Yesterday the LA Times reported the state of Sinaloa in Mexico passed a law prohibiting journalists from reporting crime details not obtained from official state sources. Under the new law, scheduled to take effect in October, journalists would not be allowed to tour crime scenes, or take photos or record video and audio of them.

The outcry by journalists was immediate and justifiable. Today Sinaloa legislators announced they intend to repeal the law in a special session to be held August 21. They say they didn't read the bill closely enough and that they agree it is likely to impermissibly infringe on the ability of the media to do its job. According to the head of the Sinaloa legislature's political coordination committee (Diputación Permanente): [More...]

Update: Israel has concluded the soldier it believed to be captured by Hamas, Lt. Hadar Goldin, was killed in battle in Gaza on Friday. A special committee reviewed pathological evidence at the scene and other information and made the determination.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today announced that Israel's tunnel operation is almost complete and by tomorrow, all known tunnels will have been destroyed. It is pulling back some troops from Gaza, but Netanyahu made it clear Israel is not ending its ground war. He said Hamas will have a heavy price to pay if it continues to attack Israel. More from his announcement:

“Every option is on the table to ensure long-term quiet to the residents of Israel,” he said. “I won’t say when we’ll finish and where we’ll go. We have no obligation outside of our security concerns.”

Hamas responds: [More...]

Attorney General Eric Holder was the featured speaker yesterday at the annual meeting of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) in Philadelphia. The primary topic: Federal sentencing. He also addressed indigent defense, the role of defense lawyers, and the need to act in good faith in discovery matters.

Every day, in courtrooms from coast to coast, criminal defense attorneys take on cases that are fraught with difficulty and often controversy – because you understand that, for our criminal justice system to function at all, every accused individual must have effective representation. And every defendant’s right to due process must be guaranteed.

The full text of his remarks is here.

Colorado's recently passed law allowing immigrants to obtain drivers' licenses without regard to their immigration status is now in effect. The process is by appointment only. So far, more than 9,500 appointments have been scheduled.

The law, SB 251, was passed last year. The official announcement is here. It applies to the undocumented, and those with only temporary legal status. There are five offices set up to issue the licenses: Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Grand Junction. The requirements:

[The undocumented] must present documents like a utility bill to prove they've lived in Colorado the previous two years, in addition to an identification number they've used to pay taxes. They must also show a passport or other identification from their home country. [More...]

Records released in Arizona's botched 2 hour execution show inmate Joseph Wood was injected with 15 times the amount of lethal injection drugs called for by Arizona's death protocol.

“The Arizona execution protocol explicitly states that a prisoner will be executed using 50 milligrams of hydromorphone and 50 milligrams of midazolam,” Dale A. Baich, one of the lawyers who represented Mr. Wood, said in a statement.

...Mr. Wood was injected with 750 milligrams of hydromorphone and 750 milligrams of midazolam in all.

It was expected that Wood would be dead in 10 minutes. It took almost 2 hours. [More...]

The House of Representatives Friday passed a new version of the Republican's border bill that will unconscionably speed up deportations of child migrants. The House also passed a separate bill, intended to appease TX Sen. Ted Cruz and the radical right arm of the party, that reverses much of President Obama's executive order granting temporary relief to Dreamers, children who arrived the United States years ago with undocumented parents. Obama's order created a two year deferral on deportation for many of these children. [More...]

I really thought these Sunni al Sha'etat (aka Al Sh'etat or Sh’ytat or Shu'aytat) Tribe members in Deir Ezzor, Syria were done for. Their tribe had an agreement with ISIS which it claimed ISIS broke, and they expelled ISIS, killing 9 or 11 ISIS members. ISIS returned with its typical furor, and seized dozens of tribe members, mostly young men. It didn't kill them right away but put them in jail. ISIS released these (non-violent) images of their capture. (The towns were Abu Hamam, Kashkiyeh and Ghranij, in Deir Ezzor.)

There were unofficial reports the men were going to face a Sharia Court for treason, and that the penalty for treason is death, or the hacking off of an arm and a leg on opposite sides of the body.

Today, ISIS announced they were spared by order of the Khalifah, and given the chance to repent and pledge allegiance to ISIS. The photo announcement is here. They look much happier now. (And cleaner, maybe ISIS let them take showers and gave them fresh clothes.)[More...]

Update: Hamas' military wing, al Qassam Brigades, has released this statement:

“The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades has no information on this soldier. We have lost contact with one of our combatant groups, which was fighting in the sector where the soldier went missing and it is possible that our fighters and this soldier were killed,” the group said in a statement

They also say:

"We have no idea about where the Israeli soldier is or what is the situation. "We lost contact with the group who made the suicide mission near Rafah after it was done. "We believe everyone in this group was killed by an Israeli air strike including the Israeli soldier who the Israelis are talking about having disappeared."

[More...]

What's on your mind today? Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Colorado is enacting new rules for recreational marijuana edibles, designed to address the problem some people (like Maureen Dowd) have determining how much to ingest.

The rules will not be "tougher" with respect to the quantity of THC contained in edibles. Colorado's current rules specify each "serving" of recreational pot edibles can contain up to 10 mg of THC. [More...]

With the declassified version of the Inspector General's report outlining the CIA's unauthorized intrusion into U.S. Senate staffers' computers on the horizon, CIA director John Brennan admitted today the agency spied on Senate members. He also apologized. [More...]

The four day trial over Jesse Trentadue's attempt to obtain additional Oklahoma City Bombing videos has ended. The judge reserved ruling.

The FBI presented witnesses today to say the tapes never existed, which was an 11th hour claim. Up until the last few weeks, its defense had been they couldn't find any such tapes.

Oklahoma trooper Charlie Hangar, who arrested Timothy McVeigh, testified his videocam didn't start recording until McVeigh was in the back seat. Trentadue says reports show another version of Hangar's tape exists that shows cars passing by, including a brown pickup truck that belonged to an acquaintance of McVeigh's.

Another FBI witness testified the report about an FBI agent who tried to sell a tape showing McVeigh and John Doe #2 at the Murrah building to CBS and Dateline was a hoax.

[More...]