A federal court in Mississippi has permanently dismissed a 1971 lawsuit filed against the state over prison conditions.

The case found that a range of corporal punishment practices used against prisoners at Parchman violated the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment.

"Conditions for confinement were atrocious in 1970 and that was especially true of the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman," Mississippi corrections commissioner Christopher Epps said in a news release Wednesday. "The MDOC has worked for 40 years to alleviate these conditions with a special emphasis during the last nine years."

The court said that Mississippi has reformed its prison system to make facilities more humane and to protect inmates from such systemic abuses, according to a March 10 order.

"The final dismissal of the suit is the result of 40 years of improvements within the culture of the state prison system and good faith cooperation among the state, the federal government, and plaintiffs," Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, said Wednesday.

A Dubai lawyer has appeared in court to deny charges that he stole tens of millions of dollars from former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The lawyer, Khaled al-Muhairy, 45, a partner at a Dubai firm, is charged with breach of trust, attempted fraud and forgery charges. He pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors told the court Thursday that al-Muhairy took money from an escrow account his firm had been hired to manage in 2009.

The attorney is accused of taking $129 million, $97 million of that from Thaksin's sale of the Manchester City football club. He also stole millions to buy a villa and tried to steal millions more for a plane.

Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup and has often used Dubai as a base while in exile.

Gov. Scott Walker scored the biggest victory of his political career last week when he signed his contentious collective bargaining bill into law. Now his opponents are itching for payback, and it appears they're going to start taking out their frustrations on conservative state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser.

Prosser's re-election bid against challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg had been chugging along in the background for nearly a month as massive protests at the state Capitol consumed the media. The protests, in fact, began in earnest the night Prosser and Kloppenburg emerged from a four-way court primary.

Walker, a Republican, signed the bill into law on Friday, but it was unclear whether that will spell the end of the demonstrations. One thing is certain -- the long-range political fallout is just beginning. Walker's opponents have vowed to recall Republican state senators who supported the bill, and his supporters are seeking to recall Democratic senators who fled the state to block a vote.

The issue of whether a teen accused of stabbing his teacher to death in 2009 can stand trial as an adult will again be considered in court.

A hearing was scheduled Wednesday in Tyler for the youth, who's now 17. He is accused in the deadly attack on special education teacher Todd Henry in a classroom at John Tyler High School.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled last October that the question of the teen's competency for trial can't be determined until a mental health evaluation is completed.

His court-appointed attorney, Jim Huggler, declined comment Tuesday except to say the hearing involves further mental health issues stemming from the case.

The teen was returned to juvenile detention in Tyler in February after spending three months at the Vernon State Hospital.

An animal research technician charged with killing a Yale University graduate student days before her wedding plans to plead guilty Thursday, his attorney said.

Public defender Joseph Lopez said Raymond Clark III, who was charged with strangling 24-year-old Annie Le of Placerville, Calif., would plead guilty in New Haven Superior Court. Lopez would not specify the charges, but said it was part of a plea deal.

"We anticipate a change of plea on Thursday," Lopez said Tuesday. "This appears to be in the best interests of our client."

Prosecutor John Waddock said there was a "substantial likelihood" of a change of plea Thursday. He declined further comment.

Le's body was found stuffed behind a research lab wall on the day she was supposed to get married in September 2009.

The crime drew intense national media attention and prompted the New Haven Register to print a rare extra edition announcing Clark's arrest.

Le and her fiance, Jonathan Widawsky, planned to marry on Long Island, New York, and honeymoon in Greece. Instead, family and friends held a memorial service later that month where Le was remembered for her academic success, sense of humor, ambition, love for shoe shopping and love for her fiance.

Thirteen Somalis and a man from Yemen pleaded not guilty to piracy, kidnapping and firearms charges Tuesday in the February hijacking of a yacht that left four Americans dead.

They entered their pleas in federal court in Norfolk, where five other men convicted of piracy in a separate case last year had been sentenced to life in prison a day earlier.

"There's nothing I know about these charges. I do not admit that I was a pirate," Mohamud Salad Ali said through an interpreter Tuesday.

Each of the men requested a jury trial and all were ordered to remain jailed until then by Magistrate Judge Tommy Miller, who said they are a threat to society and a flight risk.

A trial has been set for May 17, although prosecutors want it pushed back because trying such cases is complicated.

Pirates have rarely been charged in the U.S. The case against the five Somalis sentenced Monday for attacking the USS Nicholas was the first to go to trial since the Civil War, when a New York jury deadlocked on charges against 13 Southern privateers.