FOXNews.com reports that the District Attorney in Eagle, Colorado won't decide whether to file charges against Kobe Bryant until next week. We have court there on Monday, we'll report any buzz we hear.

The Feminist Daily News has this report and action alert on the delay in William Pryor's 11 Circuit confirmation hearing.

The judge in the Robert Blake case has denied a defense request to examine a woman with potentially exculpatory information in advance of trial. The witness allegedly heard Marlon Brando's son Christian comment that Blake's wife "should be shot."

A Lousiana Court has banned the state from issuing "Choose Life" license plates, ruling it infringes on free speech. We always thought the plates could double as an anti-death penalty message.

Gary Condit's wife has settled her libel suit with the National Enquirer. The paper erroneously wrote that Mrs. Condit "story that said she berated Chandra Levy days before the Washington intern disappeared."

Democratic presidential contender John Kerry has called upon President Bush to "tell the truth" about Iraq.

We're off to the Big Apple to do some tv stuff, back Saturday. If we can, we'll post from there. Either way, don't forget to check in with the great sites listed on the right side of TalkLeft--we read them every day, and lately, with all the breaking crime news, haven't touted them or linked to them as much as we should.

Friday nite, tune in to Now with Bill Moyers on PBS (schedule here) who will be covering the William Pryor judicial nomination.

There's a battle in the Beltway over President Bush's judicial nominee William Pryor. Currently the Attorney General of Alabama, Pryor's strong views on Roe v. Wade and gay rights have some Democrats worried that as a judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, he would be unduly influenced by his ideological convictions. Republicans contend that once on the bench, Pryor will set aside his personal beliefs and uphold the law.

On Friday, July 11, 2003 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), NOW with Bill Moyers spotlights Pryor and what is shaping up to be on of the administration's most controversial nominations to date. Also on the program, NOW spotlights the cutting-edge satire of Comedy Central's The Daily Show in an interview with its host Jon Stewart.

Sen. Orrin Hatch has announced the confirmation hearing for Alabama Attorney General William Pryor for a seat on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has been delayed until next week.

The American Disability Association is mounting a national campaign to prevent Pryor's confirmation. Read their reasons here. Then check out Independent Judiciary and read all about Pryor, and see the huge list of organizations formally opposing his nomination.

With his vote delayed until next week, you have time to write your Senators if you haven't done so already and oppose Pryor's confirmation.

We wrote last week about a new government surveillance system called "combat zones." Noah Shachtman has a lot more on the system in this week's Village Voice.

Its architects at the Pentagon say it will help protect our troops in cities like Baghdad, where for the past few weeks fleeting attackers have been picking off American fighters in ones and twos. But defense experts believe the surveillance effort has a second, more sinister, purpose: to keep entire cities under an omnipresent, unblinking eye.

....The goal, according to a recent Pentagon presentation to defense contractors, is to "track everything that moves." "This gives the U.S. government capabilities Big Brother only pretended to have," said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a defense think tank. "Before, we said Big Brother's watching. But he really wasn't, because there was too much to watch."

An Army report will be released today on the details surrounding the ambush of Private Jessica Lynch and her unit in Iraq. The Los Angeles Times has obtained a copy and reports:

The U.S. Army unit that included Pfc. Jessica D. Lynch was ambushed by Iraqi soldiers last March after the Americans, exhausted and isolated, became lost in the city of Nasiriyah with guns that jammed, radios that malfunctioned and heavy trucks that sank into soft sand and marshland, the Army has concluded.

You can read the Exeuctive Summary of the report on the El Paso Times' website here. The full report is available here.

A sharply divided Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the President's power to detain an American citizen indefinitely upon designating him an "enemy combatent."

A sharply divided federal appeals court today upheld President Bush's authority to detain indefinitely as an enemy combatant a United States citizen captured on the battlefield and to deny him access to a lawyer.

The judges today did not issue a majority opinion, just an order upholding the January decision. Four of them, however, on either side of the issue, wrote separate, sometimes harshly worded opinions, demonstrating the deep divisions in a case that essentially presents a stark and fundamental clash between the nation's security interests and its citizens' civil liberties.

A dissenting judge, Diana Gribbon Motz said:

The January ruling "marks the first time in our history that a federal court has approved the elimination of protections afforded a citizen by the Constitution solely on the basis of the executive's designation of that citizen as an enemy combatant, without testing the accuracy of the designation."

Our prior coverage of the Hamdi case and the lower court decision is here.

A national poll by the Pew Research Center shows that Bush's overall job performance rating has dropped 14 points to 60%. The reasons are his handling of post-war Iraq, health care and the economy. [link via Media Horse, which has a great graphic depicting the change.]

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Canada will become the first country in the world to sell pot to the medically ill.

Ottawa announced in July 2001 that some patients would be able to use marijuana provided by the government. But plans to grow official pot hit a series of snags, prompting a court in Ontario to give Ottawa until July 10 to come up with a solution.

The 582 sufferers granted dispensation from criminal laws to use the drug will be able to buy dried marijuana for C$5 ($3.70) a gram (0.04 oz) -- about half the current black market rate -- or a pack of 30 seeds for $20 so they can grow their own plants.

"Although this interim policy can be amended or suspended at any time, it is anticipated that it will remain in effect until ... (Ottawa's) roles and responsibilities with respect to a supply of marijuana for medical purposes have been clarified by the courts," the health ministry said in a statement.

Colorado journalist and blogger Dave Cullen, writing for Slate, says that the Air Force Academy's sexual assault court martial proceeding against cadet Douglas Meester may just be a show trial.

Meester appears increasingly like a convenient scapegoat. After Meester's Article 32 hearing in May—the military analogue of a grand jury—the presiding investigating officer found the charges so flimsy that he recommended the court-martial be scuttled. And Weida's own legal adviser, Staff Judge Advocate Col. James Moody, advised the commandant of the court-martial's futility in a June memo: "To be frank, the rape and forcible sodomy charges are unlikely to result in findings of guilty."

Since the article went up on the web, Dave has received a torrent of hate mail.

But the pleasant military responses were not half as surprising as the level of venom coming from a lot of young men and women. Many staunchly believe that if you have sex with a drunk woman you're automatically a rapist. I find that perplexing. Then with all the people hooking up at singles bars, getting drunk and going home together, all the men are rapists? And what are the women?

A spokesman for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has confirmed receiving tangible items for testing in the alleged sexual assault charge levied by a 19 year old hotel employee against Kobe Bryant.

"Anytime we deal with (an alleged) crime of violence we look at exchange of hairs and fibers, exchange of body fluids -- that's blood, semen, saliva," Mang said, as well as "anomalies like torn clothing buttons or the sort of things that we may not expect to find in normal wear and tear. Any evidence of any degree of force used."

The spokesman said the agency is in hourly contact with the Sheriff's department. Bottom line on the testing:

"If there isn't any evidence it won't take very long. If we find any evidence it will take more time."

The latest news is that a Vail, CO cabdriver says he picked Kobe and two bodyguards up at a Glenwood Springs, CO hospital the day after the alleged incident.

A cab driver says he picked up Kobe Bryant and three bodyguards at a Glenwood Springs hospital less than a day after the NBA superstar was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a mountain resort.

Vail Taxi driver Terry O'Brien, 38, also told The Orange County Register that Bryant was flanked by sheriff's deputies at the emergency room of Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs early July 2.

...According to the cabbie's account, Bryant was accompanied by three members of his entourage and was in the presence of sheriff's deputies when he arrived at the hospital about 2:30 a.m. on July 2.

Bryant pulled a towel over his head before ducking down into the back seat of the cab, O'Brien said. He said he dropped the Los Angeles Lakers' guard and two members of the entourage at the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood, then gave the third bodyguard a ride to the spa, 40 miles away. The man "cleared out" Bryant's belongings, O'Brien said. When the trip ended at 5 a.m. the fare of $372 was paid by bodyguard Michael Ortiz, the cabbie said.

The Sheriff has said Kobe was cooperative, so it may be that he agreed to go to the hospital to submit DNA samples.

And not surprsingly, Kobe's image is taking a hit.

Take Back the Media has suggested Bush is impeachable for having sworn an oath and lied to Congress during an official duty. Snowdog writes he has filed a class action lawsuit to impeach President Bush and Veep Cheney. He is looking for people to sign on. Details here, just type in the case number is 214493. If you want to sign up by e-mail, send your message to info@bigclassaction.com. Oh, and the site says Snowdog is looking for a lawyer to represent the class.

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The ACLU released a new report on the Patriot Act today. From its press release:

The American Civil Liberties Union today said that it has found a consistent pattern of factually inaccurate assertions by the Department of Justice in statements to the media and Congress, statements that mischaracterize the scope, potential impact and likely harm of the now-notorious USA PATRIOT Act.

The ACLU’s findings were released this morning in a special report that contrasts the Justice Department’s assertions about the USA PATRIOT Act with the language of the Act itself, and in some cases contrasts the Justice Department’s public statements with language from internal Justice Department memoranda that the ACLU was able to obtain through a Freedom of Information Act request. The report – “Seeking Truth From Justice” – cites about a dozen specific instances in which Justice Department and other law enforcement officials misrepresented the scope or impact of the USA PATRIOT Act.

To illustrate its point, the ACLU lists a number of specific representations made by the Justice Department, which it labels false or misleading, including: