Stories

In The Washington Post, Robert Barnes writes about the Supreme Court’s recent decision not to review Washington State’s regulations on pharmacies, which mandate that every pharmacy in the state, private or otherwise, must have a pharmacist on hand willing to dispense emergency contraception. The owners of private pharmacy Ralph’s Thriftway in Olympia, Washington, initially challenged […]

Last week marked the 45th anniversary of New York Times Company v. United States, also known as the “Pentagon Papers” case. Writing for Just Security, David McCraw, assistant general counsel for The New York Times, reflected on the decision. The case revolved around an attempt by the Nixon administration to stop the press from releasing […]

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating the first fatal accident involving a semi-autonomous vehicle. Last week,  a Tesla Model S collided with a tractor-trailer that had turned across an intersection on a divided highway. At the time of the accident, the Model S was in “Autopilot Mode”—a semi-autonomous feature that allows the […]

The world’s largest vertical farm is currently under construction in New Jersey. According to Ria Misra of Gizmodo, the farm will occupy a 70,000 square foot former steel mill and is expected to yield two million pounds of lettuce and other greens yearly. While vertical farms do offer the ability for agriculture to exist in […]

Earlier this month NFL cornerback Richard Sherman publicly condemned taxpayer-funded stadiums. More recently, Brent Gardner, in USA Today, noted the Seattle Seahawk player’s comments and gave some insight into available data on NFL stadium subsidies: “According to consulting firm Conventions, Sports, and Leisure, the 20 new NFL stadiums built between 1997 and 2015 received $4.76 […]

Reason’s Jacob Sullum reports that Oklahoma City police arrested Colin Grizzle, manager of the bar “The Pump,” for the act of mixing ingredients such as bacon and jalapeños into distilled spirits. The law Grizzle broke states that anyone with a mixed beverage license cannot refill a container that previously contained an alcoholic beverage with any […]

Bennett L. Gershman writes for the Huffington Post about the ongoing controversy over Cleveland, Ohio’s imposition of a free-speech zone in advance of the upcoming Republican National Convention. Cleveland city regulators have created a 3.5-square mile area dubbed the “Event Zone,” and are restricting parades, demonstrations, and speech-making anywhere in the zone. The regulations require […]

In a recent article for The New York Times, Mark Mazzetti and Ali Younes write that Jordanian intelligence operatives have stolen millions of dollars’ worth of American and Saudi weapons, which the CIA  originally sent to arm Syrian rebels opposing President Bashar al-Assad. According to Mazzetti and Younes, the stolen weapons were resold on the […]

Virginia Postrel, in Bloomberg View, writes that a major high-speed rail project between Los Angeles and San Francisco is far behind schedule and dramatically over budget. Postrel notes that the project’s original estimated cost has ballooned from $33 billion to $68 billion, and government leaders created unrealistic expectations about the rail’s cost and benefits to […]

A 19-year-old British programmer, Joshua Browder, launched a bot that helps users appeal parking tickets, Danielle Muoio reports for Tech Insider. According to Muoio, the bot, which has been launched in London and New York, has successfully appealed 160,000 parking tickets out of 250,000, or 64 percent. As of February, the bot had successfully appealed […]