After a relatively brief, and somewhat stormy tenure as archbishop of the Catholic church in St. Louis, Raymond Burke is leaving. He’s expected to remain until a bit later in the summer, when he moves to Rome for his position as “Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature.”

Burke’s time in St. Louis has been marked by a number of controversies. He has condemned the ordination of “women priests” by another faith community. He has been in a battle over control of St. Stanislaus Church in St. Louis. He said he would not offer communion to politicians who…

Today the Anheuser-Busch board of directors rejected a bid by InBev to buy the St. Louis brewer for $65 a share. The board said the offer undervalued A-B. According to our story, board chairman Patrick Stokes said:

The proposed price does not reflect the strength of Anheuser-Busch’s global, iconic brands Bud Light and Budweiser, the top two selling beer brands in the world, with Budweiser selling in more than 80 countries today.

One might look at the board’s stance this way: We might be willing to sell the company — but not at the price you offered.

So is the board…

From a story by the Associated Press today:

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court’s 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.

I was surprised to hear that the court had never made a definitive ruling on the Second Amendment issue. The amendment says, “A well regulated militia,…

The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that a Louisiana law mandating the death penalty for child rape was unconstitutional. Says the Associated Press story today:

The Supreme Court declared Wednesday that executions are too severe a punishment for raping children, despite the “years of long anguish” for victims, in a ruling that restricts the death penalty to murder and crimes against the state.

The ruling was 5-4, split along predictable lines, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing the majority’s opinion (link to the PDF file). The AP story goes on to say that, “The ruling also invalidates laws on the books in five…

About five months ago, we debated in this forum the question of whether Missouri ought to legalize the practice of midwifery.

Well, according to a Missouri Supreme Court decision today, it is legal. The court said that the physicians’ associations did not have legal standing to bring such a challenge. In other words, they might object to the law, but they have no skin in the game — no reason to challenge it.

I found one quote in the Associated Press story to be particularly interesting. It was by Tom Holloway, who lobbies for the Missouri State Medical Association:

…his group was…