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.