Court: Women can’t earn less than men based on past wages; NEWS BRIEFING; Staff and news services; Trump wins pledges of 1,600 troops for Mexico border duty; U.S. seeks answers about selective college admissions; Oklahoma orders cut in water injection after earthquakes; Incorrect ID of dead player stuns Canadian town; After vote, Hungary PM’s party limiting civic groups

SAN FRANCISCO - Employers should not base a new worker's pay on past salary because that could exacerbate unequal pay between men and women, a federal appeals court decided Monday.

An 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, overturning last year's decision by a three-judge panel, ruled unanimously in favor of a female math consultant from Fresno who was paid less than men for equal work because her prior salary was lower. "Allowing an employer to justify a wage differential between men and women on the basis of prior salary is wholly inconsistent with the provisions of the Equal Pay Act," Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who died last month, had written for the court.

Despite passage of the federal pay law in 1963, "the financial exploitation of working women embodied by the gender pay gap continues to be an embarrassing reality of our economy," Reinhardt wrote.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Aileen Rizo, a math consultant, against the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools.

Rizo sued after finding that the other math consultants, who were men, were paid more than her.

The school system conceded Rizo was paid less but attributed the disparity to the men's pay history, not discrimination.

Monday's decision applies to nine Western states.

In the U.S., women earn an average of 82 cents for every dollar paid to men, according to the latest Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings. Massachusetts and California have passed laws that block managers from requesting an applicant's prior salary.

Trump wins pledges of 1,600 troops for Mexico border duty

HOUSTON - The Republican governors of three southwestern border states on Monday committed 1,600 National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border, giving President Donald Trump many of the troops he requested to fight what he's called a crisis of migrant crossings and crime.

Arizona, New Mexico and Texas all made new pledges that add up to almost half of the up to 4,000 troops Trump requested. Some Guard members started arriving at the border as states and the federal government officials continued to discuss what they will do.

The only holdout border state was California, led by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who has not announced whether troops from his state's National Guard will participate.

Brown has repeatedly fought with Trump over immigration policy.

U.S. seeks answers about selective college admissions

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is seeking to pry the lid off some of the most closely guarded secrets in college admissions, including the mechanics of how Harvard University selects a class.

The Justice Department wants a federal court to allow internal information about Harvard admissions to be made public through filings in a lawsuit challenging the university's use of race and ethnicity in weighing tens of thousands of applicants each year.

The plaintiffs accuse the university of discrimination against Asian-Americans.

Harvard denies the allegation and is seeking to prevent public disclosure of any evidence its attorneys say would compromise the privacy of applicants and undermine the admissions process.

Oklahoma orders cut in water injection after earthquakes

COVINGTON, Okla. - The Oklahoma Corporation Commission has directed a wastewater disposal well to reduce its volume of injection after more than a dozen earthquakes rattled part of northwest Oklahoma since Friday.

The U.S. Geological Survey recorded three quakes Monday, including one near Covington now rated magnitude 4.5 after a preliminary rating of 4.3. Magnitude 3.3 and 2.8 quakes were also recorded Monday in the area about 55 miles north of Oklahoma City. Garfield County Emergency Management Director Mike Honigsberg said there were no reports of injury or severe damage.

Many of the thousands of earthquakes in Oklahoma in recent years have been linked to wastewater injection by oil and natural gas producers.

Incorrect ID of dead player stuns Canadian town

HUMBOLDT, Saskatchewan - Families and friends already stunned by the deaths of 15 players and team personnel for Humboldt's youth hockey club got a new shock Monday when authorities announced that one of the dead had been misidentified.

The Ministry of Justice for Saskatchewan province said the mistake occurred partly because all the Broncos players had dyed their hair blond for the team's appearance in the playoffs and because all the young men had similar builds.

The ministry said the body of Parker Tobin had been mistakenly identified as that of Xavier Labelle. It said Labelle was actually one of the 14 injured when the team bus was hit by a semitrailer truck Friday night.

Drew Wilby, spokesman for the ministry, and the Office of the Chief Coroner apologized.

After vote, Hungary PM's party limiting civic groups

BUDAPEST, Hungary - A day after it won an overwhelming election victory on an anti-migration platform, the right-wing populist party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Monday it would limit the ability of civic groups to help migrants and refugees.

That would allow Fidesz and its small ally, the Christian Democrats, to push through anti-migrant bills, said Janos Halasz, the party's parliamentary spokesman.

Orban alleges that the opposition - collaborating with the United Nations, the European Union and wealthy philanthropist George Soros - wants to turn Hungary into an "immigrant country," flooding it with Muslim migrants. The proposed laws could make it hard for groups aiding asylum-seekers to work in Hungary.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth has given birth to a baby girl, making her the first U.S. senator to give birth while in office.

The Illinois Democrat announced she delivered her second daughter, Maile Pearl Bowlsbey, on Monday. Her office said Duckworth, 50, an Iraq war veteran, is recovering well.

A school bus plunged off a mountain road Monday into a deep gorge in the Himalayan foothills in India, killing 23 children, some as young as 4, officials said. Four adults also died and 10 children were hospitalized.

The crash occurred in the Kangra Valley, about 300 miles north of New Delhi.

Caption: Refugees from the Democratic Republicof Congo arrive at Nsonga, Uganda, on Monday after crossing Lake Albert. According to the United Nations nearly 70,000 Congolese have made the perilous trip to Uganda since January to escape ethnic violence.

Jack Taylor/Getty