Viewsday

Decision day has finally arrived.

At 10 a.m., the U.S. Supreme Court convenes to hand down its final opinions of the 2011-2012 term. The justices will take the bench and then announce the rulings in the three remaining cases. One is an obscure but constitutionally significant real estate dispute. The other involves a challenge to the Stolen Valor Act, a federal law that makes it a crime for...

If you're wondering how the Supreme Court will rule on the "individual mandate" portion of the federal health reforms known to fans and foes alike as Obamacare, why not consult the people willing to risk money on the outcome?

The In Trade betting site reports that, so far, bettors think the likelihood of overturn is around 70 percent.  ...

Kids who kill aren’t the same as adults who kill. That’s the common sense the U.S. Supreme Court  reiterated this week in ruling that mandatory life without parole for juveniles convicted of murder is unconstitutional.

That doesn’t mean a killer child can never be sent to prison to leave only in a box. It’s just that making it mandatory is cruel and unusual punishment. As a...

Now that a federal appeals court in Washington has essentially agreed with the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that six greenhouse gases endanger the health and welfare of humans, the way is clear for the agency to do what Congress has refused to do: find ways to cut emissions of the gases that are causing climate change.

Here’s the background on the unanimous ruling Tuesday by the...

Cigarettes have been successfully banned from most indoor public places, but now the battle moves outside, and some aren't on board.

Smoking at parks or beaches in Suffolk County will soon be banned after a bill was passed last week. But if you choose to be a rebel and light up anyway, there will be no fine or penalty -- just judgment from your fellow patrons.

How do you enforce a law...

The balance of power on the U.S. Supreme Court hasn't changed in two years, so neither has the majority's view that corporations and unions have the same free speech rights as individuals to spend money on political advocacy.

Critics of the decision were hoping, a very naive hope at best, that a case out of Montana would give the court a reason to overturn its sweeping, 5-4 decision that unleashed...

Parents expect teachers to protect the best interests of their students. When Jesse Michener of Tacoma, Wash. got home from work Tuesday afternoon, the sight of her two lobster-colored daughters signaled that teacher vigilance can’t be taken for granted.

Zoe, 9, and Violet, 11, were burned so severely that their mom chose to take them to the hospital. They weren’t kept overnight, but the pain...

The U.S. Supreme Court justices must have spent a lot of time working on their opinions in the cases challenging the Affordable Care Act, because they didn’t seem to put much effort in today’s dirty words, fleeting nudity case. Five months after the court heard a broad challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s ban on using “obscene, indecent or profane language,” the justices punted....

When Barack Obama and John McCain rolled into Oxford, Miss. for the first presidential debate in September 2008, traffic was ridiculous, classes were canceled and Obama sparked a flicker of hope in young voters.

My friends and I spent the day in the Grove, enjoying the festivities and anxiously awaiting the debate. Being such a red state, I stuck out with my navy Obama t-shirt, but I didn’t...

Lest anyone doubt the truth of the old saying that "politics makes strange bedfellows," consider the strangeness of two recent pairings. First, the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has endorsed a black New York City councilman, Charles Barron, in the Democratic primary to fill the soon-to-be vacant House of Representatives seat now occupied by Edolphus Towns (D-Brooklyn). In making...