A man who admitted to accessing U.S. government computers in search of UFOs won't be stepping foot on American soil any time soon.

U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May ruled early Tuesday that computer hacker Gary McKinnon won't be extradited to the United States, The Associated Press tweeted.

Before today's decision, The Daily Mail reported May would introduce plans to make it more likely U.K. citizens would be tried in that country.

McKinnon, a 46-year-old man who's been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, hacked U.S. government computers from his north London home during his search for "little green men," according to The Daily Mail.

If he had been sent to the U.S. and had been convicted, he could have faced up to 60 years in jail, the BBC reported.

DON'T MISS: The US Government Has Found A Sneaky Way To Punish Megaupload

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Several famous paintings including ones from Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Claude Monet have been stolen from a museum in the Dutch city of Rotterdam.

The paintings include Picasso's ‘Tête d’Arlequin’ (1971), Matisse's ‘la Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune’ (1919), Monet's ‘Waterloo Bridge, London’ (1901), Monet's ‘Charing Cross Bridge, London’ (1901), Paul Gauguin's ‘Femme devant une fenêtre ouverte, dite la Fiancée’ (1888), Meyer de Haan's ‘Autoportrait’ (circa 1889 – ’91) and Lucian Freud's ‘Woman with Eyes Closed’ (2002), according to a police statement via BNO News.

We've tracked down pictures of the stolen paintings (or variations on the same).

SEE ALSO: Eric Clapton Sells Abstract Painting For A Record $34 Million >

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Who knew being an copyright troll was a good thing.

The title is a badge of honor for the porn industry's most prominent lawyer who's currently attacking about 20,000 people accused of illegal downloading XXX films.

“I’m considered the original copyright troll,” attorney John Steele told Forbes almost proudly in a profile published Monday. “At least my wife loves me. When I read about myself on the Internet, I think, ‘Who is this jerk?’”

Steele monitors file-sharing sites to find Internet users who are downloading the racy films. He's often content to get somewhat small settlements from the alleged illegal downloaders who prefer to pay up rather than have their names splashed across public court documents, according to Forbes.

Steele's tactics have dubbed him one of the most hated men on the Internet.

The person paying for a certain IP address might not be the person who actually downloaded the illicit movie, according to Forbes. But the owner will be named in the court documents all the same.

“Just because wrong person arrested for murder doesn’t mean murder shouldn’t be a crime,” Steele told Forbes. “We assess the situation and try to get the facts."

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The first batch of more than 100 men accused of paying a fitness instructor for sex were laying low after police began releasing their names in a small New England town where rumors have run rampant for weeks.

Police on Monday released 21 names of men who were issued summons for engaging in prostitution with a 29-year-old Zumba instructor who's charged with turning her dance studio into a brothel in this seaside community and secretly videotaping her encounters.

Residents watched the news flash on their local evening TV news, and people could be heard discussing who was on the list as they walked through a supermarket parking lot and stood in line at a convenience store shortly after the names were made public.

The rumors are likely to continue in the weeks ahead as police release the names of other accused johns in police activity reports that are issued every other week listing people charged with offenses ranging from allowing dogs to run at large and marijuana possession to driving under the influence.

A judge ordered the release of names without ages or addresses, so it was not immediately clear their occupations and roles in the community, if any.

Kim Ackley, a local real estate agent, said that disclosure of the names will cause temporary pain for families but it's only fair because others who are charged with embarrassing crimes don't get breaks.

"What's fair for one has to be fair for the other," said Ackley, who believes she knows several people on the list. "The door can't swing just one way."

Residents had been anxiously awaiting the release of names since 29-year-old Alexis Wright was charged this month with engaging in prostitution in her dance studio and in an office she rented across the street. Police said she kept meticulous records suggesting the sex acts generated $150,000 over 18 months.

Wright, from nearby Wells, has pleaded not guilty to 106 counts of prostitution, invasion of privacy and other charges. Her business partner, 57-year-old insurance agent and private investigator Mark Strong Sr., from Thomaston, has pleaded not guilty to 59 misdemeanor charges.

Police said more than 150 people are suspected of being clients and many of them were videotaped without their knowledge.

In town, residents heard the list could include lawyers, law enforcement officers and well-known people, heightening their curiosity.

The list of names was delayed Friday by legal action by an attorney representing two of the people accused of being johns. The lawyer, Stephen Schwartz, said releasing the names will ruin people's lives, even if they're acquitted of the misdemeanor charges against them.

Superior Court Justice Thomas Warren on Monday denied a motion seeking to block disclosure of the names. But he ordered that addresses should be withheld for those people who might have been victims of invasion of privacy when their acts were recorded. The Associated Press reached out Monday evening to men on the list, but it was difficult to confirm their identities without knowing their addresses.

Andrew Stanley, of Kennebunk, said the names should've been released sooner. Wright's alleged customers, he said, were mostly people with money or power who attempted to buy their way out of trouble through legal action.

"I think the names should have been released the second they were charged," he said.

But resident Leonid Temkin had mixed feelings about publicizing the names because it could cause marriages to dissolve and men to lose their jobs.

"I think it'll cause a lot of hardship," he said.

The prostitution charges and ensuing publicity, which reached across the country and beyond, came as a shock in the small town of about 10,000 residents, which is well-known for its ocean beaches, old sea captains' mansions and the neighboring town of Kennebunkport, home to the Bush family's Walker's Point summer compound.

Some people in town said they had their suspicions about Wright, but others were in the dark about the life of the bubbly dance instructor who introduced many local women to the Latin-flavored dance and fitness program.

Ackley's daughter, Alison Ackley, who participated in Wright's class four or five times, said she had no inkling of any illegal activity.

"She was so young," Alison Ackley said. "She had a lot going for her. It's a shame she was hanging out with these older men and getting money from them."

But Kim Ackley said she believes the interest will die down once all the names become public in the coming weeks.

"A year from now it won't even be talked about, once it goes through the courts," she said. "You've got to move on and go on with your lives."

___

Associated Press reporter David Sharp in Portland contributed to this report.

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This is part of our comprehensive ranking of The Best Law Schools in America.

With law firms cutting back, thousands of law school graduates are still unemployed while stuck with six-figure student loan debt.

Some students have filed class-action law suits against more than a dozen schools alleging that officials misled them about their job prospects after graduation. 

"The system of legal education is completely broken now," former Chicago-Kent College of Law student Richard Komaiko told us. "Almost everyone I know from law school is unemployed or seeking alternative employment."

We wanted to hear the truth behind the crisis, so we interviewed several recent graduates, including those who have gone into entirely different fields, and one who is living just above the poverty line.

Four years after graduating from law school, Erin Gilmer is on food stamps.

While in law school at the University of Colorado and the University of Houston, Gilmer developed a passion for health law and policy, but pursuing that passion has made it exceedingly hard to pay her bills.

Since her 2008 graduation, Gilmer has completed a variety of health policy-related fellowships and other advocacy work, but all have been time- and funding-limited. Since this fall, she has been on her own, attempting to build a practice, Gilmer Health Law, in the areas of patient advocacy and health care technology.

"I have literally never made it above about 200 percent of the federal poverty limit. It’s just stressful, really stressful," she says. "But it gives me a new angle to when I’m helping people. I can understand exactly what they’ve been through. I know how hard it is to apply for food stamps. I know how hard it is to apply for medical assistance."

Some ask her why she has stuck with her current career path, says Gilmer, who says she just doesn't see herself working at a typical law firm job. "Working in that kind of corporate culture isn't where I want to be," she says.

Still, at times she has her doubts. She remains on food stamps so her social life suffers. She can't afford a car, so she has to rely on the bus to get around Austin, Texas, where she lives. And currently unable to pay back her growing pile of law school debt, Gilmer says she wonders if she will ever be able to pay it back.

"That has been really hard for me," she says. "I have absolutely no credit anymore. I haven't been able to pay loans. It's scary, and it's a hard thing to think you’re a lawyer but you’re impoverished. People don’t understand that most lawyers actually aren’t making the big money."

Jordan Harbinger was laid off from his Wall Street law firm job and launched a business advising men on dating skills.

Harbinger had applied to law school on a whim, and ended up attending University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, one of the nation's top law schools.

"I didn’t know that there were law school rankings," he says. "Everyone is obsessed with these things. I found these after I got into Michigan. I had no idea. I figured Harvard law was top dog or something, but I thought who cares, what’s the big deal?"

After graduating in 2006, Harbinger landed a job at a Wall Street law firm, specializing in mortgage-backed securities. "At that time, you could kind of walk into a job on Wall Street if you graduated from a decent law school," he says. 

When he was laid off less than a year later ("they laid off their whole first year class," he says), he had little desire to look for another "boring" law job, instead deciding to focus on something he'd been doing since law school: advising other men how to pick up women.

During law school, Harbinger and a fellow Michigan graduate student had started an Internet podcast on the topic, called "The Art of Charm." It had become increasingly popular with thousands of regular listeners so after he was laid off, they decided to turn it into a business, which they advertised through their radio show.

Today, The Art of Charm offers a range of seminars and classes for men looking to increase their social skills, whether for dating or networking. Thousands of people from across the United States and the world have attended the school's programs, according to Harbinger.

While Harbinger says he doesn't regret his time in law school, he doubts he will ever practice law.

"I really thought I was going to be the worst employee in the world. It worried me to no end in college and law school and even when I was on Wall Street," he says. "Becoming an entrepreneur where your brain is always firing on all cylinders, now I'm finally like, 'Oh this is what I’m supposed to do.'"

Abby-Gail Chaffatt turned down several "Big 4" accounting jobs to go to law school, and now she's relying on contract work.

In 2008 Chaffat, a then senior finance major at the University of Florida, decided to turn down the job offers from several Big 4 accounting firms and attend law school at Boston University, driven by an interest in forensic accounting.

"I was really intrigued by the legal part of that so I decided to turn down those offers and go to law school, thinking that once I came out I would have my choice of what I wanted to do with my business background and doing a business focus at law school," she says. 

Once in law school, Chaffatt quickly realized that finding a job might not be so easy after all. After the economy crashed, the coveted well-paid summer associate jobs at major law firms became scarce. She and her classmates found themselves fighting for any summer law job, many of which were unpaid.

"I thought about not completing law school, but at that point, that was my plan and I didn't know what else to do with myself," she says. "I had already turned down these positions in the finance market so I had nothing to go back to so I stayed."

After graduating in 2011, Chaffatt took the Maryland bar exam and moved to Washington, D.C., in hopes of landing a job working in financial regulation. So far, she has been unsuccessful in her search and is relying on document review jobs (where firms pay contract lawyers to help prepare for the discovery process) to pay the bills.

"I’m in this limbo where no one wants me. It’s really difficult and thank god for doc review. That’s how I support myself," she says. "As for starting a career, at this point I have no idea when I’ll start my career and what I’ll be doing once I do."

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Video game maker Kixeye is accusing Zynga of employing a desperate new strategy to keep its employees: suing its former workers.

Zynga slapped the former general manager of its popular game Cityville with a lawsuit Friday, accusing him of brazenly taking 760 files with him before he defected to Kixeye.

Kixeye spokesman Bryan Lam told Bloomberg Monday that its competitor is just suing workers who leave to "scare" employees into staying at Zynga.

"They've clearly exhausted other options in their employee retention handbook," he said.

Zynga has been pretty protective of its employees in the past. In 2010, the company settled a suit accusing Disney unit Playdom of illicitly luring its employees away, Law360 reported at the time.

More recently, video game giant Electronic Arts sued Zynga for copyright infringment. Zynga lashed back and claimed EA was just mad that Zynga had poached top executives.

The video game tug of war over talent continues.

SEE ALSO: Why An Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google Will Fail

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It's hunt or be hunted.

And as a first-time inmate arrested for conspiracy to commit burglary, then-16-year-old Daniel Miller chose to hunt.

When other inmates learned a black man propositioned Miller during his first stint inside, he had to take action so he wouldn't be ostracized by the prison gangs.

"When they found out the black homosexual had approached me talking that homosexual stuff, I was told 'Look you have to stab him or pipe him down,'" Miller recently told Business Insider about his first experiences during two decades spent in and out of prison, most recently for robbery.

"The guys were there just to make sure I actually split this guy's head open."

Those "guys" were the Aryan Brotherhood, one of the most famous and feared jailhouse gangs.

Miller, now 38, joined up when he first entered the correctional system in Kansas as a teen. He bounced around a number of different facilities before being released on Sept. 19 this year.

"At 16 years old, I wanted to be accepted in prison," he said. "I would fight everybody."

He grew so cold and so good at fighting he became the one ordering attacks on fellow inmates — something that still haunts him.

"Inside I could feel it just ripping me apart knowing I had called that shot," said Miller, who calls himself an emotional guy.

The reality of prison gang life

From what Miller told us, prison gang life is nothing like you see on TV.

It's worse.

"The black gangs don't stab very much," he said so matter-of-factly he could have been discussing the weather. "They're quick to jump on you. The Mexicans will jump on you everywhere and the whites love to pipe people down a lot."

The Muslims are the most low-key gang but can be deadly if provoked, he said.

The Muslims were known for deploying men outside their gangs – frequently white guys who "acted" black – to carry out their dirty work, including weapons and drug deals.

But it was the Mexican gangs,"by far the most violent, deadly group," that you had to watch out for, Miller said.

"When you come in, you pretty much have to clique up with the Mexicans if you're Mexican," he said. The Mexican gangs would even force sex offenders to join after first beating them up, according to Miller.

When the Mexican mafia began expanding its illegal activities into Kansas it turned the Norteños and Indian gangs — two of the biggest Mexican gangs behind bars — against the Sureños gang. The fighting became so bloody the state stopped sending Sureños men to the facility in Lansing, Kan. because they wouldn't survive, according to Miller.

Leaving the gang life

Miller finally had his fill of the gang life in 2007 when he lived next to door a black man nicknamed "40 Ounce" while at Kansas' Lansing Correctional Facility.

40 Ounce stopped a group of three men from robbing Miller's cell and wouldn't let the men retaliate when Miller beat one of them.

But after 40 Ounce gained Miller's respect, Woody, leader of the brotherhood, told Miller (or "Reno" as he was called inside), he had to smash 40 Ounce's head on orders from the Mexican gang.

"I told Woody, I said 'Man there's no honor in that," Miller said.

Woody sent three men to try to "violate" Miller after he refused the contract, but Miller turned his back on his gang and beat the men instead.

Miller ultimately left the Brotherhood to join a faith-based reentry program once he realized he was getting out soon.

"They teach you money management," Miller said of Brothers In Blue Re-Entry, Inc. "They're really big on leadership."

That program, and the support he's had from family and friends on the outside, has made all the difference this time around.

"It blew me away how much these people love me," Miller said.

This is the first story in our Surviving Prison series. Check back next week for our second story.

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A British computer hacker accused by the United States of causing more than $700,000 damage to U.S. military systems will not be extradited because of the high risk he could kill himself, Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May said on Tuesday.

Gary McKinnon, who has been fighting extradition for seven years, faced up to 60 years in a U.S. jail if found guilty of what one U.S. prosecutor called the "biggest military computer hack of all time".

McKinnon, 46, admits hacking into Pentagon and NASA computers under the pseudonym "Solo" but said he was looking for evidence of UFOs.

The former computer systems administrator has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism, and is suffering from depressive illness. He has been fighting extradition since British police arrested him in 2005.

"I have concluded that Mr. McKinnon's extradition would give rise to such a high risk of him ending his life that a decision to extradite would be incompatible with Mr. McKinnon's human rights," May told parliament.

"I have therefore withdrawn the extradition order against Mr. McKinnon."

His case was one of the most high-profile extradition decisions ever faced by the British government.

Campaigners had said it highlighted the unbalanced nature of Britain's extradition treaty with the United States, arguing it was easier to send a British suspect to the United States than the other way round.

'SERIOUSLY ILL'

Prime Minister David Cameron expressed sympathy for McKinnon before coming to power in 2011 and raised concerns over the extradition agreement with U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this year.

British legislators had demanded an overhaul of the treaty, signed in 2003 to speed up transfer of suspects between the two allies, saying it was biased in favor of the United States and failed to protect the rights of British citizens.

May said she would introduce legislation to allow British judges to block the transfer of suspects to a foreign court in extradition cases.

"I have decided to introduce a forum bar. This will mean that where prosecution is possible in both the UK and in another state, the British courts will be able to bar prosecution overseas, if they believe it is in the interests of justice to do so," May said.

U.S. officials say McKinnon accessed 97 military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002, disabling naval systems and causing more than $700,000 of damage.

May said she had taken her decision not to extradite him after studying medical reports and taking extensive legal advice.

"Mr. McKinnon is accused of serious crimes, but there is also no doubt that he is seriously ill," she said.

It would now be up to British prosecutors to decide whether McKinnon had any case to answer in a British court, May said.

There was no immediate reaction from the U.S. government or its London embassy. The decision was praised by campaigners, legislators and McKinnon's family.

"Thank you Theresa May from the bottom of my heart. I always knew you had the strength and courage to do the right thing," the BBC reported his mother Janis Sharp as saying.

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Law students are no slackers, but you have to go all the way to Waco, Texas to find the fiercest ones in the entire country.

Baylor Law School has the most competitive law students, according to The Princeton Review's recently released law school rankings.

The Review polled students on the number of hours they study and the amount of sleep they get each night to determine which school was the most competitive.

Baylor students had reputations for being go-getters before the recent rankings came out.

The school ranked fifth in the nation for trial advocacy training, in which students argue cases in front of mock judges and juries as part of national competitions, U.S. News and World Report's rankings previously found.

SEE ALSO: Law Schools Are Asking A Trade Group To Lie About The Terrible Job Market

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A 20-year-old hacker faces up to five years in prison after admitting to taking part in the theft of a trove of data on people who had entered Sony Pictures contests, Graham Cluley of nakedsecurity reports. 

Arizona native Raynalo Rivera, who used online nicknames including "neuron", "royal," and "wildicy," acknowledged that he broke into the Sony Pictures website in May 2011 and extracted confidential user information such as names, birth dates, addresses, emails, phone numbers, and passwords.

Authorities said the hack cost Sony more than $605,000.

The hacker collective LulzSec, a highly disruptive offshoot of Anonymous, subsequently published the personal information online.

Cluley notes that Rivera attempted to hide his identity by using the HideMyAss anonymising proxy service to disguise his IP address, but HideMyAss co-operated with the law enforcement when given a court order to provide the IP information.

Under his plea agreement, Rivera will pay restitution to Sony and a fine of at least $250,000 in addition to the maximum five-year prison sentence.

Computer Business Review notes that in June, two UK members of LulzSec pleaded guilty to a string of cyber attacks on high profile websites while another UK member, Ryan Cleary, was indicted by an L.A. federal grand jury.

SEE ALSO: How A Two-Bit Phone Hacker Became The Music Industry's Biggest Enemy >

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to insert itself into a battle over early voting in Ohio, handing the Obama campaign a victory weeks before the election, the AP is reporting.

The Obama campaign had challenged Ohio's attempt to cut off early voting in the three days before the election.

A federal court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals both agreed with the president, Rick Hasen reported for Slate Monday.

The state of Ohio had wanted the Supreme Court to intervene and effectively block early voting in the three days before the election for everyone but active duty military.

The Republican-dominated Ohio legislature cut off the early voting, likely because it believed early voters favored the Democrats, Hasen reported.

One early voting program, called "Souls to the Polls" bussed African-Americans from their churches the Sunday before elections.

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A U.S. District Court has ruled that even if ABC discriminates in show casting, it doesn't matter because they're protected by the First Amendment.

Back in April, Christopher Johnson and Nathaniel Claybrooks sued ABC after both tried out for the coveted role of the network's "Bachelor," and weren't selected.

The two accused the network of racial discrimination suggesting "they and other minority applicants have been denied the equal opportunity to contract to be the Bachelor or the Bachelorette."

Both men claimed this would be in direct violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981, a statuate that “prohibits intentional race discrimination in the making and enforcing of contracts involving both public and private actors

Note that through 16 seasons of "The Bachelor" and eight seasons of "The Bachelorette" there has never been a person of color as either of the titular characters.

The two allege that decision is not a mistake, suggesting ABC makes a conscious decision based on the show's "predominantly white viewership."

Despite the men's assertions, U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger ordered the motion to dismiss.

According to Trauger's ruling, though the court may find ABC responsible of prejudice, they're protected by the First Amendment right to control the show's creative content.

From the suit ruling via Deadline:  

"Thus, the court must assume, as alleged in the Amended Complaint, that the defendants did discriminate on the basis of race, that they did so to conform the content of their Shows to cater to the viewpoint of their target audience concerning interracial relationships, that the Shows’ content thereby perpetuates racial stereotypes about interracial relationships, and that the plaintiffs seek to alter/correct the defendants’ casting decision process to address that issue.  

Regardless, as discussed herein, the First Amendment protects the defendants’ ability to control the content of their own programs unilaterally … because the defendants – not the plaintiffs – are entitled to control the casting of their own programs in the manner in which they see fit." 

According to Trauger, § 1981 would force ABC to "employ race-neutral criteria in the casting process," which would also regulate the creative content of its shows.

Essentially, even if Claybrooks and Johnson are right, they will never win their case since ABC is protected by the First Amendment. 

SEE ALSO: Inside the $32 million conservatorship that controls Britney Spears' money >

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"Gun-walking" was a tactic of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) whereby agents purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell U.S. weapons to illegal straw buyers in the hopes of tracking those weapons to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arresting them.

Operation Fast and Furious (2009-2011) was the largest of several gun-walking operations that took place under a broader initiative known as Project Gunrunner (2006-2011), which was intended to reduce the flow of firearms into Mexico.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the first Fast and Furious sentencing has occurred, and the case indicates just how backward the Phoenix-based scheme turned out to be.

On Monday Danny Cruz Morones, 24, of Phoenix was given 57 months in prison after pleading guilty to acting as a straw buyer—four of the 27 AK-47s purchased by Morones were seized by Mexican military officers in Tijuana in September 2010 and six AK-47s purchased by someone that Morones recruited were seized.

So, in a nutshell, Morones was arrested for doing exactly what the ATF wanted him to do, and it gave him nearly five years in prison for doing it.

Fast and Furious wasn't supposed to be about guys like Morones—it was supposed to create a situation where the ATF wasn't "limited to investigating straw purchasers for what amounts to paperwork violations and middlemen for dealing firearms without a license, also a wrist-slap," as reported by the Houston Chronicle.

After all, a lot of straw buyers did what the ATF wanted them to do: ATF data shows that 94,000 weapons were recovered in Mexico from 2006 to 2011 and 64,000 of them were traced to the U.S.

Given that Operation Gunrunner seemed to do the opposite that it was purportedly intended to do, it's not a stretch to wonder if Operation Fast and Furious actually did exactly what it was intended to do.

SEE ALSO: High Ranking Cartel Member Says Operation Fast And Furious Was Meant To Supply Guns To The Sinaloa Cartel >

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Twitter has become one of the best places to get your news.

And legal news is no different.

These 20 Twitter all-stars tweet all the analysis of the legal world you'll ever need to know, from news on major cases to the state of voter ID laws.

We've ranked famous legal experts you'd be a fool not to follow.

But we've also included some lesser known tweeters you should follow if you really want to be in the know.

In pulling together the complete list of tweeters, we considered how adept they are at engaging their followers and analyzing the most important news of the day.

Next, we ranked those tweeters by their number of followers.

Did we forget anyone? Let us know in the comments.

20) Rick Hasen (@rickhasen)

Follower count: 2,692

Why you should follow: Hasen, a law professor at UC Irvine, runs the wildly prolific Election Law Blog.

With the 2012 presidential elections looming, Hasen blogs and tweets about important election laws, including Super PAC spending, campaign fundraising, and lobbying.

Follow here

19) Aric Press (@aricpress)

Follower count: 2,716

Why you should follow: Press is editor in chief of American Lawyer Media, which publishes The American Lawyer and The National Law Journal. He has a law degree from NYU and two decades of experience writing about the legal industry.

Press tweets about major case rulings and the state of the legal industry – commenting on partners' anxiety and whether associates are happy with their pay.

Follow here

18) Alison Frankel (@AlisonFrankel)

Follower count: 2,748

Why you should follow: Frankel is the woman behind Reuters' On the Case blog, and her razor-sharp analyses have earned her a reputation as one of the most important commenters on corporate litigation.

She has covered major litigation for 20 years. Before joining Reuters, Frankel was the founding editor at Litigation Daily.

Follow here

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The third year of law school is essentially useless, Stanford Law dean Larry Kramer said in a 2010 speech recently quoted by The New York Times.

Well, law schools are listening, and New York University Law is among them, the Times reported.

The school is expected to announce vast changes in its third-year curriculum, including the option of studying abroad—Shanghai or Buenos Aires—or working for the Environmental Protection Agency or Federal Trade Commission, according to The Times. 

Previously, the third year was reserved for elective classes, but amid a scant job market and criticism from people in the industry, NYU and others have begun taking steps to give their graduates an edge in the legal industry.

Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado and one of the major critics of the law school business, even mentioned in a July 2012 paper that the idea of getting rid of the third year wouldn't be too radical.

But Campos suggested an alternative approach would work, too.

Law schools can cut down on clinics and instead allow 3Ls to focus on external internships—that is where they would obtain practical skills for the legal world ahead, Campos wrote, suggesting a program resembling NYU's.

Of course, this cost cutting should, Campos writes hopefully, result in the elimination of the third-year tuition for the students.

SEE ALSO: Law Schools Are Asking A Trade Group To Lie About The Terrible Job Market >

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The U.S. Supreme Court issued a one-sentence decision Tuesday that will likely give the Obama campaign a boost in Ohio.

Obama sued to allow early voting the three days before the election in Ohio, and an appeals court sided with him.

The Supreme Court has guaranteed early voting can happen in Ohio by refusing to  stay the appeals court's decision.

But why would early voting in the swing state give Democrats such a boost?

Back in 2004, massive lines in Ohio discouraged poor and minority voters – people who tend to be Democrats – from sticking it out and voting, The New York Times reported at the time.

"If time is money, a long wait is sort of a poll tax, and the rich may be more able to pay for it," the Times reported.

Ohio seemed to fix the problem for the 2008 election by allowing early voting, Rick Hasen reported for Slate Monday.

But the Republican-dominated legislature got rid of early voting for all voters except members of the military and other people overseas.

Since a 2012 survey from the Military Times reveals that just about 11 percent of the troops are Democrats, it's pretty clear why Obama might have fought to maintain early voting for all Ohioans.

SEE ALSO: Scalia Explains Why Only Jews And Catholics Are On The Supreme Court

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Two whistleblowers have released a video that allegedly shows key U.S. security contractors in Kabul, Afghanistan getting drunk and high on narcotics while on the job, Cindy Galli, Rhonda Schwartz and Brian Ross of ABC News report.

The contractor in the video, Virginia-based Jorge Scientific, has won almost $1 billion in U.S. government contracts. The company's operations manual contains a "zero-tolerance for alcohol and drug use" and says all personnel must be on alert 24/7 for a possible terror attack, ABC News reports.

The military prohibits the use of alcohol or illegal drugs by U.S. contractors in Afghanistan under what is known as General Order Number One. 

There are currently more private contractors in Afghanistan than uniformed U.S. military personnel. The video will surely inflame critics of outsourcing work to contractors that was once done by the military. Government reports have found that the U.S. has wasted tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan as it squanders $1 for every $6 spent and sometimes indirectly funds the Taliban.

Two former employees, John Melson and Kenny Smith, will use the video as evidence in a lawsuit they've filed against Jorge Scientific,which claims that the actions "endangered Jorge employees, the U.S. mission, and U.S. military personnel."

The footage shows the security manager for the company slamming vodka and wrestling with another employee. Another part allegedly shows the company's medical officer glassy-eyed and unable to respond to a request for help after injecting himself with Ketamine, a prescription anesthetic.

That medical officer, Kevin Carlson, told ABC News there was "massive drug and alcohol abuse" at the Jorge Scientific facility, often led by Chris Sullivan, the company's senior on-site executive, who would carry a loaded pistol tucked into his pants.

"It was like a frat house for adults," Melson told ABC. "Some of them to the point where they were passing out, there's firearms laying around, some of them still carrying the firearms on them."

Melson and Smith worked as armed security officers in Kabul as part of a $47 million contract to train the Afghan National Police but quit in disgust and out of concern that their own safety was being compromised, according to ABC News.

"This arrogant image that Americans have worldwide, this was feeding right into it," Melson, a National Guard sergeant who served in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan before working for Jorge Scientific, told ABC News.

Furthermore, the men told ABC News that there was no oversight of the contractors. In fact, they allege that at least one female Army major was a regular at the parties and often used a room in the facility for sexual encounters. 

The Army, prompted by inquiries from ABC News, has opened a criminal investigation. 

The video will be aired this evening on "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline."

Here's the initial report:

SEE ALSO: INSPECTOR GENERAL: Money Spent In Afghanistan Is Actually Making Things Worse >

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Australian yacht designer Joe Adams was found dead in his Philippines home on Monday, The Australian is reporting.

The 81-year-old's death is being investigated by the local police.

Adams was the designer of the 1973 Sydney-Hobart yacht race winner, Helsal. He also became famous for his eponymous Adams 10 meter-class yacht.

He moved from Australia to the Alpa Village in Baguio city, a region popular with expatriates in the Philippines.

Adams was allegedly hacked to death in his home, according to a report by the Associated Press. Wounds on his hands suggest he tried to fight off his attacker(s), and that the weapon of choice was a machete. Adams was killed anywhere between late Sunday and early Monday, and was last seen walking his recently let-go Filipino maid home, as he could no longer afford to employ her.

Adams lived alone after separating from his third wife. None of his valuables were taken, although his wallet contained no money when it was found, the Associated Press reports.

Don't Miss: This Photo Of A Sunken Yacht In Antarctica Is Haunting

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In an effort to avoid getting shut down, notorious file-sharing site The Pirate Bay has moved to the cloud.

It really sounds more mystical than it is, but what the move allows TPB to do is operate through several cloud-hosting providers around the world, according to the BBC.

This also makes it practically impossible for authorities to take the site down since servers aren't all in one location and new virtual servers can be bought from the next provider if necessary.

“Moving to the cloud lets TPB move from country to country, crossing borders seamlessly without downtime," The Pirate Bay, which today called itself "The Pirate Cloud," told TorrentFreak.

SEE ALSO: Young Hacker Could Spend Half His 20s Behind Bars For Cyberattacking Sony >

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Pfizer hasn't had any luck delaying the start of a trial in a case brought by the wife of a man who killed himself after taking the anti-smoking drug Chantix, Al.com reported Tuesday.

The drug giant had sought to delay the trial – the first of about 2,600 similar consolidated cases – because of a new study it conducted that found Chantix was safe for consumers with major depressive disorder.

Without time for both sides to mull the results of Pfizer's study, the trial might be "based on a complete scientific record," according to a Pfizer motion cited by Al.com.

But an Alabama judge overseeing the massive Chantix litigation refused to delay the trial.

She pointed out that Pfizer got to choose when to make the results of the study public, which seemed to hint that Pfizer was trying to stonewall.

Chantix has been linked to a host of bizarre behavior and self-destructive fantasies.

Most recently, a lawyer for a Long Island man who faked his own death said his client's disappearing act could be related to the anti-smoking drug.

SEE ALSO: This Pfizer Anti-Smoking Drug Allegedly Made A Man Fake His Own Death 

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