The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples have the right to marry under that state's constitution. The eight couples who filed suit in 2004 argued that they had been unfairly denied the benefits of marriage that heterosexual couples are entitled to. Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell has said that she would not challenge the court's ruling.

Despite the criticism of the town hall format, in many ways the second presidential debate was more substantive than the first session, and dramatically more so than the vice presidential debate last week. (I mean the real one, not the SNL version). Political junkies often say the town hall debate just regurgitates old news, but for many voters who haven't been paying attention and are just starting to think about the candidates, that's useful information.

A Federal District Court judge, in a major blow to the Bush administration's detention policies, has ordered the release of 17 detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

I admit it, I like the town hall-style presidential debates best. Over the years, the big advantage of the town hall debates is that the real people in the audience ask about real issues. We don't have the spectacle we saw during the primaries, where the journalist-moderators spend precious minutes relaying the charges-and-countercharges that the candidates themselves spend more of their time on.

While research and discussion about video games typically revolve around the negative impact virtual violence may have on our youth, the latest study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project (pdf) suggests that gaming can strengthen civic behavior. The first national survey of its kind finds that playing video games is commonplace, with 97percent of teens aged 12-17 playing games and at least half of them playing games on any given day.

Consumer Reports has conducted a study of 27 breakfast cereals, to be published in the November issue of the magazine, rating each cereal on its nutritional content. Cheerios, Kix and Life came out on top for having relatively low amounts of sugar and fair or substantial quantities of fiber, iron and calcium.

As Wall Street, President Bush, Congress and the presidential candidates wrangle over how best to calm investors, reassure the credit markets, and stabilize the economy, we can't help noticing a prominent element of the many proposed rescues.

The Wall Street bailout is giving a lot of people a dose of cold fiscal reality – but you wouldn't know it to listen to Barack Obama and John McCain. And a great way to see this refusal to face fiscal facts in action is to watch Public Agenda's comments on the Blogging the Debates project.

The series of political "High Noon" moments known as the presidential debates which kick off in Mississippi Friday night are to begin with a focus on foreign policy. And right after the debate, there will be a blizzard of polling about which candidate "won" and why. But I'm pretty sure that polling will focus on what people thought about Barack Obama and John McCain – and not on what they thought about foreign policy and America's role in the world.

A new survey of employers indicates that employees are beginning to bear a much larger burden in health care costs, in the form of rapidly rising deductibles. The findings, released yesterday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, showed that deductibles rose this year by an average of 29 percent, or $1,344, for families and 21 percent, or $560, for single workers.