“Alabama prisoner faces eighth execution date amid death penalty debate”: Richard Wolf of USA Today has this report.

“Supreme Court forced to confront the ‘unsavory’ politics of district lines”: Richard Wolf of USA Today has this report.

“The Year of the Patent”: Adam Feldman has this post at his “Empirical SCOTUS” blog.

“Alternative Evidence: A dialogue on how the law will handle a world of alternative facts.” Slate has this jurisprudence essay, consisting of a conversation between Seventh Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner and Senior U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.), moderated by Joel Cohen.

15 years of “How Appealing” — reader mail: Today’s email is from an attorney who asked me to omit his name:

Congratulations on the 15-year milestone!

I have been reading this blog since its inception when I was an undergraduate at NYU. I had been reading cases since high school as I just loved (and love) the law. Your blog is the greatest resource for keeping current on the state of the law, which I believe is absolutely necessary to have a successful practice. I have been litigating appeals for 10 years now and I find your insights always interesting and refreshing. Most notably, I think, your blog provides a great resource for CTA cases that eventually become SCOTUS cases. Following the percolation of issues in the circuits is something that is invaluable, and without your blog it would be impossible to track things like that.

So thank you for being a wonderful resource and eminently readable.

And thanks to you for that very kind email! I will post another reader email tomorrow.

“Trump lawyers ask Supreme Court to reject 2nd Amendment claim by men who lost gun rights over nonviolent crimes”: David G. Savage of The Los Angeles Times has this report.

“Appeals Court Will Not Reinstate Trump’s Revised Travel Ban”: Adam Liptak of The New York Times has this report.

Ann E. Marimow and Robert Barnes of The Washington Post report that “Federal appeals court maintains freeze of Trump’s travel ban. Attorney general vows Supreme Court appeal.”

David G. Savage of The Los Angeles Times reports that “Trump is dealt another defeat on travel ban as U.S. appeals court in Virginia blocks enforcement.”

Brent Kendall of The Wall Street Journal reports that “Appeals Court Rules Against Trump’s Revised Travel Ban; Administration says it will appeal to Supreme Court.”

Alan Gomez and Richard Wolf of USA Today report that “Appeals court rules against President Trump’s revised travel ban.”

Andrea Noble and Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times report that “Appeals court upholds block on Trump’s extreme vetting policy; Jeff Sessions vows appeal to Supreme Court.”

Frank Green of The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that “Divided appeals court rules against Trump’s revised travel ban.”

Erik Larson, Andrew M Harris, and Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News report that “Sessions Says DOJ Will Seek Supreme Court Review of Travel Ban.”

Mica Rosenberg and Dan Levine of Reuters report that “In blow to Trump, U.S. appeals court refuses to reinstate travel ban.”

Ariane de Vogue of CNN.com has a report headlined “Travel ban case: Here’s what the Supreme Court might look at.”

Josh Gerstein of Politico.com reports that “Appeals court keeps block on revised Trump travel ban; administration vows SCOTUS appeal; Attorney general vows to take legality of executive order to Supreme Court.”

Cristian Farias of HuffPost reports that “Appeals Court Slaps Down Donald Trump’s Travel Ban Yet Again; The court said that the president’s executive order ‘drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.’”

Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News reports that “Federal Appeals Court Upholds The Nationwide Injunction Blocking Trump’s Travel Ban.”

And in commentary, online at Bloomberg View, law professor Noah Feldman has an essay titled “Court Essentially Says Trump Lied About Travel Ban; The decision by the Fourth Circuit is extraordinary in its rebuke of the president.”

You can access today’s en banc ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit at this link.

“Kevin Newsom’s Insightful Take on The Slaughter-House Cases”: Michael Stokes Paulsen has this post online at National Review’s “Bench Memos” blog.

“Gov. Kay Ivey appoints Will Sellers, former campaign chair, to Alabama Supreme Court”: Brian Lyman of The Montgomery Advertiser has this report.

“Senate Republicans likely to change custom that allows Democrats to block judicial choices”: Robert Barnes and Ed O’Keefe of The Washington Post have an article that begins, “Senate Republicans are threatening to change a custom that allows Democratic senators to block some judicial choices from their states, in an effort to speed along a conservative transformation of the federal judiciary.”

“U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar confirmed to federal appeals court seat”: Bill Estep of The Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader has this report.

Alex Swoyer of The Washington Times reports that “Senate confirms Judge Thapar to 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Seung Min Kim of Politico.com reports that “Senate confirms Trump’s conservative pick for 6th Circuit Appeals court.”

And Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News reports that “The Senate Confirmed Trump’s First Lower Court Nominee.”

“Election Wars at the Supreme Court”: Linda Greenhouse has this essay online at The New York Times.

Programming note: This morning, I will be attending a meeting out-of-the-office concerning one of the appeals on which I am working. Additional posts will appear here this afternoon. As always while I am traveling, additional appellate-related retweets are likely to appear on this blog’s Twitter feed.