Advocates for gay marriage in California hoped the State Supreme Court would overturn last November’s ballot initiative that took away the right to same-sex marriage, but their hopes were dashed yesterday when the court upheld Proposition 8, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. The Takeaway is joined by John Schwartz, the legal correspondent for The New York Times to discuss the repercussions of this ruling.

President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday. His pick is a New York Puerto Rican who is generally considered left-leaning. But once a judge is actually on the court, there's no way of knowing how they will rule. FDR hated Felix Frankfurter's love of judicial restraint. And David Souter, whose seat Sonia Sotomayor is nominated to fill, surprised George H.W. Bush, the president who nominated him, by becoming one of the more liberal justices. Joining us to discuss how Supreme Court justices develop their view is Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman, who once clerked for Justice Souter, and John Schwartz, the legal correspondent for The New York Times.

In case you missed it, here's President Obama officially nominating Judge Sotomayor:

Two stories in different parts of the country have re-ignited the issue of when the state should step in and take over for parents. Yesterday a Minnesota judge ruled that the parents of thirteen-year old Daniel Hauser can regain custody of their son as long as he gets the cancer treatment that he needs. The Hausers lost custody of Daniel when his mother took him off of his chemotherapy treatments and then fled to California to escape a court order to resume the treatment. And last week the state of South Carolina set out to determine whether a child's morbid obesity is enough to charge the parents with neglect. The Takeaway talks to Kate Dailey, who writes for the Human Condition blog for Newsweek magazine about where we draw the line on negligence. To watch an interview with the Hausers, click here.

After Kate left the studio, she found she had more to say. For her additional thoughts, click here.

A huge explosion outside a police building in the Pakistani city of Lahore has killed at least 23 people and injured about 250. Officials said gunmen opened fire from a car which drove up to the building, near the provincial headquarters of Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the ISI. After police returned fire, the car exploded, damaging buildings over a wide radius. Rescue workers are digging through the rubble for survivors. While no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, Taliban militants have threatened retaliation for the government's current offensive in the northwest of the country. For more, we turn to Rob Watson, defense correspondent for the BBC World Service, who is following the story.

The Takeaway talks with legendary bluesman Henry Butler. Butler has been blind since birth but that hasn't stopped him from playing to packed houses or from taking up a new craft: photography. Also joining the conversation on art and ability is Charlie Washburn, the Executive Director of VSA Arts of Massachusetts, an organization dedicated to including everyone in the arts.

Watch Henry Butler perform "High Heeled Sneakers" in the video below.

As President Obama puts his mark on the Supreme Court, Republicans are cautioning against a return to a liberal court. But New York Times Magazine contributor – and law professor – Jeffrey Rosen says Obama is redefining the ideological debate.

For more, read Jeffrey Rosen's story in the New York Times Magazine, What’s a Liberal Justice Now?. Also read Rosen's article in The New Republic, The Case Against Sotomayor.

The California Supreme Court stopped same sex couples from calling themselves married, even though they can have the same rights. But what if society decided that "marriage" is just a word? Conservative law professor Douglas Kmiec is proposing that government get out of the business of marriage altogether and allow gay and straights to have civil unions.

For more, read Douglas Kmiec's article, Equality in substance and in name, in the SF Gate.

North Korea continues to raise the stakes in its game of nuclear poker, conducting a second nuclear test in as many days on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a South Korean newspaper has reported that U.S. spy satellites have detected signs that North Korea has started up its nuclear plant again. The international community has condemned Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. But the only country with real clout over North Korea is China: the nation is North Korea’s neighbor and main trading partner. To find out China's take on the North Korea situation, The Takeaway talks to John Pomfret, author of Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China. He writes the blog Pomfret’s China on the Newsweek/Washington Post website.

One of the many issues the new Supreme Court Justice will have to address is what to wear. A lace jabot like Sandra Day O'Connor? Something more... modern? The Takeaway talks to Susan Scafidi, a law professor at Fordham Law School who writes the blog Counterfeit Chic. ...(And click here for a photo gallery of judicial fashions)

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor grew up in the projects in the Bronx, then went on to Princeton and Yale Law School before working as a Manhattan DA and then a federal judge. Yale Law Professor and novelist Stephen Carter was in Sotomayor's law school class, now he teaches some of her opinions in her own classes. He'll join John and Farai to share his professional—and personal—perspective on the nominee. Also joining the conversation is Jenny Rivera who clerked for Sotomayor in 1993 and is now a law professor at the City University of New York Law School.

Click here for a slideshow of pictures from Sotomayor's life.