Nina Totenberg

Arkansas prisoner Gregory Holt hand-wrote a 15-page petition without the help of lawyers, arguing that he be permitted to wear a beard as part of his religion. The Supreme Court will hear the case.

On Monday, on the first day of its new term, the court stunned the legal world, refusing to take any of the appeals pending on lower court rulings allowing gay marriage.

The U.S. Supreme Court opens a new term Monday. The issues on the docket range from whether threats on Facebook count as threats to whether prisoners should be allowed to wear short beards.

There was no word today from the U.S. Supreme Court on whether it would tackle the issue of gay marriage. The justices issued a list of cases they will hear in the new term, which begins on Monday, but same-sex marriage was notably absent.

The silence on the gay-marriage question ...

The U.S. Court of Appeals covering much of the Midwest has become the third federal appeals court to strike down gay-marriage bans — this time in Wisconsin and Indiana.

Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Judge Richard Posner, a Reagan appointee, said that Wisconsin and Indiana had given the court ...

A federal judge in New Orleans has upheld Louisiana's law banning same-sex marriage. The decision is the first break in a string of more than two dozen federal court rulings that have struck down same-sex-marriage bans in other states over the past year.

In upholding Louisiana's ban, Judge Martin Feldman ...

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh was returned to surgery at a New Hampshire hospital on Tuesday, after suffering serious injuries in what police say was a one-car crash Monday, according to the Burlington Free Press. The newspaper also reports that Freeh is under armed guard.

The crash took place ...

The Supreme Court has stayed a Virginia court's ruling which ended the state's ban on same-sex marriages.

The U.S. Supreme Court has stepped in to block a federal appeals court ruling that would have allowed gay marriages to begin in Virginia on Thursday.

The decision was widely expected and tells little about how the high court will ultimately rule on the issue. It merely preserves the status ...

Everything in Alaska is a little bit bigger — even the produce. A 138-pound cabbage, 65-pound cantaloupe and 35-pound broccoli are just a few of the monsters that have sprung forth from Alaska's soil in recent years.

At the annual Alaska State Fair, which opens Thursday in Palmer, the ...

The Supreme Court has been granting more rights to corporations, including some regarded as those solely for individuals. But Nina Totenberg finds the company-to-person shift has a long history.

An hour into Wednesday's botched execution in Arizona, an attorney for the inmate reached out to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy seeking his intervention. How do such appeals work? And how often do they happen?

Two federal appeals courts issued conflicting views of the subsidies available under Obamacare. The problem is the language in one subsection of the 950-page law — boiling down to just three words.

One U.S. appeals court panel tossed out federal subsidies for low-income insurance buyers, while another three-judge panel affirmed them. The issue has the potential to gut the health care overhaul.

Even when the justices ruled together on cases, there was clear disagreement between them. Meanwhile, high-profile decisions in which they split 5-4 seemed particularly partisan.

One order issued by the court is a major setback for President Obama's Affordable Care Act, and a victory for for-profit corporations. The other is a major defeat for public employee unions.

Public employee unions suffered a major defeat at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, with worse probably to come soon.

The court's 5-4 decision will in the short run undercut the financing for some public employee unions by allowing people who don't join the union and don't pay any fees ...

In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that closely held companies can defy the Affordable Care Act mandate to cover some forms of contraception if they object on religious grounds.

The court ruled Monday in a case asking whether family-owned businesses that offer employees health insurance must include contraception in their plans if they object to some forms of it.

The Supreme Court eased restrictions on protesters at clinics that perform abortions. The court invalidated a Massachusetts law that created a 35 foot buffer outside abortion clinics in the state.