Rumors are spreading that the U.S. Supreme Court will vote 5-4 to rule that a U.S. president cannot be prosecuted for anything he does while he is president. Some Democrats are suggesting that Joe Biden bring a gun to his first debate with Donald Trump. If he shoots Trump, he would be immune, but if Trump shoots Biden he would be prosecuted because he is not a sitting president.   read more

When Adam’s father found out the police had taken his son’s DNA, he immediately contacted the Melbourne Police Dept. to ask what they intended to do with the sample and on what legal basis it had been taken. As a doctor, he understood what had happened could have far-reaching implications. “My concern, being in the medical field, is that it’s not just Adam’s DNA,” he said. “It’s my DNA, it’s my wife’s DNA, and our parents. Not to sound bad, but... There’s some collateral damage there.”   read more

Bob Burke, a longtime workers’ comp attorney who has filed several successful challenges to Oklahoma’s new law, called opt out “the biggest attack on the American worker” since he started practicing law. Had the Supreme Court not acted, the Oklahoma opt-out law “would have deprived injured workers out of necessary surgeries and weekly benefits,” he said. “Opt out also would have allowed companies to shift the cost of paying for work-related injuries to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”   read more

Boston began its police bodycam program on Monday after a superior court judge rejected a request by the city's largest police union to delay it. While Judge Wilson found no evidence the union tried to sabotage the program, he nevertheless criticized it for its "lackluster" effort to recruit volunteers. The city had sought 100 volunteers but when few stepped forward, city officials announced that it would choose the officers. The police union consequently sued the city.   read more

"Many voters take ballot selfies and post them to social media sites like Facebook on Election Day, and it is a powerful form of free speech," said Crookston's attorney. "Instead of just telling people whom they voted for, voters can actually prove whom they voted for — there's just no other way to do that so convincingly. But the Secretary of State prohibits this. This is not just a case against silly rules; it's a case against unconstitutional censorship."   read more

Many concussions in soccer occur when heads collide as two players jump up to head the ball, said Dr. Cynthia LaBella. She said learning proper technique including tensing neck muscles can help kids avoid injury while heading the ball. Labella noted that soccer has become so popular that it attracts kids with a wide range of athletic ability, and that many injuries she treats are in kids who lack adequate strength and conditioning for their soccer level.   read more

The bacteria was found among 31 microbes in two fracking wells in different kinds of shale separated by hundreds of miles. Interestingly, the wells are owned by different energy companies that use different techniques. "We think that the microbes in each well may form a self-sustaining ecosystem," said professor Wrighton. "Drilling the well and pumping in fracturing fluid creates the ecosystem, but the microbes adapt to their new environment in a way to sustain the system over long periods."   read more

In 1964, the Sugar Association internally discussed a campaign to address "negative attitudes toward sugar" after studies linked it to heart disease,. The group paid Harvard researchers for an article that concluded there was "no doubt" reducing cholesterol and saturated fat was the only intervention needed to prevent heart disease. The researchers downplayed studies on sugar. "Let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind..." wrote a sugar industry employee to the researchers.   read more

Families pushed hard for the legislation, fueled by suspicion that Saudi Arabia had played a significant role in the attacks. President Obama could veto the bill — and has lobbied against it. Critics say the bill will strain relations with Saudi Arabia, But that reasoning has not resonated with either chamber of Congress. In July, a declassified document revealed that the FBI and CIA believed that five Saudi officials helped the hijackers.   read more

Beginning in the 1960s, Chavez brought laborers together and formed the United Farm Workers in California's Central Valley. He used the rallying cry "si se puede," or "yes we can," and became a celebrated civil rights leader, particularly among Latinos. Brown signed the historic bill granting farm workers the right to unionize when he was governor in 1975. He has declined to comment on the overtime legislation all year and declined again Monday.   read more

TVA has set a minimum bid of $36.4 million for its power plant and the 1,600 surrounding acres of waterfront property. The buyer gets two unfinished nuclear reactors, transmission lines, buildings, eight miles of roads, and a 1,000-space parking lot. One company has expressed interest so far. TVA says it isn't particular about what the purchaser does — using the site for power production, recreation or even residences are all fine.   read more

The proposed rules were in a long-awaited report released Thursday from the three largest banking regulatory agencies: the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The agencies were required to issue the report by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul. The report was supposed to be completed years ago. The most significant new rules were proposed by the Federal Reserve, which oversees all of the nation’s largest banks   read more

Civil rights groups argued that the requirements could lead to the "mass disenfranchisement" of thousands of potential voters — many of them poor and African-American. They took issue with the actions of EAC's Brian Newby, who changed the federal form after he took the job. The change requires people seeking to register to show proof of citizenship. Opponents said Newby had no authority to take the action on his own. Even the Justice Dept. has refused to defend Newby's actions.   read more

The cleanup of the Hudson paid for by GE was to remove over 2.5 million cubic yards of sediment and encompass a 40-mile stretch of the river. But Seggos said EPA had allowed GE to declare mission accomplished too soon. “Both the amount of sediment and the fish are suggesting that the initial goals of the remedy have not been, and may not be met, for decades,” he said. The state’s move has been cheered by environmentalists, who have lobbied for solutions to a pollutant dating back to the 1930s.   read more

The state's emissions have fallen 9.5% since peaking in 2004, and analysts now consider the 2020 goal well within reach. ``Here we are, 10 years later, emissions have gone down and the economy has gone up,'' said state Sen. Fran Pavley. ``It's a success story.'' Brown also signed a companion bill, AB197, to cut emissions in low-income or minority communities. Many are near facilities such as oil refineries and factories that produce both greenhouse gases and the toxic air pollution.   read more

The trends were encouraging, and long-running, experts said, and distinguished young Americans from their parents’ generation, which had much higher rates of smoking and drinking. Just 9.6 percent of adolescents, ages 12 to 17, reported using alcohol in 2015, down from 17.6 percent in 2002, according to the data. Far fewer American adolescents smoke every day: about 20 percent in 2015, down from 32 percent in 2002.   read more

The amount of money spent on homeland security to prevent another 9/11 is staggering. But what's driving the spending upward is fear, not facts, said John Mueller, a senior scientist at the Mershon Center. The level of fear Americans feel -- fueled by politicians and news reports -- isn't supported by the actual terrorism threat. An American has a 1 in 4 million chance of being killed by a terrorist on U.S. soil. One is far more likely to die from lightning or getting struck by a deer.   read more