Politics

Airs Sunday, September 30 at 5:00 p.m. This weekend during the Marketplace Money time slot, we're taking a look at the financial crisis. Are we the people to blame? Do we get the banks we deserve? Have we wasted the 2008 financial crisis? Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal and the BBC World Service's Business Daily's Justin Rowlatt will put financial institutions and consumers under the microscope. They'll be joined by a panel of high profile experts and opinion makers for this special collaboration.

Environmental protestors are organizing in East Texas to cause construction delays for the Keystone Gulf Coast pipeline project. Ron Seifert, spokesman for the group Tar Sands Blockade, says more than 60 people recently convened in Sulphur Springs, Texas, for civil disobedience training.

The biggest surprise Thursday morning at the Supreme Court will be if the justices do not issue their most-anticipated decision of the year — on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.  Red River Radio plans to extend Morning Edition coverage for the decision and analysis.  Our extended coverage will begin at 9:00 a.m. unless we get word that the court has deferred the release of their opinion to another date. We will push back Performance Today's broadcast time until after full coverage and analysis has been completed by NPR.

As we reported Monday, the court has said its last day of the current term is Thursday. And that's led to the logical conclusion that the health care decision will be released shortly after 10 a.m. ET, when the justices come to the bench. It's highly unlikely, court watchers say, that the justices have decided to give themselves another day before going on recess or have opted to delay a decision even longer.

We will pass along the news as soon as possible. NPR's health, legal and Washington teams will all be on the story and feeding NPR.org, the Newcast Desk and Morning Edition — which will still be on the air across much of the nation.

The New Orleans-based Pelican Institute for Public Policy has released a report on state worker annual salaries that exceed $200,000. A total of 110 state employees currently fall into that category. The vast majority are employed in higher education. Rep. Simone Champagne, R-Erath, has passed a resolution requesting the Board of Regents to study executive compensation at the university system offices and boards and report back to the Legislature in Feb. 2013.