“Meet the small DOJ unit approving some of Trump’s most controversial policies; The Office of Legal Counsel could take on an even more central role if Democrats retake Congress”: Perry Stein and Mark Berman of The Washington Post have this report.

“They Pushed an Anti-Abortion Pill Law. Now, They’re Being Sued Under It. A Texas mother is suing the president of Students for Life of America and others in the group over an Instagram post that appeared to boast about ordering abortion pills in Houston.” Edgar Sandoval of The New York Times has this report.

“‘No active investigation’ into Wendi Adelson, Hulu documentary shows”: Jeff Burlew of The Tallahassee Democrat has this report.

“Trump administration seeks to remove judge who rebuked it over tree removal; Justice Department attorneys accused the judge of bias and ‘animus’ after a contentious hearing over the removal of hundreds of trees at East Potomac Golf Links”: Rick Maese of The Washington Post has this report.

You can access the court filing at this link.

“The Fort Hood shooter wants martyrdom. I helped save his life instead. Treating Nidal Hasan was my duty. Trump was right not to turn his death into a spectacle.” Roy Smythe has this essay online at The Washington Post.

“US Judge Facing Misconduct Claims Said to Have ‘Abandoned’ Job”: Jacqueline Thomsen of Bloomberg Law has a report that begins, “A committee of judicial investigators said that a federal judge in Dallas abandoned her role and recommended she be temporarily stripped of her docket, according to internal court documents shared with Bloomberg Law.”

“The Supreme Law of the Land: What role should the Supreme Court play in American politics?” Law professor John Fabian Witt has this book review essay in the November 2026 issue of The Nation.

“Trump DOJ Relies on Politically Appointed Lawyers in Major Cases”: Suzanne Monyak of Bloomberg Law has this report.

“The Practical Originalism of Justice Samuel Alito: So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country, shows a Supreme Court justice largely immune to the faddish methodologies of constitutional interpretation offered as alternatives to originalism.” Richard Epstein has this post at Civitas Outlook.

“Servant of the Law: The President as Chief Prosecutor.” Bruce Swartz, Kit Beyer, and John David Cobb have this post at the “Just Security” blog.

“Sam Bankman-Fried Protected by Magna Carta From Being Fined Billions, a New Brief Argues to Supreme Court; A barrage of petitions arriving at the high bench’s docket make the case for a reversal of his fine — and conviction”: A.R. Hoffman of The New York Sun has this report (registration required for full access).

You can access the relevant court filings here, here, and here.

“Guantanamo Dispatches: Military Psychiatrist Finds Cole Bombing Case Defendant Competent; Federal Judge Refuses to Intervene.” Carol Rosenberg has this post at the “Just Security” blog, along with a post titled “Guantanamo Dispatches: Four Possible Obstacles to Jury Selection in the USS Cole Case at Guantanamo Bay.”

“Colorado River States Could Head Back to the Supreme Court; Diminishing water flows set up a conflict that would be subject to original jurisdiction”: Faith Bottum has this op-ed in today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

“Facing the Death Penalty: The cases of Christa Pike and Nidal Hasan show how vanishingly fine the line is between a routine execution and an unbearable one.” Amy Davidson Sorkin has this essay online at The New Yorker.

Also online at The New Yorker, Dexter Filkins has an essay titled “What a Public Execution Looks Like: A life-and-death spectacle in Afghanistan.”

“Trump may have named his last Supreme Court justice; Republicans hold 53 Senate seats; Democrats need to flip four to stop a Trump Supreme Court pick — and with Justices Alito, Thomas and Sotomayor all in their 70s, a vacancy is far from impossible”: Columnist Dace Potas has this essay online at USA Today.

“Appeals court appears skeptical of Trump’s attempt to shield presidential records; The Trump administration argues that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional”: Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney of Politico have this report.

And Mallory Culhane of Bloomberg Law reports that “DOJ Challenges Legality of Presidential Records Act on Appeal.”

You can access the audio of today’s oral argument before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit at this link.

“How Hegseth’s Plan to Livestream an Execution Sent the White House Scrambling; The livestream proposal triggered internal White House debate as well as public skepticism from Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson”: Lara Seligman, Alex Leary, and Philip Wegmann of The Wall Street Journal have this report.

“Academic Architect: A memorable summer job and influential mentors at home and at Harvard shaped the path of Dan Kelly, newly appointed dean of George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School.” Colleen Walsh of Harvard Law Today has this report.

“Two Michigan Supreme Court candidates aren’t eligible to serve. What if they win? Doug Tribou and Caoilinn Goss of Michigan Public Radio have this report.

You can elect judges who have a flat head: “Flathead Judges Amy Eddy and Dan Wilson Face Off in Montana Supreme Court Race; The Flathead County District Court judges in northwest Montana have outlined contrasting judicial philosophies over the court’s role in the nonpartisan race” reports Maggie Dresser of The Flathead Beacon.

“‘Be really open and receptive to new experiences’; Former Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar ’08 recounts her law career, Supreme Court interactions, and Harvard years”: Colleen Walsh of Harvard Law Today has this report.

“A Blockbuster-Era Law Won’t Save Your Privacy”: Law professor Stephen L. Carter has this essay online at Bloomberg Opinion.

“A Texan-Led Movement to Tear Down the Church-State Wall Is Going National; Dan Patrick calls the separation of church and state a lie and has worked to infuse Christianity into Texas institutions; Trump is helping him take that strategy nationwide”: Robert Downen has this article in the November 2026 issue of Texas Monthly.

“Michigan’s U.S. Senate race will decide the Supreme Court’s future; Michigan’s U.S. Senate election could determine whether Donald Trump freely reshapes the federal judiciary, or hits limits on who reaches the bench”: Law professor Samuel R. Bagenstos and David B. Jaffe recently had this essay online at The Detroit Free Press.

“Samuel Alito Has Strong Feelings About Statues Honoring Long-Dead Genocide Perpetrators; All it takes for Alito to care about the denigration of the immigrant experience is the removal of an old Christopher Columbus statue from a city park”: Jay Willis has this post at his “Balls & Strikes” Substack site.

“How Pete Hegseth’s Plan for a Reality-TV Execution Imploded; Trump is fine with a military execution by firing squad, just not with putting it on YouTube”: Missy Ryan and Vivian Salama have this article online at The Atlantic.

“Mapping Mississippi White: Bennie Thompson’s trailblazing career came after the success of the Voting Rights Act and could end with its fall.” Jeffrey Toobin has this article in the November 2026 issue of The New York Review of Books.

“Why Nathan Fielder’s ‘You Can See Everything’ Left Us Reeling”: You can access today’s new episode of the “Hard Fork” podcast from The New York Times on YouTube.

Relatedly, at his “Read Max” site, Max Read has a post titled “‘You Can See Everything’ is a secret history of the tech industry” (caution — contains spoilers with spoiler-warning).

And at the “cc: helmet girl” Substack site, Sam Bodrojan has a post titled “‘You Can See Everything’ Is A Film About Feminism; A spoiler-free review of Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s hybrid portrait of Elizabeth Holmes.”

“Conservative super-lawyer squares up for his latest Supreme Court argument”: Carrie Johnson of NPR has this report.

“Frustrated by Losses in the Courts, Missouri Republicans Want to Change How Top Judges Are Selected; For 86 years, Missouri has held on to a nonpartisan system of selecting its top judges; But after the state Supreme Court overruled the GOP’s redistricting push, some Republican lawmakers are calling for the system to be overturned”: Jeremy Kohler of ProPublica has this report.

“James Ho Ponders Auditions, Ambitions, and the Crushing Meaninglessness of Human Existence; The Fifth Circuit’s most embarrassing try-hard can feel his shot at the Supreme Court slipping away; So he blogged about it”: Jay Willis has this essay online at Balls and Strikes.

“11th Circuit resumes Georgia limits on minors’ social media use; Lobbyist group NetChoice argued the law infringes on the free speech of tech giants”: Megan Butler of Courthouse News Service has this report.

You can access today’s decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit at this link.

“Trump Cancels Planned Livestream of Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution; The president said only immediate families of the victims of the mass shooting in 2009 would witness the execution of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan”: Katie Rogers, Tyler Pager, John Ismay, and Greg Jaffe of The New York Times have this report.

And Dan Lamothe and Tara Copp of The Washington Post report that “Trump cancels Hegseth’s plan to live-stream Fort Hood shooter’s execution; The decision is a rebuke of the defense secretary, who has remained in the president’s good graces through numerous controversies.”

“Slapping Down an Insubordinate Court; The Justices rebuke the Fourth Circuit for its election gamesmanship”: This editorial will appear in Friday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

“How Claims of Widespread Noncitizen Voting Fall Apart”: Amy Schoenfeld Walker, Jeremy White, and Seamus Hughes of The New York Times have this report.