook in its early days, not everyone can join SumZero -- apparently Narendra personally reviews the profile of every new user and only "buy side" investors are allowed to join. Perhaps as a result, the four-year-old site only has 7,500 users. The Journal likens these restrictions to the early days of Facebook when you needed a .edu email address to create a profile on the site. Outsiders can use SumZero, too, but only if they pay a $129 a month fee to get access to members' investment ideas. 

It's unlikely that SumZero will ever grow to become the world-changing force that Facebook has. But at least the new adventure has given them something to do this year, after they abandoned their bid for the London Olympics. "The time was right for us to pursue our other passions," Tyler Winklevoss said earlier this year. Among those passions not pursued, let us gladly remind you, is their hobby of suing Facebook. Seriously, that got really ridiculous.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at aestes@theatlantic.com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

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A government worker who recommended Argentina reject a contract with Siemens AG claims the company hired mercenaries to beat and threaten him for accusing it of corruption.

Carlos Moran worked for Sindico General de la Nacion, a investigative arm of the Argentinian government, when he recommended the country reject a $1 billion contract with Siemens to create national ID cards, saying he believed the company was "inundated with corruption," Courthouse News Service reported Monday.

When he threatened to release the results of investigation, he claims his boss, who was involved in Siemens' corruption scandal, threatened him.

When he persisted, he "was punched and kicked about the head, rendering him unconscious and causing permanent damage to his vision and hearing," he states in his complaint, according to CNS. "Prior to his losing consciousness, Moran heard his attackers repeatedly calling him a 'whistle blower,' in an obvious attempt to warn him against any further attempt to disclose the subject of his investigation."

In 2008, Siemens paid $1.6 billion in fines and penalties related to charges it violated federal anti-bribery law in Argentina, according to the Department of Justice.

Only Siemens' German-based head office and the Argentine outpost are listed as defendants in Moran's lawsuit, in which he claims his attackers were former members of a left-wing guerrilla group.

Moran is seeking more than $100 million in damages, claiming crimes against humanity, among other allegations, according to CNS.

Siemens told Business Insider on Monday that it can't comment on ongoing proceedings.

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By the third year of law school, roughly 40 percent of students show signs of depression, according to a new National Law Journal report.

As part of a special report on stressed-out students, NLJ reported Monday on what's driving students crazy.

Georgetown law student Rebecca Stellato, for one, said she wasn't prepared for the "shark tank" atmosphere there that wasn't conducive to happiness at all.

"There were a lot of Type-A personalities, and they make it so much more stressful than it needs to be," she said. "It's not healthy for anyone."

Law students usually get depressed because they value "external measures" such as grades and class rank too much, Florida State law professor Lawrence Krieger told NLJ. Instead, he said, students should focus on relationships with others and self-improvement.

Krieger also said "thinking like a lawyer" poses problems for students.

"In their first semester, students are taught to basically ignore their feelings and values and take on a new value system in which the best argument wins," he told NLJ. "It's no longer about caring for people, who students now refer to as 'parties.'"

Head over to the NLJ to read more about the crisis of depressed law students >

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An actress and athlete is firing back at Gawker for claiming she went on a $20,000 shopping spree in Las Vegas with someone else's credit card.

In a story published last year, Gawker's sports section Deadspin claimed Hannah Cornett racked up the mega-bill at Vegas' Cosmopolitan. Deadspin claimed a man who traveled to Las Vegas with Cornett contacted it to complain about charges Cornett amassed on his credit card.

In its story Deadspin took quite a few jabs at Cornett's career — and her personally — and even included a copy of the bill, which features multiple charges for the Sahra Spa, totaling thousands of dollars worth of treatments.

But Cornett tells a much different story.

In a recently filed lawsuit, she claims she went to Vegas with her former roommate Carrie Cutler and Cutler's friend James Alesi, Courthouse News Service reported Friday.

Cornett says she initially left her credit card on file with the front desk but Alesi switched out the cards and left his on file without telling her.

Alesi allegedly pursued both women and while he was successful with Cutler, he was rebuffed by Cornett.

When Cutler confessed the indiscretion to her boyfriend, he came out to Las Vegas where the two "amassed charges on Alesi's credit card," according to Cornett's complaint.

Cornett admitted she ordered a massage to her room but did so thinking it was still her credit card on file with the hotel.

And while Alesi told Deadspin Cornett signed for all the charges, she said Cutler and her boyfriend could have easily forged her signature, according to CNS.

"Gawker threw caution to the wind in its reckless pursuit for more hits on its website despite the fact that Alesi completely lacked credibility and was plainly biased," Cornett said, according to CNS. "Rather than contacting Ms. Cornett about the story, Gawker published reprehensible propaganda in the absence of any reputable evidence whatsoever to support, verify, or corroborate it."

Cornett is seeking actual and punitive damages and is representing herself.

Gawker is the only party named in the lawsuit. Deadspin, Daulerio, and Cutler are not named, according to CNS.

Gawker's editor-in-chief A.J. Daulerio, who also wrote the story, said he couldn't comment on the story right now when Business Insider reached out to him.

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Police have arrested a woman in Ohio for allegedly stealing $7,500 from her son between the fall of 2010 and the spring of 2011 while he was serving with the army in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Independent in Massillon is reporting that Jennifer L. Fletcher, 42, stole the money after agreeing to file her son's taxes while he was stationed overseas. Fletcher used the information to obtain checks in his name, then cashed them after forging his signature. She is also is being accused of depositing nearly $1,400 of Davis’ state and federal income tax refunds into her account to pay bills.

Court records show that Fletcher was charged with identify fraud, theft, and forgery. Her bail was set at $150,000.

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It's something of a battle royale that is occurring in the art world right now.

Art dealer and gallery owner Larry Gagosian is accused in two lawsuits of fraud, unjust enrichment, and breach of fiduciary duty, Bloomberg reported.

We wrote last week about the suit filed by Gagosian's longtime friend Ron Perelman over a $4 million granite statue of Popeye by Jeff Koons, but it appears that Gagosian, who has 11 galleries worldwide, is also under fire from another art collector, Jan Cowles.

Cowles filed her suit in January against "the most powerful dealer in the contemporary art world," as Perelman described him, over one edition of a 1964 Roy Lichtenstein painting, "Girl in Mirror."

The Lichtenstein

The accusations of backroom dealing in the art world stem from October 2008, when Charles Cowles, Cowles's son and an art dealer himself, consigned the Lichtenstein over to Gagosian. The contract stated that Cowles would receive "not less than $2,500,000 net, if the piece is sold," according to the suit.

Jan Cowles, however, claims she never gave her son permission to sell the painting.

In January 2009, Deborah McLeod, senior director of Gagosian in Los Angeles, offered the Lichtenstein to Thompson Dean, an executive at a New York-based private equity firm, for $3.5 million, the suit said.

The price fell, however, when in June 2009, Charles Cowles announced he was closing his gallery on Manhattan's West 24th Street. McLeod e-mailed Dean, according to the lawsuit, writing, "seller now in terrible straits and needs cash. Are you interested in making a cruel and offensive offer? Come on, want to try?"

Dean responded with a $2 million offer to which McLeod answered, "that's approximately half price, so I like it!" according to transcripts of her deposition, Bloomberg reported.

In her deposition, McLeod explained that the market was weak in 2009, warranting a number that is "about half price," Bloomberg reported.

Representing both sides

McLeod along with John Good, a former Gagosian director in New York, said it was appropriate for their gallery to represent the interests of both seller and buyer, Bloomberg reported.

McLeod said she found nothing wrong with acting as an agent for both parties without disclosure to either side, according to Bloomberg.

Good, who is now senior vice president of private sales at Christie's auction house, claimed it to be common practice for dealers to represent both parties in a transaction.

"That's what dealers do," he said, according to Bloomberg.

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The main campus at Louisiana State University is being evacuated after a bomb threat was called into an area police department, according to The Advertiser.

"A bomb threat has been reported on the #LSU campus. Please evacuate the campus as calmly and quickly as possible.… http://ow.ly/dLYVg," the university tweeted.

"Tens of thousands" of students and staff could be affected by the threat, according to WAFB.

The school sent out a mass text message to students at 11:32 a.m. central time, alerting them to the threat.

The threat also includes University High School, located on LSU's campus, according to NBC33.

Students whose parents have not picked them up by 12:30 local time will be "…sequestered in the new gym. The gym is being swept by bomb sniffing dogs now,' NBC33 reported.

Specifics about where the call came in or which area of campus was threatened have not been released, WAFB reported.

Bars and restaurants in the area are opening early and offering drink specials to students evacuating campus, The Daily Reveille News tweeted.

A Mexican restaurant near LSU's campus is offering a bomb threat special of half-priced margaritas, according to a picture tweeted by @DrewRyan1.

However, students might not make it for those specials due to the traffic gridlock on campus, according to the News.

The threat at LSU comes on the heels of two other bomb threats reported last week at the University of Texas at Austin and North Dakota State University.

No explosives were found at either campus. But police in Louisiana are working with law enforcement in those areas to determine whether there are similarities between the threats, according to The Associated Press.

We'll update you on the situation at LSU as more details become available.

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If you're going to accuse someone of trying to pay with counterfeit money, it's a good idea to actually test the bills first.

Walmart customer Julia Garcia claims in court that she had two $100 bills torn up by Walmart workers who claimed that the bills were counterfeit, according to David Lee at Courthouse News.

Garcia called it a "humiliating ordeal."

Here are the details Garcia outlined, according to the complaint filed in Bexar County Court, San Antonio: 

Garcia says she paid for her $150 purchase with a $100 bill, $50 bill and some change. The cashier inspected the $100 bill, consulted another cashier, told the customer that it was fake and then ripped it in half.

She says that the cashier then marked it with a counterfeit detection pen and it left a yellow mark, which means it was legitimate.

The manager was then called, and he said that Garcia would have to wait for police. Garcia pulled out another $100 bill, and the manager told her it was also counterfeit and ripped it up too, according to the complaint.

The other customers in line who asked about what was happening were told that Garcia was trying to pay with counterfeit bills, says Garcia.

Police came two hours later and determined that the bills were legitimate, she says. The officer apologized and instructed the manager to replace the bills that were torn up.

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As a black Catholic growing up in Savannah, Ga., Justice Clarence Thomas says he was a "minority within a minority," The New York Times' Adam Liptak reports.

The most silent justice revealed details of his upbringing during an hourlong interview with Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar, for his new book "America's Unwritten Constitution," Liptak reported.

While Thomas spoke about the burdens of his current job, he also spoke about the influence of religion on the nation and himself.

"I grew up in a religous environment, and I'm proud of it," Thomas said. "I was going to be a priest; I'm proud of it. And I thank God I believe in God or I would probably be enormously angry right now."

Thomas didn't elaborate on the source of that anger, Liptak reported.

Read more about the inteview at The New York Times >

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Witness testimony that was to be used in court by former Guantánamo detainee David Hicks suggests that prisoners were repeatedly drugged as part of the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation," Natalie O'Brien of the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Hicks, an Australian citizen, was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 by the Afghan Northern Alliance and sold to the U.S. military for a $1,000 bounty before becoming Detainee 002.

In April 2007 he was charged with "providing material support for terrorism" and transported from Gitmo to Australia to serve the remaining seven months of a suspended seven-year sentence.

The Australian government filed a lawsuit against Hicks to seize revenue from his autobiography, but dropped the case in July after the 37-year-old challenged evidence such as the certificate of his conviction from the Guantánamo military court.

Some documents provided by U.S. authorities at Guantánamo are to be kept secret, but defense affidavits confirmed that detainees were forced to take high dosages of the controversial anti-malaria drug mefloquine despite showing no signs of the disease, according to SMH.

Army doctor Remington Nevin told SMH that administering the drug in high doses to people who don't have malaria would be akin to "pharmacologic waterboarding," adding that high doses of the drug can cause brain injuries.

Josh Dratel, a Gitmo guard and New York lawyer who has top secret security clearance from the Justice Department, reportedly planned to provide evidence that several detainees were forced into ''non-therapeutic'' drugging and that U.S. prosecutors had admitted to forcibly drugging Hicks.

David Oten of the Office of the Secretary of Defense told Business Insider that they couldn't comment on specific cases without the court documents, but there are "decisions that [detainees] don't get to make" in regards to medications, including malaria medications.

In June Truthout revealed that antimalarial medications were used in experimental research under the CIA's covert human research program and that a key Defense Department expert on antimalarial drugs was a psychiatrist who trained personnel for Guantánamo interrogations.

SEE ALSO: A Look Inside The Newly Revamped Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility >

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Next month, a security firm will incorporate — no kidding — zombies into a disaster-crisis scenario at the company's annual Counter-Terrorism Summit here.

The five-day event will provide hands-on training, realistic demonstrations, lectures and classes geared to more than 1,000 military personnel, law enforcement officials, medical experts, and state and federal government workers.

The far-fetched scenario of a government grappling a zombielike threat — think movies like "Night of the Living Dead" or, more comically, "Zombieland" — captured the imagination of President Brad Barker of HALO Corp.

HALO will take over the 44-acre Paradise Point resort in the city's popular Mission Bay and create a series of terrorist scenarios, with immersive Hollywood sets including a Middle Eastern village and a pirates' haven. Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, a former CIA and National Security Agency director, and Mexico Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire Romero will speak during the summit, which runs Oct. 30 to Nov. 2.

Barker calls the scenario "Zombie Apocalypse." That phrase took off last year after the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unveiled a campaign aimed on being prepared for major emergencies, natural disasters and pandemics.

In the CDC's Preparedness 101 program, fictional zombies are used to drive home the message that Americans must be ready for any emergency — even the kind that, hypothetically, could stem from a brain-eating virus pandemic.

Zombies also star in a 40-page comic book the CDC published, a tongue-in-cheek take on the serious scenario of a mutated virus that quickly spreads as the government dispatches its military to maintain order while infectious disease specialists scour for a vaccine.

"The 'Zombie Apocalypse' is very whimsical," Barker said, noting the setting is intended to add some levity to the more dire scenarios summit goers will encounter — incidents depicting active shooters inside a hospital or downed pilots trapped behind enemy lines, for instance. The pandemic medical nightmare is bound to be an attention-getter among people attending the summit.

"They are going to see a lot of stuff go down," Barker said. "It is a Hollywood production."

The zombies who roam the island will harass the troops, first-aid teams and medical responders participating, Barker said. HALO declined to detail the scenario just yet, saying only that the idea is to challenge authorities as they respond to extreme medical situations where people become crazed and violent, creating widespread fear and disorder.

For the record: Zombies are not real. However, earlier this year the word was used rather liberally to describe a rash of incidents involving cannibalistic attacks — the most high-profile of which involved one man biting the flesh off another man's face in late May in Miami. Police suspect drugs, not a brain-eating virus, provoked the attack.

Beyond zombies, the HALO event will weave in lessons learned from real disasters and terror events, including attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan and the deadly 2008 bombing in Mumbai, India. Cyber terrorism will have a leading role in sessions and courses throughout the summit.

"The new battlefield is cyberspace, for sure," Barker said.

That means that during the summit, participants' cellphones and email accounts could be hacked, said Tim McAtee, a former Marine now working as HALO's tactical operations director. Some might be rattled when they realize how easy it is for a hostile force to compromise their personal information and what the broader national-security implications of a cyber attack could be.

"The awareness is going to be monumental," he said.

HALO is composed of former military special operators as well as intelligence and national security experts. The company trains military units and federal and state agencies in security, counterterrorism, force protection, emergency response and disaster management.

To help pull off such an elaborate production, HALO has partnered with Strategic Operations Inc., which specializes in hyper-realistic tactical and combat trauma training that makes use of special effects and actors.

The company has helped train thousands of sailors, soldiers and Marines in counterinsurgency missions, urban patrols, security operations and combat trauma in the past decade at its San Diego training studio and on military bases.

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Just since 2010, seven U.S. cities, towns, and counties have filed for bankruptcy, according to Governing.com. And many others are on the brink of insolvency.

The latest to join the ranks was San Bernardino, Calif. In August it said it had only $150,000 on hand and had depleted its reserves "years ago," The Los Angeles Times reported.

Here is an interactive map displaying all municipal bankruptcies since 2010, using data from Governing.com:

* Ciites, towns, and counties are in red, while utilities and other municipalities are gray. Click for more info.

View Municipal Bankruptcies Map in a larger map

Here's how bankruptcy affected some of these cities:

San Bernardino, Calif.

Signs of problems in the southern California city appeared in 2008 when it declared numerous fiscal emergencies and reduced its workforce by 20 percent over the next four years, according to its bankruptcy report. 

Like a majority of other bankrupt municipalities, San Bernardino's public services account for the majority of its budget—73 percent of the general fund goes toward public safety. The city also claimed that the largest employers are local government agencies.

So what are the consequences?

Well, San Bernardino is in somewhat of a fiscal limbo. On Sept. 5 the city council failed to pass an emergency budget plan under which it would have cut 100 full-time jobs and reduced spending by $22.4 million, Reuters reported.

In addition, the city would have gotten rid of 20 firefighter positions, and three of the four fire stations would have been temporarily closed 10 days a month, according to Reuters.

"I am not going to play Russian roulette with the lives of these residents," said a council member of the firefighter condition, according to Reuters.

Stockton, Calif.

Stockton, the largest American city to declare bankruptcy yet, faces a $26 million deficit. What is more troubling is its debt, which Stockton listed to be between $500 million and $1 billion, Bloomberg reported.

In the case of Stockton, the agricultural city will most likely force two groups to take cuts: public sector employees and bondholders.

Since the June 2012 filing, Stockton has somewhat been consumed by chaos. The closure of some social services means there is a steady rise in crime—violent crime and unemployment rates are among the 10 worst in the U.S., according to Bloomberg.

Shantytowns have spawned around the Stockton Shelter for the Homeless, near the city dump, according to Bloomberg.

Central Falls, R.I.

Central Falls is perhaps the most successful of the bunch. Just last week it won a court permission to exit its bankruptcy status by repaying bondholders in full, but making cuts to municipal workers' pensions, according to Bloomberg. 

"We've been pilfered and beaten down," said Bruce Ogni, president of the police retirees organization, for Reuters. "We didn't have the power, the money, to fight it."

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A COURT in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre has ordered the French edition of ‘Closer’ magazine to surrender all its copies of the photographs which show the Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing topless, and banned their further publication.

The magazine has been ordered to hand over the photographs within the next 24 hours, with a fine of €10,000 for each day that they fail to comply with the order.

The court has also banned any further publication of the images in France, AP reported.

The ruling came as a French prosecutor opened preliminary criminal investigations into the publication of the topless pictures, following a complaint lodged by the royal couple yesterday.

The complaint allows the prosecutor to decide whether to proceed with a full investigation of allegations that the taking of and publication of the pictures breached the couple’s right to privacy under French law. The prosecutor will also have to decide who any criminal proceedings are directed against.

The royals’ complaint cites persons unknown but aides have said they want proceedings brought against both the editor of Closer magazine, and the photographer or photographers who took the images of the couple sunbathing at a chateau in southern France earlier this month.

The editor of the Irish Daily Star, Mick O’Kane, was last night suspended with immediate effect as an investigation is carried out into the paper’s reprinting of the photographs from Closer magazine.

The initial investigation will be carried out by the BRDP, a branch of the police responsible for dealing with attacks on individuals which notably handled a probe into a French writer’s sexual assault allegations against former IMF supremo Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Additional reporting by AFP

Read: Irish Daily Star editor suspended over topless Kate pictures >

Read: Shatter to examine privacy legislation after publication of Kate pictures >

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