“A Spur in the Filibuster Fight: A Court’s Workload and Politics.” Adam Liptak will have this news analysis in Saturday’s edition of The New York Times.

“Judge reinstates fired Inquirer editor”: The Philadelphia Inquirer has this news update.

And The New York Times has a news update headlined “Judge Orders Reinstatement of Ousted Philadelphia Inquirer Editor.”

“Partisan Fever in Senate Likely to Rise”: Jonathan Weisman has this news analysis in today’s edition of The New York Times. The newspaper also contains an editorial titled “Democracy Returns to the Senate.”

In today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal, Jess Bravin has an article headlined “Move to Rein In Filibusters Likely to Deepen Split in Courts; Simple-Majority Vote on Judicial Confirmations Paves Way for More-Ideological Nominees.”

Warren Richey of The Christian Science Monitor has an article headlined “How new Senate filibuster rule could change balance of power on courts: There are 18 vacancies on federal appeals courts nationwide, but perhaps most significantly, the new Senate filibuster rule allows Obama and Democrats to fill three seats on the D.C. Circuit, the nation’s second most powerful court.”

Josh Gerstein of Politico.com has an article headlined “In the post-nuclear landscape, uncharted terrain.” Politico also has an article headlined “Tom Udall, Jeff Merkley clock ‘nuclear’ win.”

Michael Doyle of McClatchy Washington Bureau has an article headlined “New Senate rules won’t cure all the delay and disharmony.”

Yesterday evening’s broadcast of NPR’s “All Things Considered” contained audio segments titled “Federal Bench Could See New Faces After Senate Rules Change” and “Senate Democrats Go ‘Nuclear’ To Curb Filibusters.” And today’s broadcast of “Morning Edition” contained an audio segment titled “Senate Democrats, After Threats, Detonate ‘Nuclear Option.’”

Yesterday’s broadcast of The PBS NewsHour contained a segment titled “‘Nuclear option’ to clear way for federal nominations inflames debate.”

Online at The New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg has a blog post titled “The Senate’s Nuclear (Power) Option.”

And online at Slate, Emily Bazelon has a jurisprudence essay titled “The Filibuster Had to Be Killed; How the Republican minority had turned it into an obscene weapon for obstructionism, delay, and political mischief.”

“New trial ordered over Charlotte teen’s Taser death”: The Charlotte Observer has a news update that begins, “A federal appeals court has tossed out a more than $6 million award to the family of a North Carolina teenager who died after being shocked with a Taser.”

You can access today’s ruling of a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit at this link.

“When the Swing Justice Doesn’t Swing: Rumors of Anthony Kennedy as a moderate on abortion are wildly overblown.” Law professor David S. Cohen has this jurisprudence essay online at Slate.

“Shhh, Republicans May Like Filibuster Reform”: Law professor Cass R. Sunstein has this essay online at Bloomberg View.

And online at Slate, law professor Eric Posner has an essay titled “Centrists Should Mourn the Demise of the Filibuster; Only the extremists win — and in the end, mostly the Republicans.”

In today’s mail: I received a copy of law professor Robert Blecker‘s new book, “The Death of Punishment: Searching for Justice among the Worst of the Worst.”

As noted in this post from Tuesday, Blecker — whose law school bio describes him as “a nationally known retributivist advocate of the death penalty” — appeared that day on WNYC Radio’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” to promote the book. You can access the audio segment via this link.

“Alex Kozinski and Marcy Tiffany file no-nonsense objection to class-action settlement”: Brian Wolfman has this post today at Public Citizen’s “Consumer Law & Policy Blog.”

“Appeals court won’t toss NYC stop-frisk rulings”: The Associated Press has this report on an interesting per curiam opinion that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued today.

“Illinois Supreme Court tosses Department of Revenue’s tax-collection rules; Justices don’t say point-of-purchase practice violates laws, or what tax policy should be; issue ‘well suited for the General Assembly'”: Ameet Sachdev has this article today in The Chicago Tribune.

And The Chicago Sun-Times reports that “Illinois Supreme Court rules to close sales tax loopholes.”

You can access yesterday;s ruling of the Supreme Court of Illinois at this link.

Access online the fourth and final episode of Pennsylvania Cable Network’s “Courts 101 with Justice Stevens”: According to PCN’s description of last night’s broadcast, “On this episode, Justice Stevens discusses the difference between being elected as a judge and being appointed as a Justice, technology in the court during high profiles cases, the differences between the courts and much more.” You can view last night’s episode by clicking here.

The video of the previous three episodes can be accessed via this link.