Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito will discuss his career in law, public service, and on the federal bench during an appearance at Duke's law school Wednesday.

Alito's conversation with law school dean David F. Levi is part of the school's "Lives in the Law" series and starts at 12:15 p.m. in room 3041.

Overflow seating will be available in rooms 3037 and 3043.

Lunch will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Due to high demand, this event is limited to members of the Duke Law School community. The conversation will be webcast live and streamed on Duke University's channel.

Prior to taking his seat on the Supreme Court on Jan. 31, 2006, Alito served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for 15 years. A native of Trenton, New Jersey, he was an assistant U.S. attorney for the district of New Jersey, 1977–1981, and served as the U.S attorney in that district from 1987-1990. He was deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice from 1985-1987, and assistant to the U.S. solicitor general in the U.S. Department of Justice from 1981-1985.

For the second consecutive year, Alito is teaching a weeklong seminar to upper-year students at Duke Law School, titled Current Issues in Constitutional Interpretation.

Robert Gates, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, will speak Wednesday, Sept. 29, at Duke University.

Gates will deliver the Ambassador S. Davis Phillips Family International Lecture in Reynolds Industries Theater at the Bryan Center on Duke’s West Campus. The 5 p.m. talk will be followed by a brief question-and-answer session for students.

The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets can be picked up on a first-come, first-served basis at the University Box Office in the Bryan Center starting Sept. 3 for Duke students, faculty and staff, and Sept. 8 for the general public. Tickets are limited to one per person.

The event will also be available online on Duke's Ustream channel, ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Twitter users can discuss the speech in real time using the tag #dukelive.

“We are delighted to welcome Secretary Gates to Duke,” Duke President Richard H. Brodhead said in a university news release. “His leadership in government and higher education is a model of service to society. We look forward to his visit, and his speech.”

Gates,  the senior cabinet official responsible for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is the only defense secretary in U.S. history to be asked by a newly elected president to remain in office.

Well, Merge Records' stay in the chart penthouse didn't last long, but the Durham-based label didn't fall too far down the Billboard 200 album sales chart. After debuting at No. 1, Arcade Fire's Merge release "Suburbs" has dropped to No. 2 -- behind Detroit rapper Eminem, who reclaims the top spot.

Meantime, Duke University alumnus Mike Posner is also in the top-10 with his debut album, "31 Minutes to Takeoff." It debuts not far behind Arcade Fire, at No. 8. The Posner album's first single "Cooler Than Me" is also hanging in at No. 6 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart.

Duke University officials aren't yet sure whether a recent court ruling related to the powers given police officers at Davidson College, a religious institution, might apply on the Durham campus.

The N.C. Court of Appeals recently ruled that giving arrest powers to Davidson police runs afoul of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"We're studying it," said Michael Schoenfeld, a Duke spokesman. "We don't think this particular ruling would have any impact on Duke."

In North Carolina, the attorney general can certify police departments at private, non-profit colleges. But the three-member appeals court deemed that doing so in Davidson's case was a constitutional violation.

Davidson was established by Presbyterians in 1837, and its close ties to the denomination were a factor in the court's decision.

Duke is affiliated with the United Methodist Church but the connection isn't as close,  Schoenfeld said.

"Duke does not have a specific requirement for faculty, staff, students or the president to be a particular denomination or to attend church," he said.

Davidson students, faculty and staff aren't required to go to church or have a specific religious affiliation, but students are required to take a religion course and faculty members must be Christians or "non-Christian persons who can work with respect for the Christian tradition even if they cannot conscientiously join it and who can live in harmony with the purpose of the college," according to the court ruling.

Attorney General Roy Cooper's office will ask the N.C. Supreme Court to review the appeals court ruling.

Duke President Richard Brodhead is a word guy.

An 19th century American literature expert, Brodhead has written or edited more than a dozen texts on Melville, Hawthorne and other literary giants.

And all of those writings went well past 140 characters, the writing limit set by Twitter, the popular social networking site.

No, Brodhead does not tweet.

"I believe some thoughts require more words than a tweet," he said with a laugh during a Wednesday meeting with reporter and editors from the News & Observer. "I like to read the headlines, but I like to read the story."

Brodhead discussed a variety of issues Wednesday. To learn more about those more substantive issues, read Thursday's News & Observer.

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED.

Local universities fare well, as usual, in the 2011 edition of the U.S. News & World Report's "Best Colleges" issue.

UNC-Chapel Hill can go ahead and print up their "We're number 5" banners, should they so desire. Carolina ranks fifth among public universities for the 10th straight year.

The University of California-Berkeley is once again the top public, followed by more usual suspects - UCLA and Virginia in a tie for second, and Michigan in fourth.

N.C. State placed 52nd on that list, tied with Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington State and South Carolina.

Duke, which ranked 10th among national universities offering doctoral degrees a year ago, crept up one slot into a three-way tie for ninth. It's 9th-place compatriots are Dartmouth and the University of Chicago.

Harvard, Princeton and Yale were the top three institutions on that list. Wake Forest placed 25th and UNC-CH placed 30th.

Elon University did well. It ranked 2nd among southern regional universities and placed well in a series of other rankings as well.

Appalachian State ranked 9th on the southern regional universities list.

N.C. Central University ranks 11th nationally among historically black institutions, one spot higher than another member of the UNC system - N.C. A&T.

And UNC-Wilmington placed fifth among public master's institutions in the south.

NOTE: This is not a comprehensive list of rankings for local universities. I probably missed some. For the full package, check out the U.S. News website.

You may have read last week about some of the ethical dilemmas facing university professors who have flocked to the Gulf Coast this summer to aid in oil-spill cleanup and to do research.

You didn't? Click here.

The spill has proven a massive catastrophe and has drawn the interest of plenty of experts on the environment. Among them: The folks from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke, which recently sent a delegation to the Gulf to check things out.

They have documented their trip in words and pictures.

Have a look.

Lots of oil spill news in the paper today related to higher education.

On one front, the ethical dilemma facing university researchers heading to the Gulf Coast this summer to do work on the oil spill cleanup. It can be dicey, maneuvering through some of the obstacles, scientists say.

And then there's some scientists down at UNC Wilmington, wading through the surf to collect water samples to gauge whether the oil spill will ever reach the shores of North Carolina. Matt Ehlers has that story.

Several initiatives at local universities take a beating this week in a new congressional report on stimulus funding.

The report, Summertime Blues, is at a small handful of projects funded by the $862 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that its authors, U.S. senators Tom Coburn and John McCain, feel are wasteful.

"We owe it to all Americans that are paying taxes and struggling to find jobs, to rebuild our economy without doing additional harm, and to do it in a way that expands opportunities for future generations," Coburn and McCain wrote in the report. "Too many stimulus projects are failing to meet that goal."

Some local notables:

• From Duke University, a $498,176 grant from the National Science Foundation to look for ways to improve privacy and functionality for social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. This is number 41 on the report's list, on page 29.

• At N.C. State University, a $253,123 grant to an insect museum. The report claims the museum has "virtually no public presence" by virtue of the fact that it averages 44 visitors a year. The stimulus funding would be used for bug storage - the purchase of new cabinets, drawers and units for bug specimens, and for new computer equipment. The museum is number 68 in the report, on page 37.

• UNC Charlotte received $762,372 to develop a computerized choreography program to help design and produce interactive dance performances. This is number 2 on the report's list, page 6.

• NCSU makes the list again, along with Georgia Tech, for video game research. NCSU received $770,856, and Georgia Tech received $427,824, each from the National Science Foundation to examine how video games like the Nintendo Wii can "help improve mental health for the elderly."  That's number 39 on the list, page 28 of the report.

Follow this link to the full report.

Stoned monkeys, menopausal yogis, video-gaming retirees and insect trading cards are among the stimulus-funded projects in North Carolina that have made the latest list of 100 questionable projects paid for by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The report issued today by Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma includes eight dubious projects from this state among 100 selected throughout the country.

"Summertime Blues: 100 Stimulus Projects that Give Taxpayers the Blues" highlights projects that are wasteful, mismanaged or plain worthless in terms of job creation.