Zelenskyy approves plans on special tribunal to prosecute Russian leaders over Ukraine
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy formally approved plans Wednesday to set up a new international court to prosecute senior Russian officials for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The special tribunal will be created through an agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe, the continent's top human rights body. Zelenskyy visited the Strasbourg-based organization for the first time as part of the announcement.
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Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Supreme Court has 6 cases to decide, including birthright citizenship
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is in the final days of a term that has lately been dominated by the Trump administration's emergency appeals of lower court orders seeking to slow President Donald Trump's efforts to remake the federal government. But the justices also have six cases to resolve that were argued between January and mid-May. One of the argued cases was an emergency appeal, the administration's bid to be allowed to enforce Trump's executive order denying birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of parents who are in the country illegally. The remaining opinions will be delivered Friday, Chief Justice John Roberts said. On Thursday, a divided court allowed states to cut off Medicaid money to Planned Parenthood amid a wider Republican-backed push to defund the country's biggest abortion provider. Here are some of the biggest remaining cases: Trump's birthright citizenship order has been blocked by lower courts The court rarely hears arguments over emergency appeals, but it took up the administration's plea to narrow orders that have prevented the citizenship changes from taking effect anywhere in the U.S. The issue before the justices is whether to limit the authority of judges to issue nationwide injunctions, which have plagued both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past 10 years. These nationwide court orders have emerged as an important check on Trump's efforts and a source of mounting frustration to the Republican president and his allies. At arguments last month, the court seemed intent on keeping a block on the citizenship restrictions while still looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders. It was not clear what such a decision might look like, but a majority of the court expressed concerns about what would happen if the administration were allowed, even temporarily, to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally. Democratic-led states, immigrants and rights groups who sued over Trump's executive order argued that it would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than 125 years. The court seems likely to side with Maryland parents in a religious rights case over LGBTQ storybooks in public schools Parents in the Montgomery County school system, in suburban Washington, want to be able to pull their children out of lessons that use the storybooks, which the county added to the curriculum to better reflect the district's diversity. The school system at one point allowed parents to remove their children from those lessons, but then reversed course because it found the opt-out policy to be disruptive. Sex education is the only area of instruction with an opt-out provision in the county's schools. The school district introduced the storybooks in 2022, with such titles as 'Prince and Knight' and 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding.' The case is one of several religious rights cases at the court this term. The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years. The decision also comes amid increases in recent years in books being banned from public school and public libraries. A three-year battle over congressional districts in Louisiana is making its second trip to the Supreme Court Lower courts have struck down two Louisiana congressional maps since 2022 and the justices are weighing whether to send state lawmakers back to the map-drawing board for a third time. The case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries in front of a conservative-led court that has been skeptical of considerations of race in public life. At arguments in March, several of the court's conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act. Before the court now is a map that created a second Black majority congressional district among Louisiana's six seats in the House of Representatives. The district elected a Black Democrat in 2024. A three-judge court found that the state relied too heavily on race in drawing the district, rejecting Louisiana's arguments that politics predominated, specifically the preservation of the seats of influential members of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson. The Supreme Court ordered the challenged map to be used last year while the case went on. Lawmakers only drew that map after civil rights advocates won a court ruling that a map with one Black majority district likely violated the landmark voting rights law. The justices are weighing a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography Texas is among more than a dozen states with age verification laws. The states argue the laws are necessary as smartphones have made access to online porn, including hardcore obscene material, almost instantaneous. The question for the court is whether the measure infringes on the constitutional rights of adults as well. The Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry trade group, agrees that children shouldn't be seeing pornography. But it says the Texas law is written too broadly and wrongly affects adults by requiring them to submit personal identifying information online that is vulnerable to hacking or tracking. The justices appeared open to upholding the law, though they also could return it to a lower court for additional work. Some justices worried the lower court hadn't applied a strict enough legal standard in determining whether the Texas law and others like that could run afoul of the First Amendment.
Toronto Star
an hour ago
- Toronto Star
Iran's Khamenei resurfaces to warn against future US attacks in first statement since ceasefire
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday his country had delivered a 'slap to America's face' with its strike on a U.S. airbase in Qatar, and warned against any further attacks in his first public comments since a ceasefire was declared with Israel after 12 days of war. Khamenei spoke in a recorded video broadcast on Iranian state television, his first appearance since June 19. The 86-year-old, a skilled orator known for his forceful addresses to the country's more than 90 million people, appeared and sounded more tired than he had just a week ago, speaking in a hoarse voice and occasionally stumbling over his words.
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
IOC's Coventry pauses 2036 Olympics hosting contest in 1st big decision of her presidency
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — India's push toward winning the 2036 Olympics hosting contest seemed to stall a little on Thursday in the first big decision of Kirsty Coventry's IOC presidency. Coventry paused the fast tracking of a preferred bidder — a signature policy of her predecessor and mentor Thomas Bach — in a concession to International Olympic Committee members who have wanted more say in decisions under new leadership. 'Members want to be engaged more in the process' of picking Olympic hosts, Coventry acknowledged, citing 'overwhelming support' at meetings this week to stop and review how it is done and when. India has been seen as gaining momentum in the 2036 race that involves at least 10 bidders in talks including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Istanbul in Turkey. In her third full day in office, Coventry promised to create two working groups — to look at how hosts are chosen, and a second analyzing how to 'protect the female category' after controversy in women's boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The two-time Olympic champion swimmer also restated a principled vision ahead of the 2028 Summer Games in the city of Los Angeles, which U.S. President Donald Trump this month called 'a trash heap.' 'We see the best of humanity, we see compassion for others' in Olympic values, Coventry said at a news conference after chairing her first executive board meeting over two days. 'If we can celebrate in the diversity that we are, and that we have, we can really work towards creating something great,' the former sports minister of Zimbabwe said, pledging to try to inspire young people. Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. Olympic officials from LA met with Coventry's board Wednesday and promised a 'unity of effort' in the city where the Trump administration deployed military forces after street protests against immigration raids. 'There is so much goodwill from all levels of government,' Coventry insisted, including federal. 'That gives us faith,' she said, that a platform for the Olympics 'will be there for us to ensure that our values are stuck to but that our values will also be heard.' ___ AP Olympics:
