The first chapter of Harper Lee’s new novel “Go Set a Watchman” was released today in advance of the July 14 publication date. The story follows Lee’s beloved character Scout from “To Kill a Mockingbird,” now a sexually liberated woman in her twenties, traveling from New York to Alabama to visit her ailing father. The novel was completed in the 1950s but was thought to have been lost. Read the first chapter in the Wall Street Journal.

The Scott County Justice Center was evacuated Wednesday after what the Independent Herald reports as “an offhand remark” was perceived as a bomb threat. The incident marks the second bomb threat at two different Scott County locations in one month.

The Chattanooga city council has amended a pending non-discrimination ordinance to remove the phrase "gender expression" and added definitions for terms that some found confusing or problematic. The move comes after the council took comments from the public on both sides of the issue. The proposed ordinance would explicitly prohibit the harassment and discrimination of city employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, the Chattanoogan reports.

Nashville attorney and Metro Council candidate Jim Roberts recently received a public censure from the Board of Professional Responsibility (BPR) for arguments he made in 2013 accusing Chancellor Carol McCoy’s court of being “evasive and untruthful.” Roberts, a frequent critic of the BPR, said he decided not to fight the censure but maligned the board, saying they are "like a Gestapo for the court system." The Tennessean has more.

The Tennessee Department of Children's Services (DCS) is now publicly posting accused child abusers’ names, personal information and type of abuse, even if the case was never prosecuted or the individual was not convicted, Local Memphis reports. "Even if it were technically constitutional, it does raise some policy concerns with significant consequences to people for being accused and never actually proven guilty," says Steve Mulroy, associate dean at the University of Memphis School of Law.

An East Tennessee man who ran for Congress last year has been indicted on a charge of soliciting another person to burn down a mosque in a small Muslim enclave in New York, federal prosecutors said this week. Robert Doggart had agreed to plead guilty in April to plotting an attack, but the agreement was thrown out in June by a federal judge who ruled it did not contain enough facts to constitute a true threat. The new indictment by a grand jury in Knoxville says Doggart tried to "solicit, command, induce and endeavor" to persuade someone to burn down the mosque. The Times Union has more from the AP.

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Katherine Archuleta resigned under pressure today after the agency announced that a recent data breach has affected more than 21 million current and former federal employees, the Washington Post reports. The news comes after the agency said last month that 4.2 million employees had been affected, including federal judges and judiciary employees. The federal judiciary has been in crisis mode since then, according to David Sellers, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Officials are meeting weekly and the judiciary has set up an internal website for employees. Judges also have been urged to alert the U.S. Marshals Service, which oversees judicial security, if their information was compromised. The National Law Journal has more (sub. req.).

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is coming under fire for his proposal to make U.S. Supreme Court justices stand for retention elections, the ABA Journal reports. Cruz's suggestion came in response to the court's ruling last month recognizing same-sex couples' constitutional right to marry, which he opposes. Writing at his blog Hercules and the Umpire, U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf says the Texas Republican is unfit to be president, calling his proposal to amend the Constitution “extreme” and “wacko.” Prominent conservative lawyer Ted Olson went on the record this week as well, quoted in the National Law Journal that, “A constitutional amendment to change Article III of the Constitution in this fashion has virtually no chance of succeeding,” Olsen said. “I would think that most graduates of the Harvard Law School know that.” Meanwhile, Erwin Chemerinksy writes in the New Republic that he thinks Cruz is right in his view the court needs term limits, but that judicial elections are not the answer.

Knoxville already feels like home, new University of Tennessee College of Law Dean Melanie D. Wilson says in a welcome video. Earlier this month Wilson took over leadership of the law school from former dean Doug Blaze who stepped down to return to teaching full-time and to serve as director of the college’s new Institute for Professional Leadership, which he co-founded.

Nashville attorney Abby Rubenfeld fought for equality decades before she was involved in the recent historic marriage equality case, according to a profile in the Tennessean. The paper reports that Rubenfeld first decided to be a lawyer when she heard she could not go to a friend’s tennis club in the 1960s because her family was Jewish. Throughout her legal career, she has worked with the Human Rights Campaign, Tennessee Equality Project, American Civil Liberties Union, National Center for Lesbian Rights and other advocacy groups. Rubenfeld’s daughter tells the paper that “She so truly and deeply believes in our legal and constitutional system." Read more about Rubenfeld's life and legacy.