A Missouri appeals court judge was appointed Monday to take over Ferguson's municipal court and make "needed reforms" after a highly critical U.S. Department of Justice report that was prompted by the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown.

The Missouri Supreme Court said it is assigning state appeals Judge Roy L. Richter to hear all of Ferguson's pending and future municipal court cases. The high court said Richter also will have the authority to overhaul court policies to ensure defendants' rights are respected and to "restore the integrity of the system."

Ferguson Municipal Judge Ronald J. Brockmeyer resigned Monday, saying through a spokesman that he was stepping down to promote public confidence in the court and help Ferguson "begin its healing process."

The Ferguson City Council met in closed session Monday evening, but members left without taking questions and a city spokesman didn't disclose the purpose of the meeting. Ferguson City Manager John Shaw was escorted to his vehicle by a police officer without fielding questions, and Mayor James Knowles III declined comment to The Associated Press afterward except to say that the city on Tuesday would begin seeking Brockmeyer's permanent successor.

Richter will take charge of the court on March 16. The Supreme Court said it also is assigning staff from the state court administrator's office to aid Richter in reviewing Ferguson's municipal court practices.

Former rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight told a judge that he is suffering from blindness and other health complications moments before he was taken to a hospital Monday morning.

Knight told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Brandlin that he had fired attorneys handling his murder case and was receiving inadequate medical treatment while in custody.

The Death Row Records co-founder said he was blind in one eye and had only about 15 percent vision in his other eye during a brief court appearance on Monday. Knight said he was having difficulty comprehending the proceedings and told the judge he had been shot six times last year and had a blood clot in his lungs and other complications. He also said he had lost 35 pounds as a result of his injuries.

Brandlin transferred Knight's case to another judge, and he was taken for medical care before his case could be called in Judge Ronald Coen's courtroom. Coen said before calling the case that Knight had been taken to a hospital, but he did not elaborate.

Knight has pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run charges after he struck two men with his truck, killing one, on Jan. 29. He remains held without bail.

A federal judge in Chicago ruled Wednesday that a bankrupt division of Caesars Entertainment Corp. can tap some of the $847 million in cash it has on hand for at least five weeks.

Judge Benjamin Goldgar said Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. could access its cash in the interim despite objections from some of the company's creditors.

A budget the company submitted to the court indicated it plans to spend $334 million through April 3. The documents showed revenue is expected to offset spending and leave the company with $834 million in cash at the end of five weeks.

Goldgar scheduled a hearing to reconsider the motion on March 26.

Several other motions, including requests for an examiner to investigate the company's pre-bankruptcy transactions, were delayed until March 25.

The company was also seeking to get out from under several contracts that would save it $675,000 a month.

Among the contracts is a suite for Kansas City Chiefs football games, a sponsorship with the New York Mets, an advertising agreement with The Forum in Los Angeles, and deals with a tour bus operator to support its Horseshoe Bossier City casino in Louisiana and a nearby Springhill Suites hotel operator where the company regularly reserved a block of rooms.

An HIV-positive man who told a partner that they could safely have unprotected sex should face a misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge, not a felony, New York's highest court ruled Thursday.

The Court of Appeals said Terrance Williams didn't expose his partner "out of any malevolent desire" to give him the virus that causes AIDS, though he lied about having the infection and his partner did get sick. The court said the Syracuse man didn't show "depraved indifference," which is necessary to support the felony charge.

The judges declined to decide whether HIV infection no longer "creates a grave and unjustifiable risk of death" because of advances in medical treatment. Two lower courts had reached that conclusion while knocking down the felony indictment to the lesser charge.

The felony could have sent Williams to prison for seven years. He still faces the misdemeanor and a possible year in jail if convicted.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Nebraska to pay Kansas $5.5 million in a long-running legal dispute over use of water from the Republican River.

The justices also gave Nebraska some of what it asked for and ordered changes to the formula for measuring water consumption. Nebraska argued that the formula was unfair.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing the majority opinion, said the court was adopting the recommendations of the independent expert the justices appointed to help resolve the states' differences.

The dispute centers on a 1943 compact allocating 49 percent of the river's water to Nebraska, 40 percent to Kansas and 11 percent to Colorado. Since 1999, Kansas has complained that Nebraska uses more than its fair share of water from the river, which originates in Colorado and runs mostly through Nebraska before ending in Kansas.

"Both remedies safeguard the compact; both insist that states live within its law," Kagan wrote.

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson's office said it was pleased with the decision. The $5.5 million award is significantly less than the $80 million that Kansas had sought.

"We hope the decision will move the basin states forward and provide continued incentives toward shared solutions to our common problems," the office said in a statement. "We are confident that payment of the court's recommended award will finally allow us to leave the past where it belongs — in the past."

While calling the decision "reasonable," Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said he looked forward to working with his Kansas and Colorado counterparts to move forward.

An appeals court has ruled that the birth control coverage required by federal health care reforms does not violate the rights of several religious groups because they can seek reasonable accommodations.
 
Two western Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses and a private Christian college had challenged the birth control coverage mandates and won lower-court decisions. However, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court ruling Wednesday said the reforms place "no substantial burden" on the religious groups and therefore don't violate their First Amendment rights.

All three groups — the college and the Pittsburgh and Erie dioceses — are mulling whether to appeal to the entire 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Such a ruling should cause deep concern for anyone who cares about any First Amendment rights, especially the right to teach and practice a religious faith," Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik said in a statement. "This decision says that the church is no longer free to practice what we preach."

At issue is an "accommodation" written into the Affordable Care Act that says religious organizations can opt out of directly providing and paying to cover medical services such groups would consider morally objectionable. In this case, that refers to all contraceptive and abortion services for the Catholic plaintiffs, and contraceptive services like the "week-after" pill and other medical coverage that Geneva College contends violate its anti-abortion teachings. The school in Beaver Falls is affiliated with the Reformed Presbyterian Church.

Justice Department lawyers have argued the accommodation solves the problem because it allows religious groups to opt out of directly providing such coverage. But the plaintiffs contend that merely filing the one-page form, which puts a religious group's objections on record with the government, violates their rights because it still "facilitates" or "triggers" a process that then enables third-party insurers to provide the kind of coverage to which they object.