The attorney for the man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood has blocked a military-ordered mental exam for his client.

John Galligan is the lead defense attorney for Maj. Nidal Hasan (nih-DAHL' hah-SAHN'). He said he gave written objections Thursday to the three-member board of military mental health professionals who will determine whether Hasan is competent to stand trial.

The panel also will determine Hasan's mental status the day of the Nov. 5 shooting that left 13 dead and nearly three dozen wounded on the Texas Army post.

Galligan said he and the panel went inside the jail to see Hasan, who signed a document saying he did not want to be evaluated at this time. Galligan said the panel also signed the document and left.

A man who took five French tourists on a police chase of an illegal airport shuttle van in New York has pleaded guilty to felony assault in exchange for a 90-day jail term.

Ian McFarlane entered the plea Thursday in Queens. McFarlane could've faced seven years in prison had he been convicted at trial. His sentencing is Jan. 12.

Neither he nor his attorney spoke publicly afterward.

Police say McFarlane and driver Khaalis Preacher directed the tourists to their van while they sought transportation to Manhattan.

As the chase began in June 2009 outside Kennedy Airport, an officer trying to stop the van from pulling off was hurt. Police arrested the men after the van crashed into a stop sign.

The Michigan appeals court says it won't review the prison sentence of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who's in prison for violating probation in a criminal case.

The decision means Kilpatrick will remain in prison at least until next summer unless another court intervenes. He was sentenced to 14 months to five years for failing to report assets and turn over more money to reduce his $1 million restitution to Detroit.

The restitution was a consequence of his 2008 guilty plea to obstruction of justice. Kilpatrick had lied at a civil trial to conceal an affair with his chief of staff, a relationship later revealed through sexually explicit text messages.

Kilpatrick attorney Arnold Reed says he's not surprised by the appeals court's rejection and may take the case to federal court.

State and federal agencies asked a federal judge Wednesday to approve a new cleanup schedule for the Hanford nuclear reservation, the nation's most polluted nuclear weapons site.

The motion filed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the state Department of Ecology would govern the complicated cleanup of underground storage tanks for the next four decades and allow federal courts to ensure the work is completed.

"This will ensure our continued progress as we work to meet our commitments to the state of Washington to protect the environment, the public and the Columbia River," U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement.

A watchdog group opposed the decree, saying it delays cleanup work for too long.

Hanford stores over 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste in 177 underground tanks, many of which have leaked. The material is left over from the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons, and Hanford workers have already spent two decades on cleanup.

The new schedule envisions four more decades of work, which provides thousands of good-paying jobs in the Tri-Cities area of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed skeptical of a $14 million judgment given to a former death row inmate who accused New Orleans prosecutors of withholding evidence to help convict him of murder.

John Thompson, who at one point was only weeks away from being executed, successfully sued the district attorney's office in New Orleans, arguing that former District Attorney Harry Connick showed deliberate indifference by not providing adequate training for assistant district attorneys.

Prosecutors normally have immunity for their actions while working, but Thompson convinced a jury that the district attorney's office had not trained its lawyers sufficiently on how to handle evidence. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was split evenly on appeal, which upheld the lower court verdict.

"They all knew what not to produce. What they didn't know was what to produce," Thompson's lawyer J. Gordon Cooney said.

But justices repeatedly questioned how much training would be enough to satisfy any new legal standard on Brady rights for prosecutors. Brady rights are named after the Supreme Court's Brady v. Maryland case, which says prosecutors violate a defendant's constitutional rights by not turning over evidence that could prove a person's innocence.

Republican Meg Whitman's former maid said Tuesday she's not a Democratic pawn in California's race for governor, but her attorney refused again to provide key details about her claims that Whitman employed her for nearly a decade despite knowing she was in the U.S. illegally.

Nicky Diaz Santillan, a Mexican who Whitman says used a fraudulently obtained Social Security card and California driver's license, dismissed claims by the GOP nominee that she was part of a Democratic smear intended to damage Whitman's standing with voters, particularly Latinos.

"I make my own decisions and I am not anyone's puppet," Diaz Santillan said in a prepared statement she read at the Los Angeles office of her attorney, Gloria Allred. "Nobody made me do it."

Allred, who has longtime Democratic ties and donated money to Brown when he ran for attorney general , has yet to disclose details about how she became involved in the case or disclose who, if anyone, is picking up the bill for her legal work.

Allred says Diaz Santillan was referred to her by another lawyer, whom she will not name. Allred didn't answer directly when asked if that lawyer had ties to Whitman's opponent, Democrat Jerry Brown, or his Democratic allies.