Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a towering women’s rights champion who became the court’s second female justice, died Friday at her home in Washington. She was 87.
Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court said.
Her death just over six weeks before Election Day is likely to set off a heated battle over whether President Donald Trump should nominate, and the Republican-led Senate should confirm, her replacement, or if the seat should remain vacant until the outcome of his race against Democrat Joe Biden is known. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said late Friday that the Senate will vote on Trump’s pick to replace Ginsburg, even though it’s an election year.
Trump called Ginsburg an “amazing woman” and did not mention filling her vacant Supreme Court seat when he spoke to reporters following a rally in Bemidji, Minnesota.
Biden said the winner of the November election should choose Ginsburg’s replacement. “There is no doubt — let me be clear — that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider,” Biden told reporters after returning to his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, from campaign stops in Minnesota.
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McConnell pledges quick vote on next justice; Biden says no
WASHINGTON (AP) — The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just over six weeks before the election cast an immediate spotlight on the crucial high court vacancy, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell quickly vowing to bring to a vote whoever President Donald Trump nominates.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden vigorously disagreed, declaring that “voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice to consider.”
McConnell, the majority leader who sets the calendar in the U.S. Senate, declared unequivocally in a statement not long after Ginsburg’s death was announced that Trump’s nominee would receive a confirmation vote in the chamber — even though he had stalled President Barack Obama’s choice for months ahead of the 2016 election, eventually preventing a vote.
Trump, in brief remarks to reporters after learning of her death, called Ginsburg “an amazing woman,” adding that “she led an amazing life.” He had continued with a campaign speech in Minnesota for about an hour and a half after the nation — as well as aides and many in his audience with cellphones — had learned of her death. He seemed surprised when he spoke with reporters afterward, saying he did not know she had died.
He had boasted in the speech that the next presidential term could offer him as many as four appointments to the nine-member court, whose members are confirmed for life. He said, “This is going to be the most important election in the history of our country and we have to get it right.”
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The Latest: Graham’s stance on court pick timing has changed
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (all times local):
11:40 p.m.
At least three Republican senators suggested before Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death that they’d be opposed to voting late this election year on replacing her with a nominee by President Donald Trump.
But one of them, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, has already reversed himself.
Graham told The Atlantic magazine in 2018: “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term and the primary process is started, we’ll wait for the next election.”
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Hundreds gather at Supreme Court to mourn Ginsburg’s death
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of people gathered Friday night outside the Supreme Court, singing in a candlelight vigil and weeping together as they mourned the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The large group of mourners packed the high court’s steps and the street across from the U.S. Capitol in a nighttime memorial. Dozens of people sat on the steps quietly reflecting on Ginsburg’s legacy.
Scores of memorial candles flickered in the wind along the front steps of the court as people knelt to leave bouquets of flowers, small American flags and handwritten condolence messages for Ginsburg, who died Friday of metastatic pancreatic cancer at age 87 after 27 years on the court. Prayer candles with Ginsburg’s photo on them were also left on the steps.
Several times, dozens in the crowd broke out into song, singing “Amazing Grace” and “This Land is Your Land” as others embraced one another and wiped tears from their eyes. At one point, the crowd broke into a thunderous applause — lasting for about a minute — for Ginsburg.
“Thank you RBG,” one sign read. On the sidewalk, “RBG” was drawn inside a pink chalk heart.
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More migrant women say they didn’t OK surgery in detention
HOUSTON (AP) — Sitting across from her lawyer at an immigration detention centre in rural Georgia, Mileidy Cardentey Fernandez unbuttoned her jail jumpsuit to show the scars on her abdomen. There were three small, circular marks.
The 39-year-old woman from Cuba was told only that she would undergo an operation to treat her ovarian cysts, but a month later, she’s still not sure what procedure she got. After Cardentey repeatedly requested her medical records to find out, Irwin County Detention Center gave her more than 100 pages showing a diagnosis of cysts but nothing from the day of the surgery.
“The only thing they told me was: ‘You’re going to go to sleep and when you wake up, we will have finished,'” Cardentey said this week in a phone interview.
Cardentey kept her hospital bracelet. It has the date, Aug. 14, and part of the doctor’s name, Dr. Mahendra Amin, a gynecologist linked this week to allegations of unwanted hysterectomies and other procedures done on detained immigrant women that jeopardize their ability to have children.
An Associated Press review of medical records for four women and interviews with lawyers revealed growing allegations that Amin performed surgeries and other procedures on detained immigrants that they never sought or didn’t fully understand. Although some procedures could be justified based on problems documented in the records, the women’s lack of consent or knowledge raises severe legal and ethical issues, lawyers and medical experts said.
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Homes destroyed after winds push California fire into desert
JUNIPER HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Homes were destroyed Friday by an unrelenting wildfire that reached a Mojave Desert community and was still growing on several fronts after burning for nearly two weeks in mountains northeast of Los Angeles.
Officials were investigating the death of a firefighter on the lines of another Southern California wildfire that erupted earlier this month from a smoke-generating pyrotechnic device used by a couple to reveal their baby’s gender.
The death occurred Thursday in San Bernardino National Forest as crews battled the El Dorado Fire about 75 miles (120 kilometres) east of LA, the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement.
In northern Los Angeles County, the Bobcat Fire burned semi-rural desert properties when it was pushed by gusts into the community of Juniper Hills after churning all the way across the San Gabriel Mountains.
Crews protected homes and chased spot fires sparked by embers blown across neighbourhoods by erratic winds. Surrounding areas were under evacuation orders.
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Peru president survives impeachment vote amid virus turmoil
LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra easily survived an impeachment vote Friday night after opposition lawmakers failed to amass enough support to oust the leader as the country copes with one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks.
The decision came after long hours of debate in which legislators blasted Vizcarra but also questioned whether a rushed impeachment process would only create more turmoil in the middle of a health and economic crisis.
“It’s not the moment to proceed with an impeachment which would add even more problems to the tragedy we are living,” lawmaker Francisco Sagasti said.
In the end, only 32 lawmakers voted to remove the president, while 78 voted against and 15 abstained. A two-thirds majority was needed to oust Vizcarra.
The political feud was sparked by the release of several covertly recorded audios that Vizcarra’s detractors contend show he tried to obstruct an influence peddling probe. And despite the failed vote, that conflict was likely to continue, afflicting the president’s ability to carry forward his anti-corruption agenda could be indefinitely stymied.
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One family’s desperate, deadly attempt to flee Lebanon
TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) — Mohammed Sufian did not dream of much: a job, food on the table, the chance to buy his 2 1/2-year-old son the little things a toddler wants.
So when he heard that smugglers were taking people from his hometown of Tripoli to the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus, he decided to take the chance with his pregnant wife and child. To pay their way, he sold his furniture and two of his sister’s bracelets.
They boarded a small fishing boat with the others. But what would be expected to be a 40-hour trip went badly: For eight harrowing days, they were stranded in the Mediterranean Sea, apparently losing their way and running out of diesel. At least four adults and two children died — including Sufian’s little boy. Six are missing.
“I took my son with me not to give him a high life, not to give him the life of rich people,” said Sufian, 21. “I was trying to give him a good life where if he will ask me for a potato chip bag or a juice box I am able to give it to him. This is what drove me out of the country.”
In recent weeks, scores of others have tried to make the same illicit sea crossing, attempting to flee a country facing multiple crises and an unprecedented economic and financial collapse.
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Manager ordered census layoffs despite judge’s ruling
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Two weeks after a federal judge prohibited the U.S. Census Bureau from winding down the 2020 census, a manager in Illinois instructed employees to get started with layoffs, according to an audio of the conversation obtained by The Associated Press.
During a conference call Thursday, the Chicago area manager told supervisors who report to him that they should track down census takers who don’t currently have any cases, collect the iPhones they use to record information, and bid them goodbye. The manager did not respond to an email from the AP.
“I would really like to get a head start on terminating these people,” he said. “All of these inactives that we have, we need to get rid of them. So hunt down your inactives, collect their devices, get them terminated and off of our lists.”
It was unclear whether such actions would violate U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh’s temporary restraining order prohibiting the Census Bureau from winding down field operations while she considers a request to extend the head count by a month.
Earlier this week, the judge, who is in San Jose, California, held a hearing on other possible violations of the order, but no action was taken after a Census Bureau official said in a declaration that they were unsubstantiated or the result of miscommunication. The judge extended the order for another week on Thursday.
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US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns
The U.S. Commerce Department said Friday it will ban Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat from U.S. app stores on Sunday and will bar the apps from accessing essential internet services in the U.S. — a move that could effectively wreck the operation of both Chinese services for U.S. users.
TikTok won’t face the most drastic sanctions until after the Nov. 3 election, but WeChat users could feel the effects as early as Sunday.
The order, which cited national security and data privacy concerns, follows weeks of dealmaking over the video-sharing service TikTok. President Donald Trump has pressured the app’s Chinese owner to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to a domestic company to satisfy U.S. concerns over TikTok’s data collection and related issues.
California tech giant Oracle recently struck a deal with TikTok along those lines, although details remain foggy and the administration is still reviewing it. Trump said Friday said he was open to a deal, noting that “we have some great options and maybe we can keep a lot of people happy,” suggesting that even Microsoft, which said its TikTok bid had been rejected, might continue to be involved, as well as Oracle and Walmart.
Trump noted that TikTok was “very, very popular,” said “we have to have the total security from China,” and added that “we can do a combination of both.”
The Associated Press
