Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was ordered to remain in pre-trial detention for eight weeks Monday during a closed court hearing in which he was cut off from making statements irrelevant to the case, a judge said.

The 32-year-old right-wing extremist has confessed to setting off a bomb in downtown Oslo and massacring dozens at an island youth camp outside the city, killing 77 people on July 22.

The Oslo District Court approved a police request to keep Breivik in custody on terror charges for another eight weeks — four of them in solitary confinement — as they prepare a formal indictment.

Judge Anne Margrethe Lund said she stopped Breivik "on a few occasions" when he tried to make statements during the court hearing, his third since being arrested following the carnage on Utoya island.

"He wanted to communicate something to the court. It wasn't relevant for the decision that was to be made today and therefore he wasn't allowed to say anything further," Lund told reporters after the hearing.

Breivik's defense lawyer Geir Lippestad also told reporters that his client tried to address the court but declined to give details, citing a gag order.

The ruling means police can continue to hold Breivik in custody until Nov. 14 when a new detention hearing will be held. But they can only hold him in isolation until Oct. 17 because decisions on solitary confinement must be reviewed every four weeks.

A North Carolina woman will spend up to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to murdering her disabled 10-year-old stepdaughter, nearly a year after freckle-faced Zahra Baker's disappearance and death shocked communities here and in her native Australia.

Elisa Baker, 43, entered the courtroom wearing a hot-pink jail jumpsuit and handcuffs. She sat between two defense attorneys and teared up before pleading guilty to second-degree murder, with aggravating factors that included desecrating the body of Zahra Baker, who used a prosthetic leg and hearing aids after a struggle with bone cancer.

Elisa Baker also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in the case, and to charges unrelated to Zahra's death, including obtaining property by false pretenses, financial identity fraud and bigamy.

Adam Baker, Zahra's father and Elisa's husband, was present in the courtroom in Newton, about 60 miles northwest of Charlotte. Adam Baker, who came to the U.S. with his daughter after meeting Elisa online, faces multiple criminal charges of his own, although none are related to his daughter's death.

Zahra's biological mother, Emily Dietrich, flew in from Australia for the hearing. She cried when she heard details of her daughter's gruesome death.

Elisa Baker's guilty plea comes almost a year after Zahra was reported missing from her home in Hickory. Initially, she and Adam told police they believed their daughter had been kidnapped, but that story quickly unraveled as police arrested Elisa and charged her with forging a ransom note.

Illinois Supreme Court justices questioned prosecutors Thursday about evidence in the rape conviction of a man who says he was tortured into confessing by Chicago police officers.

In oral arguments in a case with potentially far-reaching impact on how Illinois deals with police torture cases — and one that could lay the groundwork for similar appeals by as many as 20 other inmates — prosecutors argued that the state had enough evidence to convict inmate Stanley Wrice without the confession he claims to have given only after being tortured by officers under the command of notorious Lt. Jon Burge 30 years ago.

But the justices pressed Special Prosecutor Myles O'Rourke about the strength of the state's other evidence, noting that there was no DNA or fingerprints introduced at trial when Wrice was convicted.

Wrice is asking the high court for a new hearing on his long-standing torture claims. The outcome of the case is being closely monitored by about 20 other inmates who say Burge's officers forced them to confess to crimes they didn't commit, and lawyers and experts say the case could lay the groundwork for similar appeals by those inmates.

In her appearance before the court, Wrice attorney Heidi Lambros made an impassioned plea to the justices to take a stand against "the very bad blight from Jon Burge and these torture cases."

"This court should not tolerate the torture of its citizens within its walls," Lambros said.

Burge is serving a 4 ½-year sentence in federal prison following his conviction last year of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying in a civil suit when he said he'd never witnessed or participated in the torture of suspects.