A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments over whether Arkansas can stop making desegregation payments to Little Rock-area schools more than 50 years after troops escorted nine black students into an all-white school.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis will begin hearing arguments Monday about whether a judge erred in May by cutting most of the $70 million that the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County districts receive to help them racially balance their schools.

The payments are part of a 1989 settlement after the Little Rock schools accused the other districts and the state of not doing enough to help them desegregate.

The state argues that the payments are no longer necessary.

A federal appeals court has thrown out the 17-year prison sentence imposed on convicted terrorism plotter Jose Padilla.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the sentence imposed by a Miami federal judge was too lenient. The appeals court sent the case back for a new sentencing hearing.

Padilla and two co-conspirators were convicted in 2007 after a three-month trial in which prosecutors said they sent money, recruits and supplies to Islamic extremist groups including al-Qaida. The appeals ruling upheld all the convictions.

Padilla was arrested in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on suspicion of plotting to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb." He was held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant without a criminal charge.

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.