"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

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 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 demand has been so overwhelming that the manufacturer ran out of raw material in just a few days. Enthusiasts extol its virtues all over the internet. Millennials are clamoring for it. "I'm telling all my friends about it," said Maddy Novich, 33. Like so many crazes these days, this one has been fueled by social media, word of mouth and the internet. "I have never seen such interest in a credit card, and I've been doing this for 15 years," said Gary Leff.   read more

Demographer William Frey said the slower growth is largely a factor of the economy. A slower economy is influencing families to hold off on having more children, and it's discouraging migration amid stronger border enforcement, he said. Kenneth M. Johnson, a senior demographer at the Carsey School of Public Policy, said U.S. Hispanic women between the ages of 20 to 24 have seen a 36% decline in birth rates. "That's by far the largest decline of any other group," Johnson said.   read more

It's no Nobel Peace Prize, but Barack Obama has a new honor to brag about. Scientists have named a parasite after him — and there's no worming out of it. Meet Baracktrema obamai, a tiny parasitic flatworm that lives in turtles' blood. A new study officially names the 2-inch, hair-thin creature after Obama. Thomas Platt, the newly retired biology professor at Saint Mary's College in Indiana who chose the name, says it's an honor, not an insult. Really.   read more

The study found more young adults are open to conservative ideology. Twenge said it's surprising as these same young people generally disagree with many traditional conservative viewpoints. "Given young people's support for same-sex marriage and legalizing marijuana, it's surprising that more now identify as political conservatives. Overall, millennials may not be as reliably liberal and Democrat as many had predicted, especially as they are likely to grow more conservative as they get older."   read more

Muslim advocacy groups cheered Qureshi’s nomination. The issue of diversity in the judicial landscape received renewed attention this year after Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, said in May that Gonzalo P. Curiel, the presiding judge in a lawsuit filed by former Trump University students, would be biased against him because of the judge’s Mexican-American background. Trump later said that he did not think that a Muslim judge would be fair to him, either.   read more

U.S. aviation safety officials took the extraordinary step late Thursday of warning airline passengers not to turn on or charge a new-model Samsung smartphone during flights following numerous reports of the devices catching fire. The FAA also warned passengers not to put the phones in their checked bags, citing "recent incidents and concerns raised by Samsung." It's unusual for the FAA to warn passengers about a product. Samsung ordered a global recall after an investigation of explosions.   read more

“We calculate that each upset loss of the LSU football team generates excess punishments of juvenile defenders in Louisiana by a total of more than 1,332 days, including time in custody and probation,” Eren and Mocan wrote. “Importantly, 159 extra days of jail time has been assigned to juveniles convicted of a felony due to an upset loss in a football game.” Not surprisingly, African-American defendants bear the brunt of the judges’ unhappiness about the Tigers’ fortunes.   read more

Imagine a scene straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie: You call a phone number, unaware that it has been wiretapped as part of a federal investigation, and incriminate yourself in a different crime altogether. Judge Gould noted the novelty of the question: Is the evidence admissible when a valid wiretap helps catch someone else who happens to be involved in a different crime? The government needs to stop listening to people's conversations when it knows it shouldn't, said Johnson.   read more

This election cycle, it seems that many CEOs have chosen to be less public about whom they are supporting in the presidential race. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich canceled an event at his home for Donald Trump after it was reported to be causing a firestorm among Intel employees. Some executives privately say they worry they could see reprisals against their business or industry if they were to actively campaign for one candidate or another.   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

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

“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