
Appetite grows on Capitol Hill for code of conduct for Supreme Court justices after Ginni Thomas revelations
CBSN
Washington — Momentum on Capitol Hill is building behind a congressional response to revelations that Virginia "Ginni" Thomas pushed former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to pursue efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, with lawmakers arguing the communications between the two underscore the need for a code of conduct for Supreme Court justices.
Legislation that would require the crafting of a set of ethics standards for members of the nation's highest court has been introduced in each Congress since 2011, according to Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, an organization that advocates for more judicial transparency and accountability. But there is growing enthusiasm from Democrats in both chambers to take up a measure that would ensure justices have to adhere to a binding code to ensure impartiality and transparency.
"This is a big domestic issue, losing the trust of one of the nine Supreme Court justices, and it's something I think that has broken through," Roth told CBS News. "There hasn't been something comparable on a judicial ethics scale in a very long time, so now is the time to capture that moment. It's not just the Justice Thomas issue where the ethics are lacking, but now is the time to do it, and I think Democrats are huddling. But there should be hearings, it should be a sustained effort, and pressure's got to mount."

Santa Fe, New Mexico — A representative for the estate of actor Gene Hackman is seeking to block the public release of autopsy and investigative reports, especially photographs and police body-camera video related to the recent deaths of Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa after their partially mummified bodies were discovered at their New Mexico home in February.

In the past year, over 135 million passengers traveled to the U.S. from other countries. To infectious disease experts, that represents 135 million chances for an outbreak to begin. To identify and stop the next potential pandemic, government disease detectives have been discreetly searching for viral pathogens in wastewater from airplanes. Experts are worried that these efforts may not be enough.