Donald Trump’s legal team has told a newly appointed independent arbiter that it does not want to answer his questions about the declassification status of the documents seized last month from the former president’s Florida home, saying that issue could be part of Trump’s defense if he’s indicted.

Lawyers for Trump and for the Justice Department are to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday before a veteran judge named last week as special master to review the roughly 11,000 documents — including about 100 marked as classified — taken during the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago.

Ahead of the status conference, Raymond Dearie, the special master, requested the two sides to submit a proposed agenda and also provided a draft plan for how he envisions the process moving forward over the next two months.

Trump’s lawyers signaled in a Monday evening letter their objection to several aspects of that draft plan, including a request from Dearie that they disclose to him and to the Justice Department information about the classification status of the seized documents.

The resistance to the judge’s request was notable because it was Trump’s lawyers, not the Justice Department, that had requested the appointment of a special master to conduct an independent review of the documents so that any material covered by claims of legal privilege could be segregated from the investigation — and because the former president’s team’s recalcitrance included an acknowledgment that the probe could be building toward an indictment.

Trump has maintained without evidence that all of the records were declassified; his lawyers have not echoed that claim, though they have asserted that a president has absolute authority to declassify information.

In the letter, Trump’s lawyers say the time for addressing that question would be if they file a motion seeking the return by the Justice Department of some of the property taken from Mar-a-Lago.

Iran told the United Nations’ highest court on Monday that Washington’s confiscation of some $2 billion in assets from Iranian state bank accounts to compensate bombing victims was an attempt to destabilize the Iranian government and a violation of international law.

In 2016, Tehran filed a suit at the International Court of Justice after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled money held in Iran’s central bank could be used to compensate the 241 victims of a 1983 bombing of a U.S. military base in Lebanon believed linked to Iran.

Hearings in the case opened Monday in the Hague-based court, starting with Iran’s arguments. The proceedings will continue with opening statements by Washington on Wednesday.

At stake are $1.75 billion in bonds, plus accumulated interest, belonging to the Iranian state but held in a Citibank account in New York.

In 1983, a suicide bomber in a truck loaded with military-grade explosives attacked U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American troops and 58 French soldiers.

While Iran long has denied being involved, a U.S. District Court judge found Tehran responsible in 2003. That ruling said Iran’s ambassador to Syria at the time called “a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and instructed him to instigate the Marine barracks bombing.”

The international court ruled it had jurisdiction to hear the case in 2019, rejecting an argument from the U.S. that its national security interests superseded the 1955 Treaty of Amity, which promised friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

An appeals court ruling could mean the end of a federal lawsuit filed by the parents of a Black teenager who was naked and unarmed when he was shot and killed by suburban Oklahoma City police in 2019.

Police said 17-year-old Isaiah Lewis was naked when he broke into an Edmond home in April 2019 and attacked two officers. He was fatally shot after a stun gun didn’t stop him, Edmond police said.

Attorneys for Lewis’ parents said the teenager was experiencing a mental breakdown when the officers “unjustifiably” shot him.

But a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Friday ruled in favor of Officer Denton Scherman, who fired the fatal shots, saying he was entitled to qualified immunity for his actions, the Oklahoman reported on Saturday.

Attorneys for Lewis’ parents could ask the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling.

An autopsy found Lewis sustained gunshot wounds to his face, thighs and groin. Toxicology tests showed he had detectable amounts of a common antihistamine called diphenhydramine and THC, the active ingredient of marijuana, in his system.

The Oregon Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from 13 counties in a long-running $1 billion lawsuit over timber revenue and what constitutes “the greatest permanent value” when it comes to forest management.

The denial ends a six-year legal battle over logging practices on 700,000 acres and is a victory for the state Department of Forestry and environmental groups. The decision leaves in place a lower court ruling saying that Oregon can manage forests for a range of values that include recreation, water quality and wildlife habitat — not just logging revenue.

“It’s the end of the road for what has been a false narrative for far too long … that it’s the public forestland’s obligation to provide the bulk of the revenues for local communities,” Ralph Bloemers, who represented fishing and conservation groups in the case, told Oregon Public Broadcasting.

The counties gave forestland to the state decades ago and Oregon manages the land and funnels timber revenue to the counties.

But 13 counties took Oregon to court, alleging the state was not maximizing logging on the forests. A Linn County jury found in the counties’ favor in 2019 and awarded more than $1 billion in damages, but an appeals court struck down the verdict earlier this year.

A representative for the counties called the high court’s inaction “disappointing.”

“The underlying issue of forest practices on public lands is left unresolved,” Linn County Commissioner Roger Nyquist said in a statement.

Linn is one of several Oregon counties and special taxing districts that receive a cut of logging profits from forestland they gave to the state in the 1930s and 1940s. Oregon agreed to manage those lands, which were mostly burned and logged over at the time of donation, “so as to secure the greatest permanent value of those lands to the state.”

Oregon has sent millions of dollars to the counties over the years, bolstering local budgets. But 13 counties took the state to court, saying “greatest permanent value” meant managing forests for maximum timber revenue.

The Oregon Department of Justice, which represented the state government in the case, issued a written statement Friday calling the Supreme Court’s decision a “victory for Oregon’s environment and for sound forest management in general.”

“Our forests serve a range of environmental, recreational, and economic purposes,” the statement reads. “By allowing what we argued was the correct decision of the Court of Appeals to stand, we have a swifter resolution and finality after a 6-year dispute.”

The Minnesota Supreme Court will arguments on whether to permanently allow cameras in the courtroom, following trials by ex-police officers Derek Chauvin and Kim Potter that were watched by millions of people around the world.

An advisory committee made up of Minnesota judges, attorneys and court personnel is recommending the court continue its routine of keeping out cameras. Minnesota media outlets and advocacy groups say it’s time the state embrace the technology like neighboring Iowa, Wisconsin and North Dakota.

Minnesota’s top court is scheduled to hear arguments on the issue Tuesday.

Presiding Hennepin County District Court judges were initially opposed to cameras in the courtroom for the notorious trials of Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, and Potter for the killing of Daunte Wright. Both judges, Peter Cahill and Regina Chu, changed their minds in part because of immense public interest and COVID-19 limitations.

Media and government organizations, along with Cahill, sent letters to the Supreme Court in support of expanded camera access. Victims’ rights groups, public defenders, defense attorneys and prosecutors are opposed, the Star Tribune reported.

“The fact of the matter is that these are incredibly emotional times, difficult times for all the parties that are involved,” said Minnesota State Public Defender Bill Ward. “Justice should not be a spectator sport and should not be something that’s sensationalized in the news media.”

Mankato Free Press Managing Editor Joe Spear wrote to the court that the presence of a camera doesn’t change the truth.

The New Mexico Supreme Court has upheld an appeals court’s judgment that ordered a man to pay $74,000 restitution to the state Game and Fish Department for poaching a trophy mule deer buck in December 2015.

The restitution included $20,000 for the out of season killing done without a license plus $54,000 reimbursement to the department for the extensive investigation required for the case.

A hotline tip to the Game and Fish began the investigation after a headless deer carcass was found near Lindrith, New Mexico.

Conservation officers went to the scene and located the stashed head and trophy antlers.

Officers set up around-the-clock surveillance and said Cody W. Davis of Arnegard, North Dakota was seen retrieving the head four months later.

Game and Fish officials said Davis led the surveilling officers to the Rio Grande where he allegedly dumped the trophy head in the river.

The head was eventually found downstream about two weeks later.

Officers then worked with the North Dakota Game and Fish Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to serve a search warrant on Davis.

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