Popular Elsewhere
A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.
, according to the Australian's most popular story. The story explains an Australian Defence Force Academy cadet has alleged a webcam was used to broadcast on Skype her having sex with a male cadet to six cadets in another room. Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith said the Australian Defence Force would not tolerate conduct that was sexist, vilified women or was indecent or uncivilised.
The Guardian's most read story puts forward some theories about the . Tim Jonze traces her big break down to a YouTube user called xxxxWGDxxxx. They . Mr Jonze explains that the video was soon being passed around feverishly by music fans, normally with some accompanying text saying something along the lines of "wow". "There was something about the way the 22-year-old stood there and sang, displaying diva-like confidence yet wearing her heartache on her sleeve, that proved she had matured as an artist since the modest success of her debut album, 19" he says. A myriad of reasons, primarily her record label, led to her breaking the record for the longest time at number one in the UK album chart by a female solo artist.
The New York Times' most read story reports that security experts warn that after a "giant" security breach at an online marketing firm. The breach exposed the e-mail addresses of customers of some of the US's largest companies, including JPMorgan Chase and Citibank. In some cases customer names were also stolen. The story goes on to say that while the number of people affected is unknown, security experts say that based on the businesses involved, the breach may be among the largest ever.
Meanwhile, proving popular on China's Xinhua Net is a reported . According to the article so-called packaged attack frameworks are rapidly growing as the top cybercrime weapon. They can be traded online and are popular due to ease of use and high success rates.
Slate's most read story retells the tale of "". It bills the judgement as "cruel but not unusual".
The story starts in 1985 when John Thompson was convicted of murder in Louisiana:
"Having already been convicted in a separate armed robbery case, he opted not to testify on his own behalf in his murder trial. He was sentenced to death and spent 18 years in prison - 14 of them isolated on death row - and watched as seven executions were planned for him. Several weeks before an execution scheduled for May 1999, Thompson's private investigators learned that prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence that would have cleared him at his robbery trial. This evidence included the fact that the main informant against him had received a reward from the victim's family, that the eyewitness identification done at the time described someone who looked nothing like him, and that a blood sample taken from the crime scene did not match Thompson's blood type."
Slate brings us up to the present day as this week Justice Clarence Thomas tossed out the verdict, finding that the district attorney can't be responsible for the single act of a lone prosecutor.