U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton authorized full access to the YouTube logs after Viacom Inc. and other copyright holders argued that they needed the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips.

The data would not be publicly released but disclosed only to the plaintiffs, and it would include less specific identifiers than a user's real name or e-mail address.

Lawyers for Google Inc., which owns YouTube, said producing 12 terabytes of data — equivalent to the text of roughly 12 million books — would be expensive, time-consuming and a threat to users' privacy.

The database includes information on when each video gets played, which can be used to determine how often a clip is viewed. Attached to each entry is each viewer's unique login ID and the Internet Protocol, or IP, address for that viewer's computer.

Stanton ruled this week that the plaintiffs had a legitimate need for the information and that the privacy concerns are speculative.

Stanton rejected a request from the plaintiffs for Google to disclose the source code — the technical secret sauce — powering its market-leading search engine, saying there's no evidence Google manipulated its search algorithms to treat copyright-infringing videos differently.

The court ruled Thursday that Crist doesn't have the constitutional authority to enter into the agreement that allows Las Vegas-style slot machines, black jack and other card games at facilities such as the Hard Rock Casinos in Tampa and Hollywood.

House Speaker Marco Rubio challenged the agreement after Crist signed it in November. The tribe has already given the state $50 million as part of the deal that was expected to generate at least $100 million a year for the state.

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ordered a federal evidentiary hearing for Michael Wayne Hall, who was sentenced to die for the 1998 slaying of a 19-year-old woman abducted as she rode her bicycle to work.

The panel criticized both the trial court and the state's highest criminal appeals court for relying on written arguments rather than holding an open evidentiary hearing in Hall's case.

"The facts before us are a core manifestation of a case where the state failed to provide a full and fair hearing and where such a hearing would bring out facts which, if proven true, support ... relief," the judges said.

The ruling late Monday reversed the findings of a federal district judge who upheld the state courts' rejection of defense attorneys' claims that Hall is mentally disabled. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that mentally disabled people may not be executed.

Sandy Blunt was forced out as Workforce Safety and Insurance's director last December. He had been the agency's top executive since April 2004.

Blunt is accused of illegally spending $7,200 on bonuses for Jodi Bjornson, the top lawyer at Workforce Safety and Insurance; John Halvorson, the agency's chief of employer services; and Mark Armstrong, its communications director.

He also is charged with making $11,384 in unauthorized expenditures over a number of months for food, gifts, trinkets and other items for employee meetings and functions, and on meals for state legislators.

The money paid for grill rentals, trolley rides to a meeting at Fort Lincoln State Park, four cases of peppermint patties, Fourth of July holiday items, and candy and balloons for "Bring Your Kids to Work Day," among other items.

Prosecutors say the misspending on employee gifts is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Awarding the bonuses, they say, is a lesser felony, punishable by five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The Georgia Supreme Court acknowledged with its 6-1 decision that banishing convicted criminals from the state is illegal, but it upheld a tactic by judges who ban them from living in all but one of Georgia's 159 counties.

That's what happened to Gregory Mac Terry, who was restricted from living everywhere in Georgia except rural Toombs County after he pleaded guilty in 1995 to charges he assaulted and stalked his estranged wife.

Defense attorneys call the strategy "de facto" banishment. Prosecutors say the orders are a way to rid criminals from populated areas and protect victims from repeat offenses. In Terry's case, they said, the restrictions are needed to protect his wife.

Writing for the majority, Justice Harris Hines said judges can legally skirt the ban on banishment when they restrict convicts like Terry from all but one county.

Mark Dean Schwab, 39, is scheduled to die exactly 16 years after he was sentenced in the 1991 kidnapping, rape and murder of 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez.

Florida officials say they have resolved problems with the December 2006 execution of Angel Diaz when needles were accidentally pushed through his veins, causing the lethal chemicals to go into his muscles instead, delaying his death for 34 minutes — twice as long as normal. Some experts said that would cause intense pain.

Then-Gov. Jeb Bush stopped all executions after Diaz was killed, but Florida and other states were also held up as they waited for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule the three-drug method of lethal injection used by Kentucky was constitutional. Thirty-four other states, including Florida, use a similar method.

Florida's new procedure requires the warden to make sure the inmate is unconscious following the injection of the first chemical, sodium pentothal. Then the executioner will inject pancuronium bromide to paralyze his muscles and potassium chloride to stop his heart. It also requires people with medical training to be involved in the process.

Schwab and his attorneys aren't so sure the problems are fixed. An analysis done for Schwab's lawyers showed that nine of the 30 mock executions performed by Florida's Department of Corrections between September 2007 and May were failures, said one of his state-paid attorneys, Mark Gruber.

The corrections department said its mock exercises have included preparation for potential problems such as a combative inmate, the incapacity of an execution team member, power failure and finding a vein.