Wisconsin's Abortion Settlement
In a 4-3 decision in Kaul v. Urmanski, the court's liberal majority finally overturned an 1849 ban on abortion that was still on the books even though it hasn't been enforced. Justice Rebecca Dallet wrote that 'comprehensive legislation enacted over the last 50 years regulating in detail the 'who, what, where, when, and how' of abortion so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was meant as a substitute for the 19th century near-total ban on abortion.'
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News24
a minute ago
- News24
Trump names Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor among Kennedy Center honorees
Donald Trump on Wednesday named Sylvester Stallone and disco diva Gloria Gaynor among the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors. This comes as the US president pursues a controversial overhaul of the storied arts venue. Since returning to office in January, the Republican leader has declared war on what he calls 'woke' viewpoints espoused in the nation's cultural institutions. US President Donald Trump on Wednesday named 'Rocky' star Sylvester Stallone and country music great George Strait among the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, as he pursues a controversial overhaul of the storied arts venue. Since returning to office in January, the Republican leader has declared war on what he calls 'woke' viewpoints espoused in the nation's cultural institutions, including a fresh probe of content at several Smithsonian museums. The Kennedy Center, a living monument to the late John F. Kennedy that opened in 1971, has long enjoyed bipartisan support but has been in the president's crosshairs, and he appointed himself board chairman in February. 'We have completely reversed the decline of this cherished national institution,' Trump told reporters at the stately white marble complex overlooking the Potomac River. 'We ended the woke political programming.' Also receiving the Kennedy Center Honors, one of the nation's highest arts awards for lifetime achievement, will be disco diva Gloria Gaynor, rock band KISS and British actor Michael Crawford, known for Broadway's Phantom of the Opera. AFP Trump announced that he himself would host the awards gala, which usually takes place in early December and is later broadcast on CBS. 'I did not insist, but I think it will be quite successful,' he said. He also joked that he wanted an honour himself but was 'never able to get one.' Rocky and the Phantom Stallone, who at 79 is the same age as Trump, is a three-time Oscar nominee: for best actor and screenplay for the 1976 classic boxing flick Rocky, and for best supporting actor, again in the Rocky Balboa role, in the 2015 follow-up Creed. Trump called Stallone a 'great actor.' He is also a major Trump supporter and one of the president's 'Hollywood ambassadors' along with Jon Voight and Mel Gibson. In November 2024, at a post-election event at Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida, Stallone called him 'the second George Washington.' Strait, 73, is one of the best-selling musicians of all time, with more than 120 million records sold. He is known for huge hits like All My Exes Live in Texas and Amarillo by Morning. 'He's a good-looking guy. Hope he still looks like that,' Trump quipped. James Devaney/GC Images Gaynor, 81, is the singer behind the monster disco anthem I Will Survive. KISS, formed in the 1970s in Trump's hometown, New York City, gained fame with its shock rock performances and outlandish black and white face paint. 'They work hard, and they're still working hard,' the US president said. Crawford, 83, made his mark on British television in the 1970s before achieving international success by originating the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Phantom of the Opera, thrilling audiences with his powerful tenor voice. 'I think he's one of the greatest talents I've ever actually seen,' Trump said Wednesday. In his first term, from 2017 to 2021, the Republican president skipped the Kennedy Center Honors gala because some of the artists receiving awards criticised him or said they would not attend in his presence. 'We're restoring the Kennedy Center' The Kennedy Center is home to the National Symphony Orchestra and also offers theatre, opera, comedy and other productions. Many artists associated with the centre, including opera singer Renée Fleming and musician Ben Folds, have cut ties with the institution since Trump took the reins. Others, including comedian Issa Rae, cancelled performances. The producers of smash hit historical musical Hamilton opted to cancel a scheduled 2026 run, citing the end of 'neutrality' at the centre. 'We're restoring the Kennedy Center as the premier venue for performing arts anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world,' Trump said. 'It was being run down; money wasn't being spent properly. They were building things they shouldn't have built that nobody wanted instead of taking care of the great gem that it is.' The Smithsonian Institution, which runs a vast network of museums, said it was reviewing a White House letter announcing a probe of content aimed at removing 'divisive or partisan narratives.' Among the museums targeted are the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the National Museum of the American Indian, the letter said.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump Pushes to Extend Federal Control of Washington Police, Eyes Broader Powers
U.S. President Donald Trump says he'll ask Congress to extend federal control over Washington D.C.'s police force beyond the 30 days allowed under current law — and he believes the move could serve as a model for other cities.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Editorial: Saving lives no more — RFK risks us all in targeting mRNA vaccine research
Showing that his loyalty to his own anti-vax mentality is greater than his loyalty to President Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the dangerous quack atop the Department of Health and Human Services, has announced that he will be rescinding a half billion dollars in grants and contracts for the development of mRNA technology and vaccines. It was mRNA that was key to both the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna COVID vaccines that were created under Trump in his first term, but RFK does not like life-saving vaccines and so he's pulling the plug. Part of the problem with policymaking at the level of the federal government is that the impacts are often too large, too long-winded, too abstract to really be able to nearly encompass their full breadth, particularly for busy people who have their own immediate concerns to worry about. In this case, though, we can point to very clear, very grim and almost unavoidable repercussions directly caused by this decision: many people worldwide — including in the United States — will die deaths that could have been prevented. Setting aside all of the jargon, at its most basic level a vaccine is about allowing the body to ward off or survive pathogens that would otherwise be extremely dangerous and debilitating or kill a person outright. The model itself is far from new; inoculations in some form of another, including the basic utilization of a dead virus to create antibodies that can attack a live one, date back centuries. What's mainly changed since then is that we have only advanced our understanding and technology to keep infectious diseases from running rampant in our society. One such technological leap was the mRNA process, an innovation so significant that its pioneers won the Nobel prize. The effectiveness and the safety of this process has been well-documented in research settings, but we don't even have to parse the studies to know this because we all collectively lived it. As Trump's Operation Warp Speed produced, the first and most widespread COVID inoculations were mRNA-based vaccines, which enabled us to blunt the rampaging pandemic and much more quickly return our society to a semblance of normalcy. Those COVID vaccines have already been synthesized, but the real issue here are the ones that haven't, or even the inoculations for viruses that we have not even identified or think to be a threat today. Whether we like it or not, our relationship to infectious diseases is something akin to an arms race, in which we are constantly trying to counteract pathogens that, by dint of evolution, are constantly finding ways to elude our defenses and sicken us. We've stayed largely on top of this arms race over the last six decades or so in particular because of constant efforts that have developed sophisticated tools to fight back, including mRNA. A disarmament here for no other reason than ideologically-driven conspiracy that drives Bobby Kennedy is going to mean that we give the diseases an opening, which they will no doubt exploit to sicken and kill us. There are quite simply no two ways about it, and any pause in the research could have dire consequences, even if it is reversed later. Ongoing and sometimes multimonth or even multiyear projects will lose funding and might have to be shut down, with all their efforts wasted. There's no way to really put the genie back in the bottle so we have to stop it in the first place, which means RFK must be fired immediately or impeached and removed by Congress. Many lives hang in the balance. _____