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

Three transgender rights advocates called on the department to abandon its proposed changes. Only Idaho, Ohio and Tennessee have legal policies against changing gender listings on birth certificates. "It really stands against where most of the country is on updating identity documents to accurately reflect who people are," said Arli Christian. Stephanie Mott predicted that the changes will cause more transgender youth to attempt suicide because the state will be rejecting their identities.   read more

When it comes to emojis, women can be brides or princesses, paint their fingernails and go dancing in a red dress. If those sound like roles determined by the patriarchy, well, it’s not a new complaint. But it may be changing. “Isn’t it time that emoji also reflect the reality that women play a key role in every walk of life and in every profession?” said a Google proposal. The proposed emojis include women in business and health care roles, at factories and on farms, among other things.   read more

As Obama prepares to leave office, a group of lawyers is calling on Obama to revoke the Bush legal memo, which they argue has been used by religious groups to refuse services, including contraception for trafficking victims, that conflict with their beliefs. As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama criticized the Bush Justice Dept. for drafting it, but as president failed to follow through. “Leaving it in place tarnishes the civil rights record of the Obama administration,” Garrett said.   read more

The defense lawyers said they were not permitted to say what the evidence was, or what exactly happened to it, because the underlying issue was classified. But they characterized it as “favorable” to the defendants and “important or even critical” to any eventual trial. The defense said it was informed that Pohl had approved a plan by the government to give the defendants a government-prepared “summary of a substitute” for the original, classified evidence that is no longer available.   read more

Texas now has one of the biggest citizenries in the country authorized to carry concealed and unconcealed firearms. The 1 million are made up of 268,200 women and 749,418 men, according to the Department of Public Safety. Most of those men and women — 873,166 — are white. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, is one of them. More people are licensed to be armed in Harris County, Texas, than in the entire state of Louisiana.   read more

All in all, it's some of the worst of times for Republicans who promised to clean up state government after seizing control from Democrats. "I never recall when the top leaders of all three branches of government were simultaneously accused of improper behavior," said retired political scientist Bill Stewart. It's hard for state government to concentrate on issues like Medicaid or the prison system when so many officials are fighting for their jobs, he said. "It's definitely a traumatic time."   read more

The move to rethink "healthy" comes as dietary trends have shifted, with more people expressing concern about sugar and questioning low-fat or low-calorie diets. But any change in the term's regulatory definition could take years. The FDA's final rule on gluten-free labeling, for instance, took more than six years to complete. In a statement Tuesday, the FDA also noted that foods that do not meet all the current regulatory criteria for the term "healthy" are not necessarily unhealthy.   read more

"This is an epidemic by any definition," said Dr. Gary Smith. Most cases involve swallowing liquid nicotine. Monthly calls about young kids' swallowing, inhaling or touching e-cigarettes climbed from 14 early on to 223 by the study's end. Calls totaled 4,128 during the study. Most children were age 2 or younger. The cases represent 14% of the nearly 30,000 calls about kids' exposure to tobacco products during that time. Dr. Joan Shook called the poisonings "a huge public health issue."   read more

The unusual case involves whether two lawyers should be held in criminal contempt for revealing details about the role of Felix Sater, a former Trump business associate, in orchestrating a Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme. The AP reported that, even after learning about Sater's criminal background, Trump tapped Sater to prospect for business on his behalf, giving Sater the title of senior adviser and an office in the Trump Organization's headquarters near to his own.   read more

The vans can drive alongside cars or buildings to find drugs or explosives that may be hidden inside. But because they use X-rays, which bounce back from the target, they may expose unknowing people to ionizing radiation, which can increase the risk of cancer. The vans are similar to airport body scanners that were removed by TSA in 2013. The NYPD has refused to release any records about how it uses the vans and what it does to protect people who may be in the vicinity.   read more

Government authorities have for years argued that allowing some legal hunting can help reduce the illegal killing of wolves and grizzly bears. Their theory — though there has been little scientific research to support it — has been that legalizing hunting helps reduce resentment among landowners, increase support for conservation and decrease poaching. But the new study offers the first evidence that government authorization of any legal killing of wolves appears to increase illegal killing.   read more

"A law against driving with THC in your bloodstream is not a law you can know you are obeying except by never smoking marijuana or never driving," said Kleinman. Rather than switching to a new kind of law as AAA recommends, states should consider simply making it a traffic violation, he suggests. Studies show using marijuana and driving roughly doubles the risk of a crash. By comparison, talking on a hands-free cellphone while driving — legal in all states — quadruples crash risk.   read more

The study showed that physicians who receive industry money tend to prescribe higher rates of brand-name drugs — and thus, lower rates of similarly effective, more affordable generic drugs. An aim of the study was to determine and reduce any industry influence that could produce bad behavior. “You want your doctors to be objective rather than doing something because there is a financial gain, be it subconscious or conscious,” Yeh said. “That’s not the way we should be doing medicine.”   read more

The Justice Dept. warned Gov. McCrory that the law violates civil rights protections against sex discrimination in education and employment. Margaret Spellings, former Education Secretary to President George W. Bush, has found her leadership tested as she steers the UNC system between the conservatives who just appointed her and the federal agency she once led. She was criticized by LGBT student groups for not doing more to lobby against the law before it was approved.   read more

While Republican lawmakers have fought to protect coal-fired power plants, data show their home states are often the ones benefiting most from the nation's shift to renewable energy. Leading the way in new wind projects are GOP strongholds Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, home to some of the leading critics of climate science and renewable energy. Nearly all the states that have sued to stop the Clean Power Plan have GOP governors.   read more

The ACLU found 85 out of 110 incidents in which police prolonged "routine stops far beyond the time reasonably required to resolve the underlying issue, solely to pursue investigations of immigration status or wait for immigration officials to respond," Lyall wrote. "In many of these cases, officers are going out of their way to transfer custody to U.S. Border Patrol, regardless of the delay that results." Often, legal residents and/or citizens were detained because of false information.   read more