The U.S. Chamber-backed West Virginia Record critically summarizes the tortuous course of the state's lawsuit against Oxycontin maker Purdue Pharma, often raised by critics as symbolic of their objections to Attorney General Darrell McGraw's handling of his office. More here,...

Now Chestnut Hill Hospital is closing its 1,000-babies-a-year maternity unit (via Pero). More background here....

Another study helps put to rest a litigation-driven canard. And, also via Orac, Ira Flatow interviews Paul Offit, author of the important new book hitting the bookstores this month, "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for...

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, president-elect of NAAG, says he's not sure he's ever hired outside counsel on contingency and says colleagues should be "very, very careful" of doing so [Legal NewsLine] More Bruning, discussing absence in Nebraska civil...

A call sounded in Mitt Romney's speech (via Genova)....

The Daily Mail (U.K.) reports:...

From Live Nation Motor Sports, Inc. v. Davis, 2006 WL 3616983 (N.D. Tex. Dec. 12):...

The Third Circuit has handed down an interesting Fourth Amendment case, United States v. Whitted, that considers "whether the Fourth Amendment requires any level of suspicion to justify a border...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit handed down Milavetz, Gallop & Milabetz v. United States yesterday, in which the majority held unconstitutional a provision that barred debt...

Yesterday's Investors Business Daily reports on the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, a group with trains and pays stipends to community organizers and other youthful volunteers. According to IBD, "Barack...