WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court set the stage for a major fall showdown over abortion Tuesday when the justices agreed to decide whether Congress can ban so-called partial-birth abortions nationwide. It’s not new territory for the court, which in 2000 split 5-4 when it struck down a similar state ban because it lacked a health exception for women. But Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who voted with the majority in that case, has been replaced by Justice Samuel Alito, whose views on abortion are widely expected to be more restrictive. The case could be the first in which Alito, with other court conservatives including new Chief Justice John G. Roberts, helps chart a more restrictive trajectory for the court’s handling of abortion laws. The case doesn’t directly address Roe v. Wade, the controversial 1973 ruling that struck down anti-abortion laws. But its outcome could indicate whether the court might allow limits on abortion that would affect the ease with which abortions can be obtained. “Almost certainly on the table here is an awful lot more than the federal partial-birth ban,” said David Garrow, a constitutional law expert who’s written extensively about abortion. Not only might […]
ST. LOUIS – A person entering the workforce today in America might face a much longer career than Mom and Dad. Life expectancy in the United States is now around 78 years. But if anti-aging therapies prove to work as well for humans as they have for worms, flies, and mice in laboratories, by the year 2050 people might routinely reach the ripe old age of 120. That could place a tremendous burden on the economy if people continue retiring at 65 or earlier. The retirement age might have to be boosted to 85 to prevent economic collapse, figures Shripad Tuljapurkar of Stanford University. Do the math There are 285 million people in the United States, with the median age around 36. Every two people over the age of 65 depend on money garnered from the wages of 10 working people age 20 to 65. If current trends continue, by 2050 the population will be 368 million, the median age will be 43, and there will be 3.6 people over 65 per 10 workers, Tuljapurkar explained here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Those are […]
WASHINGTON — In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians. The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously declassified pages began in 1999, when the Central Intelligence Agency and five other agencies objected to what they saw as a hasty release of sensitive information after a 1995 declassification order signed by President Bill Clinton. It accelerated after the Bush administration took office and especially after the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to archives records. But because the reclassification program is itself shrouded in secrecy governed by a still-classified memorandum that prohibits the National Archives even from saying which agencies are involved it continued virtually without outside notice until December. That was when an intelligence historian, Matthew M. Aid, noticed that dozens of documents he had copied years ago had been withdrawn from the archives’ open shelves. Mr. Aid was struck by what seemed to him the innocuous contents of the documents mostly decades-old State Department reports from the Korean […]
In a rare display of unanimity that cuts across partisan and geographic lines, lawmakers in virtually every statehouse across the country are advancing bills and constitutional amendments to limit use of the government’s power of eminent domain to seize private property for economic development purposes. The measures are in direct response to the United States Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision last June in a landmark property rights case from Connecticut, upholding the authority of the City of New London to condemn homes in an aging neighborhood to make way for a private development of offices, condominiums and a hotel. It was a decision that one justice, who had written for the majority, later all but apologized for. The reaction from the states was swift and heated. Within weeks of the court’s decision, Texas, Alabama and Delaware passed bills by overwhelming bipartisan margins limiting the right of local governments to seize property and turn it over to private developers. Since then, lawmakers in three dozen other states have proposed similar restrictions and more are on the way, according to experts who track the issue. The National League of Cities, which supports the use of eminent domain as what it […]
Iran and China have been discussing a major energy deal that would involve the swap of oil for technology. Western diplomatic sources said the two countries have been examining an agreement that would make Iran the leading oil supplier to China. The sources said the long-term deal was valued at $100 billion. Over the weekend, Iran and China discussed cooperation in oil, natural gas and petrochemicals. The official Iranian news agency Irna said the conference, held in Kish Island, was attended by officials and experts from both countries, Middle East Newsline reported. Gholam-Reza Manouchehri, managing director of Iran’s Petropars, said China has been a major developer of Iran’s energy reserves and called for the transfer of Chinese technology. Manouchehri also cited China’s growing demand for oil. “We intend to create new opportunities by making optimum use of the facilities of both countries in the mentioned fields,” Manouchehri said.
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
