and in national news...

I don't want to divert attention from what is the far more significant event of palmer's passing. However, the arguments the US Supreme Court heard today covered some of the most important legal issues to come before the court in recent years. Namely, the court debated the extension of habeas corpus to military prisoners and others in our post 9/11 world. The debate is over whether the government can suspend habeas corpus whenever it wants for whomever it deems too dangerous/undesirable to extend the law to. Given that habeas corpus was the same issue that the Magna Carta was forged out of in AD 1215, you can bet that a lot of people--historians chief among them--are interested in these decisions. Listen to today's NPR coverage here and here.