An agency within the Health and Human Services Department issued a rule that bars any nursing home that receives federal funding from requiring that its residents resolve any disputes in arbitration instead of in court. The rule, which would affect nursing homes with 1.5 million residents, promises to deliver major new protections. The new rule came after officials in 16 states and the District of Columbia urged the government to cut off funding to nursing homes that use the clauses.   read more

The Supreme Court is taking up a First Amendment clash over the government’s refusal to register offensive trademarks, a case that could affect the Washington Redskins in their legal fight over the team name. The justices agreed Thursday to hear a dispute involving an Asian-American rock band called the Slants, but they did not act on a separate request to hear the higher-profile Redskins case at the same time.   read more

Tyson Reed and his mother, Linda Reed, sued Kern High School District, KHSD Officer Luis Pena, and teacher Brett Bonetti on Sept. 22 in Kern County Superior Court, alleging disability discrimination and civil rights violations that occurred when a school police officer Tasered Reed twice for being late to class after having an anxiety attack.   read more

New Orleans has the right to remove Confederate monuments that are the center of a heated debate, the city’s attorneys told an appeals court Wednesday, but opponents who want a delay said removing them could cause irreparable harm. Those pushing to keep the monuments got a skeptical reception from the judges, who raised harsh questions about their chances of prevailing.   read more

Texas police who found 8 kilos of cocaine during a random search of a Greyhound bus “created a checkpoint that trespassed on the Constitution” so the drugs cannot be used as evidence, a federal judge ruled. “Brief stops at checkpoints are reasonable if they are for a narrow particular law enforcement purpose directly connected to the use of the roads,” Hughes wrote, citing Supreme Court precedent.   read more

The U.S. Labor Department is investigating possible abuses of employees by Wells Fargo in connection with the bank’s alleged efforts to open millions of unauthorized accounts to meet sales goals. The scandal over millions of deposit and credit card accounts allegedly opened without customers’ permission has widened. The Labor Department review comes atop investigations by congressional committees and federal prosecutors.   read more

The two federal agencies tasked with listing endangered species have finalized revisions to the petition process, but environmentalists see the changes as limiting and burdensome. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service claim the latest changes are part of the Obama administration’s efforts since 2011 to make the Endangered Species Act listing process more transparent, easier to implement and more effective.   read more

Ohio cannot remove voters from registration rolls for failing to vote, the Sixth Circuit ruled. A three-judge panel determined that Ohio’s “supplemental process” for purging voters from registration rolls violates the National Voter Registration Act. The two-step process begins when a voter fails to respond to an address confirmation mailer, and ends when the individual fails to vote in consecutive federal elections.   read more

While that is not a hardship for more affluent communities — about one in five American homes are not on city sewer lines — the legacy of rural poverty has left its imprint here: Many people have failing septic tanks and are too poor to fix them. Others, like Rudolph, have nothing at all. That is not so uncommon. Nearly half a million households in the United States lack the basic dignity of hot and cold running water, a bathtub or shower, or a working flush toilet.   read more

More than one-third of calls to a suicide hotline for troubled veterans are not being answered by front-line staffers because of poor work habits and other problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to the hotline’s former director. Some hotline workers handle fewer than five calls per day and leave before their shifts end, even as crisis calls have increased sharply in recent years, said Greg Hughes, the former director of the VA’s Veterans Crisis Line.   read more

Former and present Wells Fargo employees in California filed a $2.6 billion class action against the bank, claiming they are the “biggest victims” of the bank’s policy of opening accounts without customers’ knowledge. The bank’s aggressive and illegal sales tactics pushed employees to “breaking point.” Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf saw Wells Fargo stock soar as a result, while thousands of employees earning $12 per hour were left to shoulder the blame for banks’ conduct, the 26-page lawsuit says.   read more

Scientists found that lobster larvae struggled to survive when they were reared in water 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the temperatures that are currently typical of the western Gulf of Maine, a key lobster fishing area off of New England. Five degrees is how much the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects the Gulf of Maine’s temperature to warm by the year 2100.   read more

As the U.S. faces a steadily increasing scourge of opioid addiction, prices for lifesaving drugs to treat overdoses and addiction have skyrocketed. A decade ago, the antidote for opioid overdose – naloxone – cost $1 per dose. Now, the drug costs $40. “It’s beyond dispute that such price increases have had a devastating impact on patients, their families, insurers, first responders and health care providers,” Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) said Thursday.   read more

A University of Utah law professor believes the fraud allegations against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s now-defunct real estate school could constitute impeachable offenses if he is elected Nov. 8. Christopher Peterson released a 23-page academic paper this week outlining how the fraud and racketeering claims in three lawsuits against Trump University, if proven, would rise to the level of impeachable offenses under the Constitution.   read more

BP is poised to settle a mass tort lawsuit with more than 25,000 people who were exposed to toxic emissions from its southeast Texas refinery. More than 40,000 residents of Texas City and neighboring La Marque sued BP, claiming that over 40 days in April and May 2010 the company released more than 500,000 pounds of toxic chemicals, including carcinogenic benzene, after diverting the compounds to the flare that was only 33 to 66 percent efficient.   read more

Singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne canceled his show at the University of Texas’ Bass Concert Hall over the school’s policy to allow patrons to carry concealed handguns at the venue. Senate Bill 11, also called campus carry, was passed in 2015 by the Texas Legislature. It allows concealed carry of handguns by license holders on state college and university campuses, and bars schools from prohibiting them except in certain areas. The law took effect Aug. 1.   read more