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Did you know you can listen to oral arguments and opinion announcements through podcasts on your iPod or iPhone? Oyez has recently redesigned and improved our iTunes U site. Check it out to see what podcasts are available.

Professor Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago Law School lays out a detailed argument with the following objective: "The conservative constitutional narrative is deeply unprincipled and patently wrong, both in its defense of conservative judicial ideology and in its attack on what conservatives deride as a result-oriented "liberal" jurisprudence.

The audio + transcripts are now available for the cases argued in the session beginning October 3, 2011. The expanded player offers additional functions such as search, speaker locations in the time line, and clip creation.

We have identified transcription errors but we have not corrected the transcripts. You may wish to send us details on the errors. We will update the transcripts at a later date.

• Reynolds v. United States

The New York Times published an editorial today in support of a proposal last week from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The proposal advocates--and the editorial endorses--a presumption for openness regarding the Court's records. Beyond its paper records, the Court continues to shield itself from public access, restricting its public sessions to those lucky enough to have a seat in the courtroom.

A group of House Democrats are pushing for tougher ethics standards for Supreme Court justices. They want to hold the justices to the same high standards that apply to all other federal judges. It seems obvious that this proposal is a non-starter in the Republican-controlled House. But it does draw attention to the different standards that apply for the high court. Read more here including the letter proposal signed by 43 members.

The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether states can prohibit elected officials from voting when they may have a conflict of interest.

The Supreme Court held that the services of a medical resident do not fall within the student exception of the Federal Insurance Contribution Act.

The Mayo Foundation and the University of Minnesota file a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in 2005 to fight the government's claim that they owed FICA taxes on their wage payments to full-time medical residents.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota found that IRS regulations limiting the student FICA exception to students who are not full-time employees is not a permissible interpretation of the statute.

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a state can require market research firms to get doctors' permission before selling their prescribing history to drug companies.

In 2007, the Vermont legislature passed a law that banned the sale, transmission or use of prescriber-identifiable data (“PI data”) for marketing or promoting a prescription drug without the consent of the prescriber. The law also prohibited the sale, license or exchange for value of PI data for marketing or promoting a prescription drug.

The Supreme Court has agreed to determine whether California can reduce Medicaid payments in order to address the state's budget deficit.

The California Legislature enacted a 10 percent cut in the state's MediCal fee-for-service program payments to physicians, hospitals and pharmacies. Each of the providers sued, arguing that if the cutbacks were approved, the state would not provide the level of care required under Medicaid. Then-Attorney General Jerry Brown asserted that the private parties had no right to sue the state and no right to a particular reimbursement payment.