A U.S. district court judge has given the Department of Defense less than two weeks to convince him to halt the public release of thousands of never-before-seen inmate photos taken inside Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison while American forces operated it.

Six dozen Iraqis who were imprisoned by Americans at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere during the Iraq War sued a private U.S. contractor that provided employees to the prison. According to the NYT, "The plaintiffs complained of 'heinous acts' and torture at the hands of military and contractor personnel, including rape and sexual assault, beatings, forced nudity, humiliation and isolation." Not to worry, though—they are being fairly compensated for their discomfort.

According to Time magazine, a special prosecutor tasked with investigating CIA personnel for torturing and murdering detainees during the Bush Administration has convened a grand jury and started issuing subpoenas.

Democrats in Texas seem to be excited about this: They've convinced retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison. Sanchez described himself to McClatchy over the phone, saying, "I decided that socially, I'm a progressive, a fiscal conservative and a strong supporter, obviously, of national defense." He added that, "America has a responsibility to its people."

Well, this was inevitable, what with Israel's political situation, and the existence of Facebook: a former Israeli soldier has posted some photos of herself posing with blindfolded Palestinians, for kicks. Mini-Abu Ghraib?

Times Magazine interview condenser Deborah Solomon is her usual condescending self in her interview with actual criminal, torture memo author, and terrible lawyer John Yoo. But this guy deserves way, way worse than Solomon's bored contempt.

Here is conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart justifying his hilarious ACORN expose:

What a mess. The Daily Telegraph reported on Thursday that Major General Antonio Taguba had seen the Abu Ghraib photos Barack Obama's trying to suppress, and that they were really, really bad. Now Salon's reporting that Taguba hadn't actually seen them. This is ugly.

The British tabloids don't mind single-sourcing and getting things a bit wrong in the name of a good story, so who are we to believe when the Pentagon—they lie about everything—denies a Telegraph story? Are there terrible rape photos Obama refuses to release, or...?

A new report says that unreleased photos of abuse by the U.S. military, the same photos Barack Obama refused to release a few weeks ago, contain graphic images of rape, torture and sexual abuse perpetrated by American soldiers.

Funny and sucky things happen when ads on websites get juxtaposed with content that the advertisers wouldn't like to have associated with their products. For example: Panasonic Toughbooks are super tough computers. One reviewer says they can take anything—"That includes being dropped from almost a metre, being showered with water, being thrown in the mud and being dragged through dust and sand. It's therefore no surprise that ToughBooks are used by the US military." So maybe appearing right next to these torture photos from Abu Ghraib on WIRED's site really was a good branding opportunity. Ehhh... some things just don't sell well. (Click to enlarge). [WIRED]