List of All Articles with Tag 'us'

Connor Bedard is going to work with the Chicago Blackhawks

Brazil's highest electoral court formed a majority to ban former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro from running for office until 2030 on Friday on charges alleging that he abused his political power and misused of public resources.

A Christian website designer in Colorado did not want to provide her services to same-sex couples, potentially running afoul of state law that prohibits public-facing businesses from discriminating against LGBT+ people. The designer didn’t have any same-sex clients. She didn’t receive any requests from gay couples to work on their wedding websites. But in her legal challenge, supported by an influential right-wing legal group that backed a lawsuit ending Roe v Wade, she argued that Colorado’s law infringed on her First Amendment rights. In its final day of its current term, the US Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority agreed, potentially endangering already vulnerable rights of LGBT+ Americans and state governments’ abilities to protect them. But a crucial piece of evidence in the case appears to have been fabricated. A man who is named throughout the case, and whose phone number and email address were attached in court filings, claims he has nothing to do with it. In 2016, Lorie Smith claimed in filings that a man named “Stewart” contacted her website to help with his upcoming wedding to a person named “Mike”: “We are getting married early next year and would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website.” The New Republic found “Stewart”. He said he is straight, married to a woman, and never contacted Ms Smith. His alleged request for services came within 24 hours after Ms Smith first filed her lawsuit in state court. “If somebody’s pulled my information, as some kind of supporting information or documentation, somebody’s falsified that,” he explained to The New Republic. “I’m married, I have a child – I’m not really sure where that came from? But somebody’s using false information in a Supreme Court filing document.” It remains unclear, even after the Supreme Court’s decision, how and why he is involved. In a statement to The Independent, attorneys for Ms Smith dismissed his reaction and claimed that the service request was genuine. A spokesperson for Colorado’s attorney general pointed to earlier claims that there was no proof that it was. Meanwhile, the statements “Stewart” claims to never have made, and arguments from attorneys who use his name and alleged statements, remain printed across several court documents. In a motion filed by attorneys for Colorado in 2016 to dismiss the case, they pointed out that Ms Smith had never received any request for services and had no standing to sue. A response from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian group representing Ms Smith, asserted that it was not necessary to have received any such inquiry before challenging state law. Months later, in February 2017, in an effort to bolster their challenge to state law, attorneys for the group said that Ms Smith received an inquiry, weeks before Colorado attorneys asked to dismiss the case. “Notably, any claim that Lorie will never receive a request to create a custom website celebrating a same-sex ceremony is no longer legitimate because Lorie has received such a request,” according to the filing. Later that year, following a court ruling in Colorado’s favour, the group mentioned “Stewart” and “Mike” in a press release. In a December 2021 filing with the Supreme Court, attorneys for Colorado responded to the alleged request again, noting that the inquiry “was not a request for a website at all, but just a response to an online form asking about ‘invites’ and ‘place-names,’ with a statement that the person ‘might also stretch to a website.’” The Alliance Defending Freedom fired back in a reply brief, once again mentioning a request that may not even exist: “Colorado’s claim – that a request from ‘Mike’ and ‘Stewart’ for a wedding website does not reflect a same-sex wedding request – blinks reality.” The Independent asked representatives for the Alliance Defending Freedom how “Stewart” became involved with the case. Senior counsel Kellie Fiedorek said The New Republic’s findings are a “last-minute attempt to malign Lorie [that] smacks of desperation to delegitimize her civil rights case and our judicial system.” “It’s undisputed that Lorie received this request through her website. She doesn’t do background checks on incoming requests to determine if the person submitting it is genuine,” she added. “Whether Lorie received a legitimate request or whether someone lied to her is irrelevant. No one should have to wait to be punished by the government to challenge an unjust law.” A spokesperson for the office of Colorado’s attorney general did not have a comment prior to the ruling but pointed The Independent to its brief with the Supreme Court noting that Ms Smith did not take “any steps to verify that a genuine prospective customer submitted the form.” The Supreme Court’s decision is a blow to LGBT+ advocates who fear the case could open the door for rollbacks to discrimination protections, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor noting that the ruling comes in the middle of a wave of state laws targeting LGBT+ people. “This case cannot be understood outside of the context in which it arises,” she wrote in her dissent. “In that context, the outcome is even more distressing. … In this pivotal moment, the Court had an opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to equality on behalf of all members of society, including LGBT people. It does not do so.” A statement from Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT+ civil rights organization, said the court’s decision “is a dangerous step backward, giving some businesses the power to discriminate against people simply because of who we are.” President Joe Biden, noting the decision’s arrival on the final day of Pride Month, said he is “deeply concerned that the decision could invite more discrimination” against LGBT+ Americans. “More broadly, today’s decision weakens long-standing laws that protect all Americans against discrimination in public accommodations – including people of color, people with disabilities, people of faith, and women,” he added. Read More Supreme Court allows Colorado designer to deny LGBT+ customers in ruling on last day of Pride Month The Supreme Court just made me a second-class citizen ‘It’s hard on our family’: For these lawmakers with trans children, Republican attacks are personal

Byju’s and some of its lenders have restarted negotiations in a bid to restructure its $1.2 billion term

By Daniel Wiessner The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether workers can bring discrimination lawsuits

Twitter appears to be restricting access to its platform for anyone not logged into an account.

By Daniel Wiessner The U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down race-conscious policies in college admissions includes some warnings

President Nicolas Maduro’s quest to gain control of roughly $2 billion in Venezuelan gold held in the UK

A panel of judges has voted to render far-right former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro ineligible to run for office again after concluding that he abused his power and cast unfounded doubts on the country’s electronic voting system

Employers who hire immigrants in the country illegally will face tough punishments and gun owners will have more freedoms when more than 200 new Florida laws take effect Saturday

By Gabriel Stargardter RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's hopes of reclaiming the presidency in 2026 may

When a draft of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v Jackson opinion that would overturn Roe v Wade leaked in May of last year, US Senator Tina Smith had only three words. “This is bulls***,” the Minnesota Democrat tweeted. She had similar words when Walgreens announced in March of this year it would not dispense abortion pills in states where abortion remained legal. Ms Smith told The Independent in a phone interview that she knew the consequences of overturning the enshrined constitutional right to seek an abortion from her time working at Planned Parenthood as the Minnesota branch’s executive vice president for external affairs. She said her time working there taught her about the effects restrictions have on women’s lives. “The first thing I realized is that for women facing a decision about what to do about an unplanned pregnancy, a pregnancy that they don't want, this is a purely personal decision for them,” she said. “As a policymaker, why do Republicans in the Senate and in state legislators around the country think that they know better than those women whose stories they'll never know? Why do they think that they should be the ones who decide? It’s those women's decisions.” Ms Smith said that the Dobbs decision has led to rooting the question of abortion rights in terms of personal freedom. “You know, they can see this, these stories of individuals and doctors that are trying to provide the best health care, get the best health care for people, and you know, they unable to do that and they can see that that's just wrong,” she said. Sen Smith arrived under peculiar circumstances after then-Governor Mark Dayton nominated her, while she was serving as lieutenant governor of Minnesota, to replace Sen Al Franken amid multiple allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour. Similarly, she has often been overshadowed by Minnesota’s senior Democratic Sen Amy Klobuchar, who ran for president. She and fellow midwestern Democratic Sen Tammy Baldwin, of Wisconsin, have a running joke that reporters and Capitol Hill staff often confuse them. In the past year, Sen Smith has emerged as a stronger presence. She wrote some of the climate provisions in what would become the Inflation Reduction Act. When Sen John Fetterman (D-PA) left the Senate for a few weeks to undergo treatment for depression, she spoke about her own difficulties with the condition. In addition, she’s emerged as one of the strongest voices defending abortion rights. Ms Smith said the Dobbs decision has made the contrast between Democrats and Republicans clearer. In recent months, Sen Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has blocked military nominations because of the Pentagon’s policy that reimburses people who travel out of state to receive abortions. “What Senator Tuberville is doing is so outside the norms of what we should be doing in the Senate, it's outrageous,” she said. “I just need to point out that what Senator Tuberville is trying to do is to overturn a policy which basically provides women serving in the military with the same access to health care that people that are incarcerated in our federal prisons have.” Few Republicans seem deterred from their opposition to abortion despite the role it played in dulling their efforts to flip the Senate last year. Ms Smith’s colleague Sen Tim Scott (R-SC), now a candidate for president, told the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference last month “thank God almighty for the Dobbs decision.” Former vice president Mike Pence has called for a 15-week national abortion ban. Meanwhile, former president Donald Trump has campaigned as the president who nominated the three Supreme Court justices who made the decision possible. Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, who often places a second distant behind Mr Trump in polls, signed legislation banning abortion after six weeks. As vice chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Ms Smith faces a tough challenge because not only does she have to defend Senate seats in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada – all of which President Joe Biden won in 2020 – she also has to defend Senate seats in three states Mr Trump won twice: Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. “And make no mistake, if Republicans win the Senate or if Republicans win the White House, we can see from their statements, they're going to move to pass a national ban on abortion,” she said, noting how many GOP candidates for Senate oppose abortion. “So, this is the contrast, this is what voters will be confronted with when they cast their votes in 2024,” she said. “Do you want to elect individuals who think they know better, that they should be the ones making decisions, individuals that want to ban abortion rights? Or do you want to elect Democrats who believe that women and not politicians should be making their own health care decisions?” At the same time, Democrats face huge challenges to codify abortion rights. Last week, Mr Biden told donors he was personally uncomfortable with abortion. “I'm a practising Catholic,” he said on Tuesday. “I'm not big on abortion, but guess what? Roe v Wade got it right.” Sen Smith defended Mr Biden’s actions defending abortion rights. “I believe that the President and the administration have moved decisively in all the ways that they can as they look for other ways to the practical reproductive freedom, that's a good thing,” she said. “I'm proud of the work that they've done. I think ultimately, the action that we need to take is legislative action, and that is why we need to win these elections.” Last year, shortly after the Dobbs leak, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tried to put the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have codified the protections in Roe, to a vote. But Sen Joe Manchin (D-WV) opposed the measure. Even then, Sen Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who later left the Democratic Party to become an independent, opposes removing the filibuster, which demands a two-thirds majority to pass legislation. Sen Smith said if Democrats with the House, the Senate and the White House again, they should get rid of the filibuster. “And you know, we need to work towards a Senate majority that will not only support reproductive freedom but will also change Senate rules so that we can act on that belief,” she said. “And that I think is going to as I said before, that I believe will be a decisive issue in the in the elections in 2024.” Read More Congresswoman who authored abortion rights bill calls Senate’s inaction to codify Roe v Wade ‘such a crime’ Ritchie Torres, the only openly gay Black man in Congress, on how he fights GOP ‘bullying’ of LGBT+ people Republicans try to thread the needle on abortion on anniversary of the death of Roe 'Rage giving' prompted by the end of Roe has dropped off, abortion access groups say Arizona executive order safeguards abortion seekers and providers from prosecution Why some doctors stay in US states with restrictive abortion laws and others leave