A state judicial panel is recommending that Montana’s Republican attorney general be suspended from practicing law for 90 days for openly defying court orders and repeatedly attacking the integrity of justices in his defense of a law permitting the state’s Republican governor to directly fill judicial vacancies.

The law at issue was part of a nationwide GOP effort to forge a more conservative judiciary and was eventually upheld by Montana’s Supreme Court.

Both sides have up to 30 days to object to Wednesday’s recommendation by the five-member Commission on Practice and another 30 days to respond to objections before the Supreme Court hands down its decision. Five of Montana’s seven justices filed motions Thursday to recuse themselves from ruling on the punishment, meaning they would likely be replaced by state District Court judges.

If Austin Knudsen’s license is suspended it could affect his ability to do his job as attorney general, officials said. The state Constitution requires the attorney general to be “an attorney in good standing admitted to practice law in Montana who has engaged in the active practice thereof for at least five years before election.”

Department of Justice spokeswoman Emilee Cantrell said the office disagrees with the recommended punishment and intends to file an objection. The office instead supports a 2022 special counsel investigation recommendation that suggested “this could have been handled privately, avoiding a politically charged disagreement.” The judicial panel had rejected that recommendation.

In its findings, the panel said there was no doubt actions by the attorney general’s office “repeatedly, consistently and undeniably,” violated professional conduct rules and are “arguably deserving of the most serious consequences.”

They also dismissed a suggestion that holding Knudsen “accountable for his conduct may have further consequences,” because its only focus was on whether his conduct violated the Montana Rules of Professional Conduct.

In court filings, Knudsen’s office had accused state Supreme Court justices of judicial misconduct, corruption, self-dealing, “actual impropriety,” and having a conflict of interest.

The judicial panel noted that Knudsen acknowledged during a hearing earlier this month that a lot of things should have been done differently in representing the Legislature over the extent of its subpoena powers.

“If I had this to do over, I probably would not have allowed language like this — so sharp — to be used,” Knudsen testified. However, the panel also noted that Knudsen repeatedly refused to admit that any of his actions or language in court filings violated professional conduct rules.

The issue dates back to 2021 when the Legislature was working on a law to eliminate the Judicial Nomination Commission, which screened judicial applicants.

Lawmakers learned a Supreme Court administrator used state computers to survey judges about the legislation on behalf of the Montana Judges Association.

After the court administrator said she had deleted emails related to the survey, the Legislature subpoenaed the Department of Administration, which includes the state’s IT department, and received 5,000 of the administrator’s emails by the next day. The court administrator didn’t learn about the subpoena until after the emails had been turned over to the Legislature in April 2021.

The Supreme Court temporarily quashed the subpoena that same month — an order the attorney general’s office said it “does not recognize” — and in July 2021 ordered the emails be returned immediately. The attorney general’s office didn’t return the emails until March and April of 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Knudsen’s office defied the court order without seeking a stay, something the panel called “beyond the pale.”

This isn’t the only controversy marking Knudsen’s nearly four years in office. He is seeking reelection.

He was accused of pressuring a Helena hospital over its refusal to administer a parasite drug to a COVID-19 patient and his office also sided with a man who made an armed threat over a pandemic mask mandate. He tried to block three constitutional initiatives from the November ballot, recruited a token opponent for the June primary so he could raise more money, and was sued after forcing the head of the Montana Highway Patrol to resign.

A recent Supreme Court decision doesn’t mean New York can’t enforce laws banning firearms from “sensitive” places such as public transportation, hospitals and schools, a federal appeals court said Thursday, repeating findings it made a year ago.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan wrote that it had complied with a high court request that it review its December 2023 decision in light of a June ruling by the Supreme Court in another gun case.

The Supreme Court also asked seven other state and federal courts to reexamine their decisions, the 2nd Circuit noted.

The appeals court said the Supreme Court case involved a regulation of firearms “quite different” than New York’s.

Last December, a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit said New York could continue enforcing laws banning firearms in 20 categories of “sensitive” locations and could require handgun owners to be of “good moral character.”

It also disallowed a requirement that handgun license applicants reveal their social media accounts and blocked a ban on concealed weapons in places such as shops, supermarkets and restaurants.

In 2022, the Supreme Court struck down New York’s old rules, which had restricted guns being carried outside the home to people who could show they had a special need for protection.

A New York gun law passed after that decision made it easier for more people to get handgun licenses but also restricted where guns could be carried. The law, which was passed after a white supremacist killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, also banned guns in places such as zoos, playgrounds, schools, theaters, bars, voting locations, buses and airports.

In a footnote, the 2nd Circuit said its ruling comes “at a very early stage of this litigation.”

It said its decision does not determine the ultimate constitutionality of the challenged aspects of the law because the provisions must now be subjected to further argument by lawyers along with historical analysis and any evidence unearthed as the case proceeds.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement that the appeals court upheld the “common-sense measure” she signed into law two years ago.

She said the law was “saving lives across New York” and was a factor in New York having one of the nation’s lowest firearm mortality rates.

Gun Owners of America, a lobbying organization involved in the litigation, called Thursday’s decision “an incredibly frustrating ruling.”

“The Second Circuit got it wrong the first time, SCOTUS told them so and said try again, and this nearly identical ruling is a slap in the face to the Justices and every gun owner across New York,” Erich Pratt, the group’s senior vice president, said in a statement.

Sam Paredes, speaking on behalf of the group’s board, said it might again ask the Supreme Court to intercede.

“This ruling will continue to leave innocent New Yorkers, who simply want the ability to protect themselves and their loved ones, defenseless,” he said.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement that the ruling was “another victory in our effort to protect all New Yorkers from the scourge of gun violence.”

She added: “After repeated attempts to weaken our gun safety regulations, once again we have prevailed.”

David Pucino, legal director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun safety group that also submitted papers in the case, said the ruling shows that the “Second Circuit had it right before and the Second Circuit has it right now.”

“Gun safety laws remain constitutional since they are consistent with our history and tradition,” he added.

Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo have lived in Colorado Springs for decades in the elephant exhibit at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Now an animal rights group is trying to release the elephants from what they say is essentially a prison for such highly intelligent and social animals known to roam for miles a day in the wild.

Colorado’s highest court will hear arguments Thursday on whether the older African female elephants should be legally able to challenge their captivity under a long-held process used by prisoners to dispute their detention. The animal rights group NonHuman Rights Project says the animals are languishing while “unlawfully confined” at the zoo, and wants them released to an unspecified elephant sanctuary.

“They are suffering immensely and unnecessarily. Without judicial intervention, they are doomed to suffer day after day, year after year, for the rest of their lives,” a lawyer for the group, Jake Davis, said in a May brief submitted to the Colorado Supreme Court.

The main legal issue is whether or not the elephants are considered persons under the law, and therefore able to pursue a petition of habeas corpus challenging their detention. The NonHuman Rights project argues that legal personhood is not limited to humans.

The lawsuit is similar to an unsuccessful one the group filed challenging the confinement of an elephant named Happy at the Bronx Zoo in 2022. New York’s Court of Appeals ruled that Happy, while intelligent and deserving of compassion, cannot be considered a person illegally confined with the ability to pursue a petition seeking release.

The New York ruling said giving such rights to an elephant “would have an enormous destabilizing impact on modern society” and change how humans interact with animals.

The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo says moving the elephants and potentially placing them with new animals would be cruel at their age, potentially causing them unnecessary stress. It says they are not used to being in larger herds and, based on its experience, they do not have the skills or desire to join them.

In a statement ahead of Thursday’s hearing, the zoo claimed the NonHuman Rights Project isn’t concerned about the elephants but is just trying to create a judicial precedent that would allow the captivity of any animal to challenged.

Turkey struck suspected Kurdish militant targets in Syria and Iraq for a second day on Thursday following an attack on the premises of a key defense company which killed at least five people, the state-run news agency reported.

The National Intelligence Organization targeted numerous “strategic locations” used by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, or by Syrian Kurdish militia that are affiliated with the militants, the Anadolu Agency reported. The targets included military, intelligence, energy and infrastructure facilities and ammunition depots, the report said. A security official said armed drones were used in Thursday’s strikes.

On Wednesday, Turkey’s air force carried out airstrikes against similar targets in northern Syria and northern Iraq, hours after government officials blamed the deadly attack at the headquarters of the aerospace and defense company TUSAS, on the PKK.

Defense Minister Yasar Guler said Thursday that 47 alleged PKK targets were destroyed in Wednesday’s airstrikes — 29 in Iraq and 18 in Syria.

“Our noble nation should rest assured that we will continue with increasing determination our struggle to eliminate the evil forces that threaten the security and peace of our country and people, until the last terrorist disappears from this geography,” Guler said.

The assailants — a man and a woman — arrived at the TUSAS premises in the outskirts of Ankara in a taxi they commandeered after killing its driver, reports said. Armed with assault riffles, they set off explosives and opened fire, killing four people at TUSAS, including a security personnel and a mechanical engineer.

Security teams were dispatched as soon as the attack started at around 3:30 pm, the interior minister said. The two assailants were also killed and more than 20 people were injured in the attack.

There was no immediate statement from the PKK on the attack or the Turkish airstrikes. In Syria, the main U.S.-backed force said Turkish strikes in the north of the country killed 12 civilians and wounded 25.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Turkish warplanes and drones struck bakeries, power stations, oil facilities and local police checkpoints.

TUSAS designs, manufactures and assembles civilian and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and other defense industry and space systems. Its defense systems have been credited as key to Turkey gaining an upper hand in its fight against Kurdish militants.

The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an attempt by national and state Republicans to immediately reinstate recently passed election rules that a judge had ruled were invalid.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox last week ruled that the State Election Board didn’t have the authority to adopt the new rules, and declared them “illegal, unconstitutional and void.” The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party had appealed that ruling to Georgia’s highest court. They asked that it be handled in an expedited manner and for the rules to be reinstated while the appeal was pending.

The Supreme Court unanimously declined the request for expedited handling and declined to put Cox’s order on hold. The court’s order says that once the appeal is docketed it will “proceed in the ordinary course,” which means it will likely take months before there’s a ruling.

The three-person Republican majority on the State Election Board, which was praised by former President Donald Trump during a rally in Atlanta in August, voted to adopt multiple rules in August and September over the objections of the board’s lone Democrat and the nonpartisan chair. The controversial new rules met resistance from the start, not least from local election officials who worried about changes so close to the general election. But Tuesday’s order may mark the end of the legal fight over election rules in this critical battleground state — at least until after the election.

The rules that Cox declared invalid included three that have gotten a lot of attention. One would require three poll workers to count ballots — not votes — by hand once polls close. The other two had to do with the process to certify county election results.

Democrats and some voting rights groups had raised concerns that the rules could be used by allies of Trump to slow or deny certification or election results, or to cast doubt on results if the former president loses the presidential election to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

While some prominent Republicans in Georgia, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have criticized the flurry of last-minute rules the State Election Board introduced, the state and national Republican parties have been supportive. They have said the rules promote transparency and accountability in the state’s elections.

Cox’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Eternal Vigilance Action, an organization founded and led by former state Rep. Scot Turner, a Republican. The suit argued that the State Election Board overstepped its authority in adopting the seven rules. In addition to invalidating the rules, he ordered the State Election Board to immediately inform all state and local election officials that the rules are void and not to be followed.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Turner said he was glad for the election workers, who will not have to be trained on new election rules with just two weeks to go before Election Day. Many county election officials had expressed concern over the tight timeline for implementing the rules, saying they risked causing confusion for poll workers and undermining public confidence in the election results.

Seven new lawsuits have been filed against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, including one alleging the rape of a 13-year-old girl. They come as his lawyers tried again Monday to get him freed on bail, and complained that a “fresh wave of publicity” is endangering his right to a fair criminal trial.

In the lawsuits filed Sunday in state and federal courts, four men and three women, all anonymous, allege they were sexually assaulted by Combs at parties over the last two decades.

Combs, 54, has pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking charges contained in an indictment unsealed the day after his Sept. 16 arrest. Charges include allegations he coerced and abused women for years, aided by associates and employees, and silenced victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.

He has remained incarcerated pending a May 5 trial after two judges denied bail in rulings being appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Combs’ lawyers asked a judge Sunday to order potential witnesses and their lawyers to stop making statements that could prevent a fair trial.

“As the Court is aware, Mr. Combs has been the target of an unending stream of allegations by prospective witnesses and their counsel in the press,” they wrote. “These prospective witnesses and their lawyers have made numerous inflammatory extrajudicial statements aimed at assassinating Mr. Combs’s character in the press.”

The latest lawsuits are drawn from what lawyers say are more than 100 accusers who are planning legal action against Combs. Plaintiffs’ lawyer Tony Buzbee announced the planned litigation at an Oct. 1 news conference and posted a 1-800 number for accusers to call.

As before, Combs’ representatives dismissed the latest lawsuits as “clear attempts to garner publicity.” They said Combs and his legal team “have full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process.”

Combs “has never sexually assaulted anyone — adult or minor, man or woman,” they added.

One of the lawsuits filed Sunday alleges that a 13-year-old girl who was invited to a party by a limousine driver after the Video Music Awards in Manhattan in September 2000 was raped by a “male celebrity” and then by Combs as individuals identified only as “Celebrity A,” a male, and “Celebrity B,” a female, watched.

Another lawsuit alleged that Combs sexually assaulted a 17-year-old male at a Manhattan hotel penthouse party in 2022.

In the lawsuits, it was alleged that the plaintiffs believed they had been fed drinks laced with drugs before they were assaulted.

Meanwhile, lawyers for Combs on Monday told the 2nd Circuit in a filing that he’ll renew his bail application before the lower court based on “significant changed circumstances.” They said the issues include “constitutional concerns stemming from his conditions of confinement and evidence contained in recently produced discovery.”

In a filing last week, prosecutors told the appeals court that judges denied bail after evidence showed Combs “used methodical and sophisticated means to silence and intimidate witnesses throughout the racketeering conspiracy and during the Government’s investigation.”

Arkansas voters won’t get to weigh in on a ballot initiative to expand medical marijuana after the state Supreme Court ruled the measure didn’t fully explain what it would do, tossing out the initiative just two weeks before the election.

It’s too late to remove the measure from the ballot — early voting began Monday — so the court has ordered election officials not to count any votes cast on it. The proposed constitutional amendment would have broadened the definition of medical professionals who can certify patients for medical cannabis, expanded qualifying conditions and made medical cannabis cards valid for three years.

In Monday’s 4-3 decision, the justices ruled the measure did not fully inform voters that it would have stripped the Legislature’s ability to change the 2016 constitutional amendment that legalized medical marijuana in the state.

“This decision doomed the proposed ballot title, and it is plainly misleading,” Justice Shawn Womack wrote in the majority opinion.

The court also said the measure did not inform voters that, if approved, the amendment would legalize up to an ounce of marijuana possession for any purpose if marijuana becomes legal under federal law.

In court filings, organizers noted the ballot measure had cited the number of the provision that would be repealed. The group argued that past court rulings said measures did not need to summarize the current law being changed.

In a dissent, Justice Cody Hiland said the court was ignoring decades-long precedent by ruling the measure’s wording was misleading.

“Long ago, this court established definitive standards for evaluating the sufficiency of popular names and ballot titles,” Hiland wrote. “This court has not deviated from those standards until today.”

In the same ruling, justices rejected election officials’ reasons for ruling the measure’s organizers fell short of the signatures required for putting the measure on the ballot.

Arkansans for Patient Access, the group behind the measure, said it would keep pushing to expand the medical marijuana program and that the signatures it gathered showed widespread support.

“We are deeply disappointed in the Court’s decision,” the group said in a statement. “It seems politics has triumphed over legal precedent.”

Arkansans for Patient Access sued after Secretary of State John Thurston said the group fell short of the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. The issue over the ballot measure’s wording was raised by Protect Arkansas Kids, a group opposed to the measure that had intervened in the case.

Thurston’s office had declined to count some of the signatures submitted, asserting the group had not followed paperwork rules regarding paid signature gatherers.

The state rejected petitions submitted in favor of an anti-abortion ballot measure earlier this year on similar grounds.

The state in July determined the group had fallen short of the required signatures but qualified for 30 additional days to circulate petitions. But the state then told the group that any additional signatures gathered by paid signature gatherers would not be counted if required information was submitted by the canvassing company rather than sponsors of the measure.

The court on Monday said that decision was wrong, saying state law allows a wide range of people to be considered sponsors of the measure.

Groups had already been campaigning against the measure, even though it was uncertain whether it would be put to a vote this November. Family Council Action Committee last week announced it planned to launch a statewide tour against the measure.

“A measure this bad simply has no business being on the ballot or in the constitution,” Jerry Cox, the group’s director, said after Monday’s ruling.

About half of U.S. states allow recreational marijuana and a dozen more have legalized medical marijuana. Those numbers could grow after the November election. Voters in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana for adults, and two medical marijuana proposals will be on Nebraska’s ballot.