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

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory and other GOP state officials hoped the Supreme Court would grant a stay that would keep their law in place. The split meant a loss for the state's appeal. Voters thus will not have to show one of several qualifying photo IDs when casting ballots in the presidential battleground state. It also means early voting also reverts back to 17 days, to begin Oct. 20. The now defunct rules would have reduced the number of early voting days to 10.   read more

Among the new FDA rules is a ban on the charitable donation of tobacco products. Van Trees runs Support the Troops, a nonprofit organization that sends care packages to bases in locations such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Cigars are the second-most-requested item in those packages, behind coffee and ahead of toothpaste and tube socks. "It means the world to these guys who love to sit by the fire and smoke some sticks," Van Trees said. "This is going to put a huge hole in what we do for them."   read more

Microsoft’s effort to rally support is part of a growing resistance by technology companies to government attempts to snoop on the electronic communications of their customers. Microsoft president Brad Smith said the company was grateful for the support of 80 signatories. “It’s not every day that Fox News and the ACLU are on the same side of an issue,” he said. “We believe...people should know when the government accesses their emails unless secrecy is truly needed,”   read more

"We have no scientific evidence that they are any better than plain soap and water," said FDA's Dr. Woodcock. Studies showed changes in testosterone, estrogen and thyroid hormones. Scientists worry that it could raise the risk of infertility, early puberty and even cancer. Because the chemicals are known to kill some bacteria, even if they are no better than soap, experts worry that routine use will help allow drug-resistant germs to emerge that cannot be killed by antibiotics.   read more

A judge will allow the Engineers to keep shooting cormorants by the thousands,despite objections from environmentalists who say the slaughter doesn't address the real cause of dwindling salmon populations: hydroelectric dams. Since 2015, the government has shot 4,740 cormorants and poured vegetable oil on 6,181 nests to suffocate the eggs. Judge Simon said the government violated the law by not considering other ways to increase salmon survival rates but declined to stop the killing.   read more

Online sales make up only 7% of all U.S. retail transactions. But players such as Amazon are only getting bigger while traditional department stores and big-box chains are getting smaller. So real estate developers are looking for new tenants not directly competitive with Amazon. They're filling shopping plazas with urgent care centers and dentist offices, hair salons, gyms and restaurants. "What's in high demand is Internet proof," said Wheeler. "It's all experiences you can't get online."   read more

In 2011, he was made special assistant for Europe and Russia to Vice President Joe Biden. He later became a point man for the State Department in relations with those countries and helped coordinate aid for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Silverman turned down a chance to become Ambassador to Lebanon in 2015 because of health reasons, and remained a Deputy Assistant Secretary until accepting the Kuwait post.   read more

The Obama administration has spent three years arguing that showing the treaty's corporate fingerprints to the public would threaten national security by shining a light on secret negotiations between a dozen world powers. But Judge Ramos splashed cold water on those fears on Wednesday. Critics of the deal have noted that the treaty is so vast and sweeping that it can hardly be called a "trade" deal at all, but a bid by transnational businesses to loosen regulatory constraints.   read more

Letting the FBI into the Ohio database would give the federal government access to millions of photographs from sources that include drivers' licenses and criminal mug shots. "The FBI's ongoing track record of widespread mass surveillance and blatant disregard for laws and policies meant to protect our privacy should, at the very minimum, give Ohio pause," Daniels wrote. The FBI now has access to over 30 million images--most of which are of persons who have no criminal record.   read more

“Each year, the U.S. imprisons more than half a million individuals who have never been convicted of a crime, largely because they are unable to post bail," the researchers wrote. “People can end up losing their livelihoods, their homes, and even their children, when forced to wait in jail for their day in court, simply because they cannot afford cash bail," wrote Steinberg. "Most come under tremendous pressure to take a plea bargain – regardless of guilt..."   read more

The proposed policy responds to President Obama's November 2015 directive to key federal agencies to develop and share a "common set of their best practices to mitigate for harmful impacts to natural resources." While acknowledging that economic development, infrastructure, and national security goals are achieved at a price to our natural resources, the president's memorandum expressed his conviction that American ingenuity was up to the task of minimizing and compensating for those impacts.   read more

Hall was sent to Shanghai in 1997 as consular section chief. She returned to Washington in 2000 as a special assistant in the Bureau of Consular Affairs. The next year she became desk officer in the Office of Nordic and Baltic Affairs. She had a stint in 2003 as the consul general in Edinburgh, Scotland, before being named senior Cyprus officer in the Office of the Special Cyprus Coordinator, where she participated in negotiations leading to the U.N. settlement of the Cyprus problem in 2004.   read more

Cluster bombs, used since World War II to kill and maim indiscriminately, were outlawed under a 2008 international treaty. Most of the world’s countries have signed the treaty, but not the U.S. and Russia, where many of the bombs were made. A report released Thursday in Geneva found that the weapons continued to be used with near impunity in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen. In June, a provision to ban the transfer of such munitions to Saudi Arabia was defeated in the House of Representatives.   read more

Fines, fees and restitution mandates are levied on juvenile offenders in every state, a new national survey of these practices has found. The effects are greatest on the poor and racial minorities, creating a two-tiered system of justice. In juvenile systems intended to help wayward youths go straight, the study found, these costs are often counterproductive, drawing young people, especially poor minorities, ever deeper into the maze of criminal courts and straining already-fragile families.   read more

Juanita Stanley, co-owner of Flowertown Bee Farm, described the devastating effect of the aerial spraying. "My bee yard looks like it's been nuked," she said. The farm lost nearly 2.5 million honeybees from 46 hives as a result of the spraying. "My wife called a short time after the flyover and said, 'We have a mass kill,'" hobby beekeeper Andrew Macke reported. "We have thousands and thousands of bees dead all around our pool deck and our driveway, just everywhere."   read more

“This community participated in the institution of slavery,” said Georgetown president DeGioia, addressing a crowd of hundreds of students, faculty members and descendants. “This original evil that shaped the early years of the Republic was present here. We have been able to hide from this truth, bury this truth, ignore and deny this truth. As a community and as individuals, we cannot do our best work if we refuse to take ownership of such a critical part of our history. We must acknowledge it.”   read more