Cultivated Compendium

The likelihood is very low that the U.S. Senate will take up a law that would provide a federal evidentiary privilege to journalists against revealing their sources, writes Rem Rieder in USA Today. While the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill and the House of Representatives also has passed a bill with a shield for journalists, the Senate is not likely to spend a week debating an evidentiary privilege for reporters during its lame-duck session starting November 12, Rieder further writes. "So the shield law, like immigration reform and gun control, looms as yet another casualty of the gridlock that has paralyzed Capitol Hill and turned Congress into a wildly dysfunctional and widely loathed travesty," Rieder concludes.

Gregory S. McNeal, a contributor to Forbes, reports that the Federal Aviation Administration is going to approve the use of drones in Hollywood film-making: "In May, seven aerial photo and video production companies asked for regulatory exemptions (known as a 333 exemption) that would allow the film and television industry to use drones with FAA approval. Those seven companies and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), were asked by the FAA to develop the guidelines and safety procedures under which they planned to operate. The FAA reviewed those procedures and is expected to approve the drone-specific rules and standards that will enable Hollywood to be exempt from existing aviation regulations."

ProPublica and NPR published a joint report earlier this month on the problems with a 1968 federal law that allows debt collectors to take 25 percent of debtors' paychecks and every penny in their bank accounts to repay consumer debts, leaving "millions of workers" facing the struggle of how to live when a large part of their pay is diverted to pay a consumer debt. For example, "time has eroded what even then were modest protections [in the Credit Consumer Protection Act]. The law barred creditors from taking any wages from the very poorest of workers, but used a calculation based on the minimum wage to identify them. Since the federal minimum wage hasn't kept pace with inflation, today, only workers earning about $11,000 annually or less— a wage below the poverty line— are protected." The National Consumer Law Center argues that the cap should be reduced to 10 percent to ensure that low-income debtors still earn a living wage.

According to a report in the New York Law Journal, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is seeking the return of $5.8 million of the $1.4 billion expended in emergency disaster aid for victims of Superstorm Sandy. FEMA also is reviewing another $53 million in aid payments. FEMA is seeking to recoup money in "instances where the agency believes a household got more money than allowed under program rules, but not necessarily because of an intentional attempt to cheat the system."

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has sued to stop the practice of Governor Tom Corbett's administration and other executive-branch agencies of destroying emails after five days, the newspaper's Bill Shackner reports. The lawyers for the newspaper argued that "the state’s practice violates the due process rights of the public seeking release of public records under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law," Shackner further reports.

In another open-records development in Pennsylvania, a grand jury judge lifted a stay blocking the release of what has been described as "as sexually-charged emails circulated among certain Attorney General staff and prosecutors during the course of the Jerry Sandusky probe," according to the Harrisburg Patriot-News' Charles Thompson.

The United National General Assembly "approved a document strengthening the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide. The Outcome Document was endorsed by consensus at the start of the first World Conference on Indigenous Peoples," the Associated Press reports. Seven years ago, the UN also adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

According to the AP, Aili Keskitalo, president of the Sami Parliament in Norway, said that the outcome document recognizes that indigenous peoples will be allowed to participate in UN actions that affect their communities.

A Louisiana judge has ruled that the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional in the case of a couple seeking recognition of their California nuptials, KSLA News reports. A federal judge ruled earlier this year that the state-level ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional, reasoning that "gay marriage supporters failed to prove that the ban violates equal protection or due process provisions of the Constitution."

According to the Huffington Post, "the proportion of coal miners who suffer from an advanced form of black lung disease has skyrocketed in central Appalachia in recent years, according to experts with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health." Health officials says the nearly 10-fold increase is likely due to "workers' overexposure to coal dust, with many miners now working longer hours, or an 'increased toxicity' in dust composition -- that is, even unhealthier air in today's mines," Huffington Post further repors.

The Washington Post reports that the millions of of enrollees who have benefited from the expansion of Medicaid appear to be "generally happy to have coverage, though many are encountering roadblocks to receiving the care they want, according to new research that provides one of the earliest insights into people's experiences under the expanded health insurance program for low-income Americans." The biggest problem for enrollees has been finding a primary care doctor, the Post further reports, because many doctors won't take new Medicaid patients.

In a separate report, the Los Angeles Times reports that as many as 500,000 people, or 10 percent, who have signed up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act may lose coverage or need to pay more because they haven't verified their citizenship or immigration status, or sent in the forms proving their income. The downside? "The Obama administration may face a backlash from consumers who will be asked to repay hundreds or thousands of dollars in subsidies that they weren't entitled to receive," the Times further reports.

The U.S. Supreme Court will be getting an education on "the rhythmic, slangy — sometimes violent — poetry of rap music" as it considers the standard by which violent speech can be judged as a true threat this term, The National Law Journal's Tony Mauro reports. Elonis v. United States, which is set for argument December 1, "asks whether the online posting of threatening language like that found in rap lyrics violates a federal law against transmitting 'any threat to injure the person of another' across state lines," Mauro further reports. Anthony Elonis was convicted of threatening law enforcement, his spouse and others from the rap-like posts he made on Facebook. Elonis argues that pure speech must be judged by a subjective intent standard, but the government says it only needs to prove that a reasonable person would view speech as a true threat.