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Chief Justice John Roberts: Judges' safety 'essential' to court system
CBSN
With security threats to Supreme Court justices still fresh memories, Chief Justice John Roberts on Saturday praised programs that protect judges, saying that "we must support judges by ensuring their safety."
Roberts and other conservative Supreme Court justices were the subject of protests, some at their homes, after the May leak of the court's decision that ultimately stripped away constitutional protections for abortion. Justice Samuel Alito has said that the leak made conservative justices "targets for assassination." And in June, a man carrying a gun, knife and zip ties was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house after threatening to kill the justice, whose vote was key to overturning the court's Roe v. Wade decision.
Roberts, writing in an annual year-end report about the federal judiciary, did not specifically mention the abortion decision, but the case and the reaction to it seemed clearly on his mind.
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Oregon's Durkee Fire – the largest active blaze in the U.S. – has burned more than 268,500 acres of land. And while that amount of lost land poses an aggressive and dangerous threat, there's another threat wildfires like Durkee can present that many aren't aware of: they can create their own weather systems.