: and we have a discussion on what lies ahead in the supreme court term that began today, with marcia coyle and lawyers paul clement and paul butler. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

and as always, marcia coyle of the "national law journal." welcome to all of you. >> thank you. >> suarez: marcia, this term is already historic even if nothing else happens, right? >> absolutely. >> suarez: you were at the court today. what happened? >> it was an unusual and usual day. unusual that the chief justice formally closed the old term, and opened the new term. and unusual because justice elena kagan stepped through the vel set kur stains and became the third woman to be -- the velvet curtains and became the third woman to be sitting on the court. the courtroom was full. there were a number of spectators from the public. as well as a number of lawyers who traditionally come to these -- to be sworn into the supreme court bar. >> suarez: did she participate? >> she did. she was first out of the gaest with a question, as i think justice stowe mayor was on her day. she was asked some questions, and then she left because the second case to be argued involved the united states as a party and she had been solicitor general at the time part

on the newshour tonight, marcia coyle of the "national law journal" walks us through the oral arguments that weighed freedom of speech against privacy rights. >> brown: then, we assess the state of u.s./pakistan relations amid a sharp rise in violence in the afghan border region. >> warner: we look at the foreclosure story as members of congress call for federal investigations now that major banks have frozen proceedings in 23 states. >> brown: and ray suarez talks to congressmen eric cantor and kevin mccarthy about their new book, "young guns," a republican manifesto for the upcoming midterm elections. >> the overwhelming number of newly elected members come january,' 11 will be members seeking reform. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> brown: a high profile freedom of speech case went before the supreme court today in a classic battle of first amendment rights versus individual privacy. it was all sparked by an emotionally-charged protest at the funeral of a u.s. marine. kwame holman begins our report. a warnin

again here is marcia coyle of the "national law journal." marcia, welcome. >> hi, jim. >> lehrer: who brought this? which side brought this case to the supreme court? >> the family came to the supreme court after losing in the lower federal courts. jim, this is basically a battle over a specific type of lawsuit that the family would like to bring, a suit claiming that the vaccine was defectively designed. both sides, the family and wyeth, the vaccine maker, are looking at the same provision in the federal law and reading it completely different ways. the family is saying that the provision allows them and other) ms. sullivan said this was the exact kind of lawsuit that congress was worried about back in 1980s when vaccine makers faced an onslaught of personal injury suits resulting from vaccines. they enacted this law in order to bar this type of lawsuit. >> lehrer: this very thing, yeah. now, you mentioned what justice breyer said. how did the... there were only eight justices hearing this case, right? explain why. >> that's true. justice k

. >> lehrer: margaret warner talks to marcia coyle about today's supreme court arguments on a death row inmate's right to new dna testing. >> brown: and, judy woodruff has a conversation with former justice sandra day o'conner about civic literacy for students, judicial elections and the new makeup of the court. >> i went in the courtroom myself, and looked at the bench of nine. a woman on the right end, a woman on the left end, and a woman near the middle, it was marvelous to see. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: finds out why. >> i want to know what the universe... >> looks like. >> feels like. >> from deep space. >> to a microbe. >> i can contribute to the world by pursuing my passion for science. >> it really is the key to the future. >> i want to design... >> a better solar cell. >> i want to know what's really possible. >> i want to be the first to cure cancer. >> people don't really understand why things work. >> i want to be that person that finds out why. >> innovative young minds taking on tomorrow's

again here is marcia coyle of the national law journal. marcia, welcome. >> hi, jim. >> lehrer: who brought this? which side brought this case to the supreme court? >> the family came to the supreme court after losing in the lower federal courts. jim, this is basically a battle over specific type of lawsuit that the family would like to bring, a suit claiming that the vaccine was defectively designed. both sides, the family and wyeth, the vaccine maker, are looking at the same provision in the federal law and reading it completely different ways. the family is saying that the provision allows them and other families like them to bring this type of a claim in state courts and have judges decide on a case-by-case basis whether the vaccine was defectively designed. wyeth laboratories says this exact same language here bars those types of claims. >> lehrer: because of that vaccine law? right? >> that's right. >> lehrer: they're supposed to go the vaccine court and they did go to the vaccine court first in this case. >> they did. the vaccine co

we have a q-and-a with marcia coyle about today's supreme court arguments on the limits of employee privacy. plus on art beat, jeff talks to musician phil collins about his latest album, called "going back." all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. judy? >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll look at a first amendment case at the supreme court involving anti-gay protesters at military funerals. i'm judy woodruff. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org