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NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked a judge's ruling that found the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy discriminated against minorities, and it took the unusual step of removing her from the case, saying interviews she gave during the trial called her impartiality into question.

The city applauded the appeals court's decision. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who was shouted down over the tactic by students during a speech at Brown University this week, said he was pleased by it.

"This is indeed an important decision for all New Yorkers and for the men and women of the New York City police department who work very hard day in and day out to keep this city safe," he said.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ruling by U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin will be on hold pending the outcome of an appeal by the city. But it may be a nonissue after next week's mayoral election: Democrat Bill de Blasio, who's leading in polls, has said he would drop objections to the ruling, which calls for major changes to the police tactic.

The judge decided in August the city violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of blacks and Hispanics by disproportionally stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking them. She assigned a monitor to help the police department change its policy and training programs on the tactic.

The three-judge panel heard arguments Tuesday on whether to put the ruling on temporary hold while the city appeals the judge's decision. It did not change the deadline for the appeal and said it expected arguments in March, well after the new mayor takes office.

The panel said Scheindlin needed to be removed because she ran afoul of the code of conduct for U.S. judges by misapplying a ruling that allowed her to take the case and by giving media interviews during the trial.

Scheindlin said in a statement later Thursday she consented to the interviews under the condition she wouldn't comment on the ongoing case.

"And I did not," she said.

She said some reporters used quotes from written opinions that gave the appearance she had commented on the case but "a careful reading of each interview will reveal that no such comments were made."

She defended her decision to direct the plaintiffs to bring the case to her, saying she took the most recent case because it was related to a previous case she heard.

The 2nd Circuit said a new judge would be assigned randomly and will deal with any further rulings. It's possible the new judge could order a fresh set of reforms or review the trial testimony and decide the city didn't violate people's civil rights, but it would be highly unusual.

Stop-and-frisk has been around for decades, but recorded stops increased dramatically under Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration to an all-time high in 2011 of 684,330, mostly of black and Hispanic men. A lawsuit was filed in 2004 by four minority men, who said they were targeted because of their races, and it became a class action case.

To make a stop, police must have reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to occur or has occurred, a standard lower than the probable cause needed to justify an arrest. Only about 10 percent of the stops result in arrests or summonses, and weapons are found about 2 percent of the time.

Scheindlin heard a bench trial that ended in the spring and coincided with a groundswell of backlash against the stop-and-frisk tactic, which became a mayoral race flashpoint. She noted in her ruling this summer that she wasn't putting an end to the practice, which is constitutional, but was reforming the way the NYPD implemented its stops.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the four men who sued, said it was dismayed that the appeals court delayed "the long-overdue process to remedy" the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices and was shocked that it "cast aspersions" on the judge's professional conduct and reassigned the case.

De Blasio, the city's public advocate, said he was "extremely disappointed" in Thursday's decision.

"We have to end the overuse of stop and frisk — and any delay only means a continued and unnecessary rift between our police and the people they protect," he said in a statement.

His Republican challenger, Joe Lhota, a deputy under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, praised it.

"The next mayor absolutely must continue this appeal," he said.

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Associated Press writer Jake Pearson contributed to this report.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that most of Texas' tough new abortion restrictions can take effect immediately — a decision that means a third of the state's clinics that perform the procedure won't be able to do so starting as soon as Friday.

A panel of judges at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital can take effect while a lawsuit challenging the restrictions moves forward. The panel issued the ruling three days after District Judge Lee Yeakel said the provision serves no medical purpose.

In its 20-page ruling, the appeals court panel acknowledged that the provision "may increase the cost of accessing an abortion provider and decrease the number of physicians available to perform abortions." However, the panel said that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that having "the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to procure an abortion cannot be enough to invalidate" a law that serves a valid purpose, "one not designed to strike at the right itself."

The panel left in place a portion of Yeakel's order that prevents the state from enforcing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration protocol for abortion-inducing drugs in cases where the woman is between 50 and 63 days into her pregnancy. Doctors testifying before the court had said such women would be harmed if the protocol were enforced.

After Yeakel halted the restrictions, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had made an emergency appeal to the conservative 5th Circuit, arguing that the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges is a constitutional use of the Legislature's authority.

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The crowd builds before Senator Wendy Davis arrives with other dignitaries for the Stand With Women …

"This unanimous decision is a vindication of the careful deliberation by the Texas Legislature to craft a law to protect the health and safety of Texas women," Abbott, a Republican who is running for governor, said in a written statement.

Lawyers for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers had argued that the regulations do not protect women and would shut down a third of the 32 abortion clinics in Texas.

Twelve of Texas' abortion clinics won't be able to perform the procedure starting as soon as Friday.

In a statement Thursday, Planned Parenthood said the appeals court decision means "abortion will no longer be available in vast stretches of Texas."

"This fight is far from over," Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said in the statement. "This restriction clearly violates Texas women's constitutional rights by drastically reducing access to safe and legal abortion statewide."

The court's order is temporary until it can hold a complete hearing, likely in January.

The restrictions are among the toughest in the nation and gained notoriety when Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis launched a nearly 13-hour filibuster against them in June. Davis has since launched her own gubernatorial campaign and could face Abbott in the November 2014 election. Republican Gov. Rick Perry has said he will not seek another term.

The law that the Legislature passed this summer also bans abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy and beginning in October 2014 requires doctors to perform all abortions in surgical facilities.

Officials for one chain of abortion clinics testified in the trial that Yeakel oversaw that they've tried to obtain admitting privileges for their doctors at 32 hospitals, but so far only 15 accepted applications and none have announced a decision. Many hospitals with religious affiliations will not allow abortion doctors to work there, while others fear protests if they provide privileges. Many have requirements that doctors live within a certain radius of the facility, or perform a minimum number of surgeries a year that must be performed in a hospital.


Court reinstates Texas abortion restrictions

The decision means that many clinics that perform the procedure will no longer be able to do so.
New rules take effect immediately

Washington (AFP) - The United States has said in some cases its surveillance program has gone too far, an unprecedented admission in its tense row with Europe over US spying against allies.

After 10 days of scandal with key European allies, a statement Thursday by Secretary of State John Kerry was the first to explicitly acknowledge overstepping by US intelligence.

Kerry justified the surveillance in broad terms, citing the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States, as well as attacks in London, Madrid and elsewhere to argue that the US and other countries have had to come together to fight "extremism in the world that is hell-bent and determined to try to kill people and blow people up and attack governments."

He said US intelligence has since 2001 averted attacks with intercepts of communications. But he acknowledged, without going into specifics, that at times it has been too much.

Kerry also sought to give assurances that such steps, which have roiled close allies like Germany, would not be repeated.

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"I assure you, innocent people are not being abused in this process, but there's an effort to try to gather information," Kerry told a London conference via video link. "And yes, in some cases, it has reached too far inappropriately."

"And the president, our president, is determined to try to clarify and make clear for people, and is now doing a thorough review in order that nobody will have the sense of abuse," he said.

Kerry added that what Washington was trying to do was, in a "random way," find ways of determining if there were threats that needed responding to.

"And in some cases, I acknowledge to you, as has the president, that some of these actions have reached too far, and we are going to make sure that does not happen in the future," he said.

Recent allegations and reports of widespread spying by the US National Security Agency have sparked a major rift in trans-Atlantic ties.

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This week German Chancellor Angela Merkel angrily confronted President Barack Obama with allegations that the NSA was snooping on her phone, saying it would amount to a "breach of trust."

A German intelligence delegation and a separate group of EU lawmakers were in the US capital Wednesday to confront their American allies about the alleged bugging.

Kerry's remarks -- released in a State Department transcript -- came in response to a question addressed to both him and British Foreign Secretary William Hague about government surveillance.

Kerry spent a good portion of his answer justifying the collection of data as necessary due to the threat of terrorism and suggested Washington was not alone in doing so.

"Many, many, many parts of the world have been subject to these terrorist attacks," he said.

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"And in response to them, the United States and others came together -- others, I emphasize to you -- and realized that we're dealing in a new world where people are willing to blow themselves up."

He added: "We have actually prevented airplanes from going down, buildings from being blown up, and people from being assassinated because we’ve been able to learn ahead of time of the plans."

Kerry also lashed out at some of the reporting about alleged spying, sparked by leaks from fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, wanted by Washington on espionage charges.

"Just the other day... there was news in the papers of 70 million people being listened to. No, they weren't. It didn't happen," Kerry said.

"There's an enormous amount of exaggeration in this reporting from some reporters out there."

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Director of National Security Agency (NSA) and Commander of US Cyber Command General Keith Alexander …

US intelligence chiefs have said these reports are based on a misinterpretation of an NSA slide leaked to the media by Snowden.

Rather than siphoning off the records of tens of millions of calls in Europe, as the slide seems to suggest, they argue that the data was in many cases gathered and shared by European agencies.

Still, fresh US spy allegations keep cropping around the world on a near daily basis.

Indonesia summoned the Australian ambassador in Jakarta Friday over a "totally unacceptable" report that his embassy was among diplomatic posts in Asia being used in a vast American surveillance operation.

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, amplifying an earlier report by the German magazine Der Spiegel, said earlier this week that a top-secret map leaked by Snowden showed 90 US surveillance facilities at diplomatic missions worldwide.

The paper also reported that Australian embassies in Asia were being used as part of the US-led spying network.

On Wednesday, meanwhile, a report in the Washington Post alleged that NSA technicians had tapped into Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, winning access to vast amounts of private data.

The report said a program dubbed MUSCULAR, operated with the NSA's British counterpart GCHQ, can intercept data directly from the fiber-optic cables used by the US Internet giants.