"Policyholders have every right to expect fair and honest treatment from their insurers," McCollum says. "We will continue to aggressively demand accountability and transparency from the insurance industry in Florida."

Travelers allegedly conspired with Marsh & McLennan and other brokers to create the illusion of a competitive bidding process by submitting fake bids even though the brokers had already determined which insurer would receive a particular policyholder's business, according the Florida officials.

Travelers paid "contingent commissions" to these brokers, and these commissions were not disclosed to policyholders, officials say.

The Florida Attorney General's Office, Department of Financial Services and Office of Insurance Regulation will receive a combined $1.1 million of the settlement. The money will fund a reimbursement pool for affected public entity policyholders and repay the state agencies' costs of investigation.

In addition to the financial settlement, Travelers has agreed to a consent decree and final judgment that will provide comprehensive injunctive relief, including a requirement to disclose compensation that Travelers pays to insurance brokers.

Travelers also will be required to disclose to all customers and prospective policyholders the ranges and averages of payments it made to insurance brokers on specific lines of insurance.

The consent decree and final judgment will be filed in Leon County Circuit Court this week.

Travelers has cooperated with the multistate task force and will provide assistance to the states as they continue their investigation of insurance brokers and other insurers. The company has already reimbursed a nationwide group of policyholders for overcharges and has adopted significant business reforms that govern its bidding and underwriting practices.

In addition to Florida, the following states following seven states and the District of Columbia participated in the investigation and settlement: Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

David Barron, 29, filed an appeal on behalf of two Kentucky death row inmates, arguing that the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections across the country can cause excruciating pain, and thus amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

After three years of long hours on Barron's part, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case on Jan. 7.

"I can't believe I've got a case before the Supreme Court and I'm not even 30 years old," Barron said.

This is the first time in more than a century that the high court will address the legality of a method of execution. Thirty-six states use lethal injection, and executions across the U.S. have come to a halt in the meantime.

Barron, an assistant public defender, arrived in Kentucky in 2004, just over a year out of law school, to represent some of the worst of the worst — death row inmates. He was admitted to the Kentucky bar in July of that year, and filed his lethal-injection challenge the following September, employing a strategy he had tested out in other jurisdictions.

He was paired with John Palombi, a fellow public defender with at least a decade of experience.

The challenge was brought on behalf of convicted cop killer Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling, who was found guilty of killing a couple. Barron lost the cruel-and-unusual argument at a trial and at the Kentucky Supreme Court. But he kept pushing the case, hoping to keep his clients alive a bit longer.

He beat long odds: The Supreme Court gets as many as 7,000 petitions a year but agrees to hear only 100 to 150 cases.

Lethal injections have come under legal attack around the country in recent years, with experts and others arguing that it is not the humane, painless method of execution it was supposed to be.

Legal experts said the Kentucky case apparently got the attention of the high court because it arrived fully developed — it went through a full-blown trial with more than 20 witnesses, who argued both sides of the question of whether inmates suffer extreme pain while immobilized, unable to cry out.

Death penalty proponent Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said the case gives the Supreme Court "a clear shot at the merits of the injection question."

"The trial court took extensive testimony, building a substantial record. That makes a better case for review than one decided summarily in the trial court," Scheidegger said.

The challenge is the ninth case the Kentucky's public defenders have gotten before the high court in the past three decades. Among the others was the landmark 1986 ruling Batson v. Kentucky, in which the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional to dismiss a juror because of his race.

Barron works in the public defender's capital post-conviction unit, a corps of 10 attorneys who handle appeals for Kentucky's 38 death row inmates.

The unit's chief is the only one who has ever argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, for this case, the public defender's office is bringing in Donald Verrilli, a Washington lawyer who frequently appears before the high court, to argue the challenge.

Such a move is not uncommon. Only those who are admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court can argue before the justices.

The shaggy-haired Barron — a Billerica, Mass., native who received a law degree from Brooklyn Law School in 2003 — can be found in his office at nearly all hours. His office is about the size of a walk-in closet and is so cluttered that Barron must move boxes and books for visitors to sit down.

Barron is a hardcore Boston Red Sox fan, papering his office door with pictures and headlines. He draws professional hope from the way the Red Sox finally won the World Series after 86 years of futility.

"There's something to be said about representing the people who society casts aside," Barron said. "They are the ones often left to fend for themselves."

Public defenders work one of the lowest rungs of the legal profession, one that is often not very highly regarded by other lawyers. Many young lawyers right out of law school often get their start as public defenders, and often race from case to case with barely enough time to read the file, much less do the in-depth investigation attorneys in private practice can do.

Public defenders have traditionally received little funding, particularly in the South. Kentucky has one of the lowest-funded offices in the country.

The starting pay for most Kentucky's public defenders is about $38,000 a year.

Kentucky spends about $33.5 million in 2005 (the last year for which numbers were available) on a population of 4.1 million. That's about $8.14 per person for public defense — 23rd among the 30 state-run public defender offices nationally. Oregon leads the nation at $23.75 spent per person.

"It's an uphill battle," said Ernie Lewis, head of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy. "We can't provide an O.J. defense."

A legal battle is shaping up in California involving a Chinese startup that makes equipment used to produce semiconductors.

Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC), of Shanghai, was sued in California by Applied Materials, which claims the company misappropriated its trade secrets. But lawyers for the Chinese company asked the judge to dismiss the suit, arguing the U.S. court has no jurisdiction over AMEC's activities.

AMEC's motion for dismissal will be heard by Judge James Ware of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, on Feb. 11.

Applied's lawsuit, filed in October and amended last month, claims AMEC used its trade secrets to develop etch and CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposit) tools that are used to make chips. AMEC's tools will compete against similar products from Applied, which cost millions of dollars each. Applied is seeking an injunction from the court to prevent the misappropriation of its trade secrets and wants punitive damages as well as a declaration that it owns patent applications recently filed by AMEC.

Applied identified four former employees in the suit, including AMEC founders Gerald Yin and Aihua Chen.

Applied's amended complaint describes Yin, who left Applied in 2004 to start AMEC, as a former corporate vice president and chief technology officer who "managed the etch product group and had broad access to Applied confidential information and trade secrets concerning its etch tools." In addition, the complaint says Chen at one point served as general manager of Applied's CVD product group and had access to proprietary technology related to those tools.

To bolster its case against AMEC, Applied noted that the former employees identified in the lawsuit signed agreements that give Applied all rights to inventions made during their employment, and prevent them from using Applied's confidential information for anyone else's benefit. Under the agreement, any patents filed by the former employees within one year of leaving Applied are "presumed to have been conceived or made during their employment with Applied and would belong to Applied."

As a result, Applied's complaint lays claim to two AMEC patent applications filed in China on August 5, 2005, that name Yin and other former Applied employees as inventors. These patents should belong to Applied as the patent applications were made "one year and three days after Yin left applied" and therefore must be based on information that Yin disclosed to AMEC during the one year period, the complaint said.

AMEC subsequently filed patent claims in Japan and the U.S. based on the Chinese patent applications. Applied's complaint also claims these patent applications as its own, noting Applied filed its own patent applications covering the same technologies.

In response, AMEC's motion to dismiss argues that the U.S. court has no jurisdiction over the Chinese company.

"In this case, there is no jurisdiction over AMEC Inc., because the allegations of the (amended complaint) relate exclusively to actions that took place in China. None of Applied's claims arises out of allegations concerning contact with California," the motion said, adding any legal action by Applied against AMEC should be heard in a Chinese court instead.

The class-action lawsuit relates to the search engines running adverts from online gambling sites, which HBSS claims made them hundreds of millions of dollars even though against California law.

The case is to be heard on February 11 and will test the liability of these companies in California as HBSS is to ask the Court to further restrict their ability to advertise in the future.

'We believe these companies have been profiting from this illegal practice for more than a decade and we believe the agreement with the Government does not go far enough,' said Reed Kathrein, Lead Attorney for HHBS.

'The settlements are a great victory and a tacit admission by these online advertisers but there is still more work to do in holding these companies accountable for the harm they have done to Californians and to keep them and others from continuing these practices.

'Given the amounts the huge profits we believe they made, we believe these relatively small forfeiture penalties will not deter them or others in the future.'

Kathrein stated that the lawsuit calls for the websites to pay relief and acknowledge that the practice of advertising online casinos in the state is illegal.

The complaint also calls for disgorgement of profits earned from online advertisers, a figure that could exceed hundreds of millions of dollars and benefit education and rehabilitation efforts aimed at gambling addiction.

This latest lawsuit follows late-December’s $31.5 million settlement with the Federal Government by Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft over claimed online gambling advertising infringements.

The plaintiffs, Kathleen Hanni of Napa, Calif., and Catherine Ray of Fayetteville, Ark., want courts to certify the cases as class actions covering thousands of passengers stranded on American flights when severe weather temporarily shut Dallas/Fort Worth airport on Dec. 29, 2006, forcing flights to go to other airports.

Both women's flights were diverted to Austin. The complaints allege passengers suffered hunger, thirst, illness, emotional distress and financial losses when American (AMR) failed to supply the planes with food or water, empty the toilets or let passengers off.

The complaints were filed in state courts last week in Napa and Fayetteville.

American spokesman John Hotard declined to comment on the complaints, saying he had not seen them. He noted that since December 2006, American has implemented new procedures designed to prevent recurrences. Those include a guideline limiting ground delays to four hours when possible and letting passengers deplane when it is safe to do so.

Hotard said a record number of American flights were diverted Dec. 29, 2006, because of severe thunderstorms.

"That was our largest weather disruption, ever, and we handled it the best we could," he said. "I think we have fixed the problem and lawsuits are not necessary."

The cases come amid public and congressional calls for stronger regulation of how airlines treat customers. A New York law that would penalize airlines for holding passengers on planes without food and water took effect Tuesday, and the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would force airlines to provide essential needs to stranded fliers.

"We're looking for justice for the passengers," Hanni said in an interview Monday.

After her experience, she founded Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill Of Rights.

Class actions against airlines when no crash is involved are unusual but not unprecedented. In 2001, Northwest Airlines (NWA) settled a similar class-action lawsuit by paying $7.1 million to passengers held aboard grounded planes in Detroit for up to eight hours during a January 1999 blizzard.

Aviation lawyer Jon Schneider of Boston said proving false imprisonment will be "a stretch."

"The passengers voluntarily boarded the plane," he said. "They will have to demonstrate the airline was completely unreasonable. I think the airline's response will be that they didn't do it intentionally."

Hanni's complaint says the captain told passengers American's management would not allow the plane to go to a gate. It says that after 9 hours 17 minutes, the captain declared an emergency so he could go to a gate.

During the delay, passengers received only a bag of pretzels and a cup of water, and the plane's toilets overflowed, it says.

Hanni said American later gave her a $500 coupon for a future flight. She said she hasn't used it.

The appeals court is stopping any transfer while it considers Ahmed Belbacha's request that he not be returned to his home country.

Belbacha was brought to Guantanamo Bay in 2002 from Pakistan. He had been an accountant at the Algerian government's oil company, Sonatrach.

Belbacha said that after he was recalled for a second term of service in the Algerian army, he was targeted with death threats by terrorists in Groupe Islamique Armee, then at the height of a violent campaign for an Islamic Algeria.

Belbacha never reported for duty, but he said the GIA visited his home at least twice and threatened him and his family. He left the country, traveling to France, England, Pakistan and Afghanistan before being taken into custody and sent to Guantanamo Bay.

The U.S. military has classified Belbacha as an enemy combatant, saying he associated with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The U.S. government said he is eligible for transfer subject to appropriate diplomatic arrangements for another country to take him.

Belbacha's lawyer, David Remes, said he went to court after hearing from a confidential source that Belbacha was to be sent to Algeria.