TUPELO, Miss. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- In a landmark decision Tuesday, a regional German court ruled that the Jewish ritual of circumcision, or brit milah, amounts to grievous bodily harm. In rendering its decision, the court found the "fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents." Legal experts in the country expect the judgment to set a controversial precedent, with members of the Jewish community claiming that Germans once again have trampled their rights. The procedure is typically administered by mohels who are not licensed physicians with proper medical training. Because the practice leads to a permanent change in anatomy and is not performed in the same sterile environment as a hospital, the court in Cologne deemed it illegal. As news reached North America, where some U.S. states could be inclined to follow suit, representatives from Mississippi lashed out, saying that no government possesses the right to dictate the choices a person makes about his body.

"Access to employees' Facebook accounts is not enough to protect business assets from potential threats and poor performers." -- 2012 GOP presidential candidate and entrepreneur F. Chester Greene

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Employers have been ordering workers, prospective and existing, to hand over their Facebook passwords as part of the background screening process, a move they claim is vital to protecting their enterprises and thus commerce in America. Not since people wrote checks for their purchases at RadioShack have they been forced to divulge as much personal information. The situation has degenerated to such an extent that Representative Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) felt compelled last week to propose an amendment to the Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act of 2012, demanding that employers be denied access to their employees' social media accounts. A day later, however, conservatives who decry big government intervention in our personal lives struck down the measure along party lines. Asking a federal agency to impose more regulations on businesses and the private citizens who run them, said opponents of Perlmutter's proposal, was another socialist ploy to keep the government's hooks in personal affairs. On Monday, conservatives scored another victory against government intrusion when the Supreme Court upheld strip searches of jail inmates, even those arrested for minor traffic offenses. Employers across the country are hoping the high court's decision will set a new precedent to pave the way for mandatory strip searches in the workplace.