Amid the wave of excitement among conservative organizers over the prospect of reversing access to abortion for the first time in nearly 50 years -- since Roe v. Wade affirmed a constitutional right to the procedure in 1973 -- there are growing fears about how the conservative legal movement will fare if its own appointees on the bench stop short of dismantling the landmark abortion ruling.
Concerns mount over conservative legal movement as SCOTUS considers abortion cases
Epstein accuser says Maxwell and Epstein groomed her, Maxwell was often in room during abuse
A 41-year-old woman told jurors Tuesday how Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly helped groom and recruit her into the life of financier Jeffrey Epstein decades ago, including watching at times as Epstein forced her into sexual acts.
The woman — testifying under the pseudonym Jane — was the first of four alleged victims who will testify at Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. She gave a mostly matter-of-fact account of being lured into Epstein’s world of daily erotic massages as a 14-year-old and globe-trotting on private jets.
Maxwell, 59, who was Epstein’s longtime associate and paramour, has pleaded not guilty.
CNN Suspends Chris Cuomo For Advising Brother On Sexual Misconduct Scandal
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CNN suspended host Chris Cuomo on Tuesday, a day after the New York attorney general’s office released documents that showed the journalist was more deeply involved than previously known in helping his brother, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), respond to allegations of sexual harassment.
The news network said his suspension would be indefinite.
“The documents, which we were not privy to before their public release, raise serious questions,” the network said in a statement. “When Chris admitted to us that he had offered advice to his brother’s staff, he broke our rules and we acknowledged that publicly. But we also appreciated the unique position he was in and understood his need to put family first and job second.”
“However, these documents point to a greater level of involvement in his brother’s efforts than we previously knew,” CNN added. “As a result, we have suspended Chris indefinitely, pending further evaluation.”
After the Rittenhouse verdict, focus returns to Chrystul Kizer's self-defense case
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In the aftermath of Kyle Rittenhouse's acquittal in Kenosha, Wis., last week, advocates are turning back to the case of teenager Chrystul Kizer, who is also arguing it was self-defense when she killed her adult sexual abuser, set his house on fire and stole his car in 2018.
Kizer, who was 17 at the time, is accused of shooting Randall P. Volar III in the head; Volar had previously been arrested on child sexual assault charges.
Kizer was released from jail in June 2020 after groups such as the Chicago Community Bond Fund raised money to pay her $400,000 bond. She is still awaiting trial.
Prosecutors say the killing was premeditated. But what's notable in this case is that Kizer's lawyers are invoking a self-defense argument that has never been used in a homicide case in the state before.
5 Georgia Police Officers Indicted On Murder Charges In Concertgoer's Death
Five Georgia police officers have been indicted on murder charges in the asphyxiation death of a 24-year-old naked music festival attendee who was forcefully held down and stunned more than a dozen times.
A grand jury on Friday charged each of the officers with one count of malice murder, two counts of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault in the Sept. 20, 2019, death of Fernando Rodriguez, who died after officers handcuffed him and held him down for nearly 10 minutes.
The officers also were charged with one count of violation of oath of office, for “stretching Rodriguez out on the ground in a prone position while he was handcuffed and shackled, holding him down and applying pressure to his body,” the Henry County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
Rodriguez was walking naked in the middle of a road after attending the Imagine Concert Music Festival at the Atlanta Motor Speedway when police forced him to the ground and placed him in restraints.
U.S. appeals court affirms hold on Biden COVID-19 vaccine mandate
A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld its decision to put on hold an order by President Joe Biden for companies with 100 workers or more to require COVID-19 vaccines, rejecting a challenge by his administration.
A three-member panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans affirmed its ruling despite the Biden administration's position that halting implementation of the vaccine mandate could lead to dozens or even hundreds of deaths.
"The mandate is staggeringly overbroad," the opinion said.
"The mandate is a one-size-fits-all sledgehammer that makes hardly any attempt to account for differences in workplaces (and workers)," Circuit Court Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote for the panel.
German Nazi war crimes suspect, 96, who went on the run goes on trial
Irmgard Furchner, accused of having contributed as an 18-year-old to the murder of 11,412 people when she was a typist at the Stutthof concentration camp between 1943 and 1945, was taken into the sparse courtroom in a wheelchair.
Her face was barely visible behind a white mask and scarf pulled low over her eyes. Security was heavy as the judge and legal staff made their way into the court.
Between 1939 and 1945 some 65,000 people died of starvation and disease or in the gas chamber at the concentration camp near Gdansk, in today's Poland. They included prisoners of war and Jews caught up in the Nazis' extermination campaign.
Biden administration asks Supreme Court to block Texas abortion ban
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The Biden administration has asked the Supreme Court to take emergency action that would block Texas’ novel abortion ban from being enforced while litigation over its constitutionality goes forward.
The Justice Department’s new filing, submitted Monday, asks the justices to restore a preliminary injunction a federal district court judge in Texas issued earlier this month after concluding that the law violates longstanding legal precedent by seeking to ban abortions after about six weeks gestation.
“Allowing S.B. 8 to remain in force would irreparably harm those interests and perpetuate the ongoing irreparable injury to the thousands of Texas women who are being denied their constitutional rights,” acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher wrote in the 39-page application. “Texas, in contrast, would suffer no cognizable injury from a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of a plainly unconstitutional law.”
US appeals court lets Texas resume ban on most abortions
Abortion providers in Texas had been bracing for the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals to act fast, even as they booked new appointments and reopened their doors during a brief reprieve from the law known as Senate Bill 8, which bans abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, an appointee of President Barack Obama, suspended the Texas law that he called an “offensive deprivation” of the constitutional right to an abortion. But in a one-page order, the New Orleans-based appeals court temporarily set aside Pitman’s ruling for now while it considers the state’s appeal.
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