A federal appeals court struck down one of the nation's toughest abortion restrictions on Wednesday, ruling that women would be unconstitutionally burdened by an Arkansas law that bans abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy if a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat.
   
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with doctors who challenged the law, ruling that abortion restrictions must be based on a fetus' ability to live outside the womb, not the presence of a fetal heartbeat that can be detected weeks earlier. The court said that standard was established by previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

The ruling upholds a decision of a federal judge in Arkansas who struck down the 2013 law before it could take effect, shortly after legislators approved the change. But the federal judge left in place other parts of the law that required doctors to tell women if a fetal heartbeat was present; the appeals court also kept those elements in place.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office was reviewing the decision "and will evaluate how to proceed," office spokesman Judd Deere said Wednesday afternoon.

The ruling wasn't a surprise to Rita Sklar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, which represented the two doctors challenging the law. She said the case was a waste of taxpayer time, and that the decision leaves medical decisions to doctors and their patients, rather than politicians.

A federal appeals panel has refused to disqualify a court-appointed monitor after a judge found Apple colluded with book publishers in 2010 to raise electronic book prices.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled against Apple Inc. Thursday. The three-judge panel concluded that a judge did not act improperly when she declined Apple's request to disqualify a monitor she had appointed to evaluate Apple's antitrust policies.

A lawyer for Apple, based in Cupertino, California, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The 2nd Circuit did not yet rule on a separate appeal in which Apple is challenging the judge's finding that it colluded with publishers.

After a 2013 civil trial, a judge ordered the technology giant to modify contracts with publishers to prevent price fixing.

Marion "Suge" Knight's lawyer argues that a murder case against the former rap music mogul should be dismissed because one of the men he allegedly ran over earlier this year didn't identify him in court.

Attorney Matt Fletcher contends in a motion filed before a hearing Friday that murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run charges filed against the Death Row Records co-founder should be thrown out based on the testimony of a man seriously injured in January. Knight has pleaded not guilty to running over Cle "Bone" Sloan and another man who died from his injuries.

Sloan refused to identify Knight while testifying during a preliminary hearing last month, but gave detectives a lucid account after being struck by Knight's pickup and said he started a fight in the parking lot of a Compton burger stand in late January.

A response filed by prosecutor Cynthia Barnes points to Sloan's statements to detectives and other evidence to support their case, including Knight's unique nickname, "Suge."

Fletcher contends that is not enough.

"There is nowhere in this transcript that Mr. Sloan ever identifies Marion Knight, the defendant, as a murderer," Fletcher wrote. "There is nowhere in the entire transcript that Mr. Sloan even identifies Marion Knight as a driver of the red truck in question; the red truck that hit the victims."

The 50-year-old Knight is charged with running over the two men outside a Compton burger stand. Fletcher has said his client was fleeing an ambush. A trial in the case has been scheduled for July 7.

Knight is also scheduled for a hearing in a separate robbery case that a judge delayed. The former rap mogul told deputies he was too sick to come to court, but Superior Court Judge Ronald Coen said he would order Knight forcibly brought to court on Friday if necessary.