International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde is facing questions at a special Paris court Thursday over her role in the 400 million euro ($520 million) pay-off to a controversial businessman when she was France's finance minister.

The court hearing threatens to sully the reputations of both Lagarde and France. The payment was made to well-connected entrepreneur Bernard Tapie as part of a private arbitration process to settle a dispute with state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais over the botched sale of Adidas in the 1990s. It is seen by many in France as an example of the cozy relationship between big money and big power in France.

Lagarde has earned praise for her negotiating skills as managing director of the IMF through Europe's debt crisis and is seen as a trailblazer for women leaders. Her decision to let the Adidas dispute go to private arbitration rather than be settled in the courts has drawn criticism, and French lawmakers asked magistrates to investigate.

Lagarde, smiling at reporters, left her Paris apartment Thursday morning and appeared at a special court that handles cases involving government ministers. She has denied wrongdoing.

At the time of the payment, Tapie was close to then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was Lagarde's boss. Critics have said the deal was too generous to Tapie at the expense of the French state, and that the case shouldn't have gone to a private arbitration authority because it involved a state-owned bank.

An Austrian court has found a former agent for Defense Contractor BAE Systems PLC guilty of tampering with evidence but innocent of the more serious charge of money laundering.

After pronouncing his verdict Thursday, Judge Stefan Apostol sentenced Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly to a suspended two-month prison term.

Mensdorff-Pouilly was originally charged with paying out €12.6 million ($16.7 million) on behalf of BAE to contacts in Eastern and Central Europe in efforts to win contracts.

Prosecutor Michael Radasztics says he will appeal.

Mensdorff-Pouilly was charged in Britain in 2011 with conspiracy to corrupt in his efforts to secure contracts. But the charges were dropped after the company agreed to pay a multimillion-dollar fine to settle an arms export controls case with the U.S. Department of State.

The Supreme Court is considering whether police must get a warrant before ordering a blood test on an unwilling drunken-driving suspect.

The justices heard arguments Wednesday in a case involving a disputed blood test from Missouri. Police stopped a speeding, swerving car and the driver, who had two previous drunken-driving convictions, refused to submit to a breath test to measure the alcohol level in his body.

The justices appeared to struggle with whether the dissipation of alcohol in the blood over time is reason enough for police to call for a blood test without first getting a warrant.

In siding with defendant Tyler McNeely, the Missouri Supreme Court said police need a warrant to take a suspect's blood except when a delay could threaten a life or destroy potential evidence.

The Supreme Court won't reinstate an award against a racy magazine in a dispute over nude pictures of a model published after she was killed by her professional wrestler husband.

The court turned away a request by the family of Nancy Toffoloni Benoit to reinstate a jury's decision to make Hustler Magazine pay them almost $20 million. The magazine published the photos after she and her son were killed in 2007 by wrestler Chris Benoit.

Benoit's family said Nancy never gave permission to publish the 24-year-old photos, while the magazine said it could print them because they were newsworthy.

The jury's 2011 decision to penalize the magazine $19.6 million was later reduced to $250,000. The award was then thrown out by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A court hearing for the man charged with the Colorado movie theater killings has been postponed after his attorneys said Wednesday that he had been taken to a hospital for unspecified reasons.

Court documents filed Wednesday gave no details of James E. Holmes' condition, other than that it "renders him unable to be present in court for hearing." The hearing had been scheduled to discuss pretrial motions and media requests for information under state open records laws.

At a hearing Wednesday on defense attorneys' request to delay the court date, defense attorney Tamara Brady said Holmes was taken to a hospital Tuesday. She didn't say where or offer details on why, saying attorneys don't want to disclose privileged medical or psychiatric information.

"It's not as simple as a migraine, and it's not something that will resolve by tomorrow morning," she said.

Arapahoe County District Judge William B. Sylvester said that was sufficient information for him and postponed the Thursday hearing until Dec. 10.

Prosecutor Rich Orman had objected, saying the defense should be required to give information on Holmes' condition first.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ended an Idaho woman's challenge of a law banning some abortions that might cause fetal pain, saying she didn't have legal standing to contest it because she wasn't charged with that crime.

The development came in a broader lawsuit filed by Jennie Linn McCormack, who is believed to be the first person in the nation to sue over bans on conducting abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the premise that the fetus might feel pain. Idaho and several other states have the bans.

However, the court didn't close the door on all challenges to the fetal pain law. McCormack's lawyer, who is also a doctor and her co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, can still fight the ban in federal courts.

The appellate court also ruled Tuesday that some other Idaho abortion laws are likely unconstitutional, including one barring medication-induced abortions.

The decision was largely a win for McCormack, a Pocatello resident who sued Bannock County Prosecutor Mark Hiedeman after she was charged in May 2011 with having an illegal abortion.

Hiedeman alleged that McCormack used drugs she obtained over the Internet to terminate her pregnancy, which was more than five months along. The law requires that health professionals be involved in ending a pregnancy, and it carries a possible five-year sentence for a conviction.