Listen Live: Supreme Court begins blockbuster term under political microscope
CBSN
Washington — The Supreme Court is convening Monday to begin its new term, one that will be shaped by decisions in disputes over gun rights, religious liberty and, in the most divisive case before it, abortion.
The justices are returning to hear oral arguments in-person for the first time since the start of the COVID-19pandemic in March 2020, and with the trio of blockbuster cases on the docket, the term will shed light on how dramatically the 6-3 conservative majority will change the law.
By the summer of 2022, with Democrats' efforts to hold control of the House and Senate in full swing, the high court will likely have issued decisions on whether to expand Second Amendment rights, to chip away at a woman's right to an abortion and continue its pattern of siding with religious organizations.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.