USA

(AP) --- A 96-year-old U.S. federal appeals court judge was barred Wednesday from hearing cases for a year after a panel said she refused to undergo medical testing amid concerns that she is no longer mentally fit to serve on the bench.

It’s the latest development in an unusually public and bitter fight over whether Judge Pauline Newman should continue to serve on the Washington-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that has sparked a lawsuit and turned judges against one another.

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A woman walking her dog on a wooded trail in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains spooked a cow moose Wednesday and it charged, headbutting the hiker and stomping on her before she escaped back down the trail, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Authorities said the woman was taken to a hospital but they declined to provide information on the woman’s injuries or condition. They said the moose had stomped on her “several times” and that the dog had minor injuries.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Nine Memphis jail deputies have been indicted in the death of a Black man who was having a psychotic episode and died in custody last fall after jailers punched, kicked and kneeled on his back during a confrontation, a sheriff said Wednesday.

Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, who oversees the jail where 33-year-old Gershun Freeman was beaten, disclosed the existence of the indictments during a news conference Wednesday but declined to offer more details, including the names of the county jail deputies and the charges they face.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration says it’s granting temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who are already in the country — quickly making them eligible to work — as it grapples with growing numbers of people fleeing the South American country and elsewhere to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border.

MIAMI (AP) — Hurricane Nigel was moving quickly northeastward over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday as a Category 1 storm, and at the same time a potential tropical cyclone appeared to be forming off the southeastern coast of the United States.

Nigel was centered about 505 miles (815 kilometers) southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland, the National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph) and was moving northeast at 30 mph (48 kph).

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma is set to execute an inmate Thursday morning for the 1996 slaying of a University of Oklahoma dance student, a case that went unsolved for years until DNA from the crime scene matched a man serving time for burglary.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh did something Thursday he hasn’t done in the two years since his life of privilege and power started to unravel — plead guilty to a crime.

Murdaugh admitted in federal court to 22 counts of financial fraud and money laundering.

NEW YORK (AP) — Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old Australian media magnate whose creation of Fox News made him a force in American politics, is stepping down as leader of both Fox’s parent company and his News Corp. media holdings.

Fox said Thursday that Murdoch would become chairman emeritus of both companies, effective at board meetings in November. His son, Lachlan, will become News Corp. chairman and continue as chief executive officer of Fox Corp.

UNITED NATIONS, September 20. /TASS/: The US and its allies have openly meddled in Ukrainian affairs since the Soviet breakup and there’s evidence they engineered the crisis in that country, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine.

Sept 20 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a climate summit of leaders at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday that time was running out to tackle climate change, thanks in part to the "naked greed" of fossil fuel interests.

With the two-week U.N. climate summit, COP28, due to start on Nov. 29 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Guterres implored national policymakers to phase out climate-warming fossil fuels.