Chanting "Not the church, not the state; women must choose their fate," hundreds of members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) rallied for abortion rights as President George W. Bush prepares to select a new US Supreme Court justice.
NOW shifted the agenda for its three-day annual convention following the announcement Friday that Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was retiring.
"The most important thing to me after the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor is that NOW puts confidence in my team to lead our organization through the fight for our lives and for our future," said Kim Gandy, who was re-elected Saturday to a second four-year term as the group's president.
The first woman on the Supreme Court, O'Connor refused in 1989 to join four other justices who were ready to reverse the landmark 1973 decision that said women have a constitutional right to abortion.
In 1992, she helped forge a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the core holding of the 1973 ruling. Then, in 2000, she provided the fifth and decisive vote that struck down a Nebraska law that was aimed at banning a procedure critics call "partial-birth" abortions.
Her retirement gives the court its first vacancy since 1994 and leaves Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the only woman on the court.
Activist Eleanor Smeal told the crowd that if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has any future presidential ambition, he can't be known as the lawmaker instrumental in rolling back abortion rights. Frist, a Republican, will be expected to guide Bush's choice to succeed O'Connor through Senate confirmation.
"What we have to do now is raise such a loud voice that Senator Bill Frist hears it," said Smeal, former president of the National Organization of Women and current president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. "He has to understand we need a moderate, centrist Supreme Court."
Frist spokesman Nick Smith said it was "premature to be talking about who the president may or may not nominate."
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
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