Programming note: On Friday, I will be traveling to Chicago, where on Friday afternoon I will be visiting the University of Chicago Law School for the first time since 2005. I won’t be returning home until Saturday night. As a result, additional posts will not appear here until Sunday.

As always while I am traveling, appellate-related retweets are likely to appear on this blog’s Twitter feed.

“Two judges, private attorney are nominees for vacant Missouri Supreme Court seat”: Nassim Benchaabane of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has this report.

“The Constitution Has Masked Protesters Covered”: Law professor Noah Feldman has this essay online today at Bloomberg View.

“Postpone the Gorsuch Hearings: His nomination to the Supreme Court cannot be separated from the serious questions that plague the Trump presidency.” Dahlia Lithwick and law professor Sonja West have this jurisprudence essay online at Slate.

“The White House Is Vetting One Of Trump’s Supreme Court Short-Listers For Another Court Seat; Judge Amul Thapar, one of the judges that Trump said he was considering for the US Supreme Court, is a frontrunner for a federal appeals court seat; The FBI has been doing background checks on the Kentucky federal judge in recent weeks, sources tell BuzzFeed News”: Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News has this report.

“A ‘living Constitution’ on the right? The left should be glad that Gorsuch is an originalist and not a conservative activist.” Law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds has this essay online today at USA Today.

“Florida Supreme Court upholds ban on openly carrying guns”: Dan Sweeney of The South Florida Sun Sentinel has this report.

And Jim Saunders of The News Service of Florida reports that “Justices uphold ban on openly carrying guns; Justices sided with the 4th District Court of Appeal, which ruled in 2015 against a man arrested in St. Lucie County for openly carrying a gun in a holster.”

You can access today’s ruling of the Supreme Court of Florida at this link.

“Companies back transgender rights in Supreme Court fight”: Lawrence Hurley of Reuters has this report.

“Sandy Hook Parents File 1st Argument To Supreme Court In Gun Lawsuit Case”: Dave Altimari of The Hartford Courant has this report.

“Affirmative action in UT admissions faces new legal challenge”: Ralph K.M. Haurwitz of The Austin American-Statesman has an article that begins, “A new round of litigation challenging the consideration of race in admissions at the University of Texas is being organized by the same UT alumnus who took a similar case to the U.S. Supreme Court twice and lost.”

“‘Tenth Justice’ Not Likely for Several Months”: Kimberly S. Robinson of Bloomberg BNA has this report.

“U.S. court rejects bid to overturn NYC law on sale of dogs, cats”: Jonathan Stempel of Reuters has this report on a ruling that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued today.

“Texas Supreme Court hears gay marriage case”: Chuck Lindell of The Austin American-Statesman has this report.

Andrea Zelinski of The Houston Chronicle reports that “Texas Supreme Court hears Houston same-sex benefits case.”

And Alexa Ura of The Texas Tribune reports that “Treat same-sex couples the same as others, Texas Supreme Court told; Same-sex couples are entitled to the same treatment as opposite-sex couples, a lawyer for the city of Houston argued before the Texas Supreme Court on Wednesday in a case challenging the city’s benefits policy for married same-sex couples.”