All posts tagged "Société"

Columbus (AFP) - The US state of Ohio will decide whether to guarantee the right to abortion in a potential 2024 bellwether Tuesday as both sides of the American political machine establish their campaign strategies on this crucial issue one year out from the presidential election.  Voters will choose whether to amend the midwestern state's constitution to promise the freedom to "make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including... abortion," or to leave the document unchanged, allowing for a potential state ban. The US Supreme Court revoked the national right to abortion last yea......

Washington (AFP) - A US federal judge on Tuesday struck down a law prohibiting minors from gender transition treatment in Arkansas, the first time such a restriction has been overturned as similar laws are enacted in Republican-led states.  Judge Jay Moody ruled the law was unconstitutional because it violated the rights of doctors to provide medical care and discriminates against transgender people. "The evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that, by prohibiting it, the state undermined the interests it claims to be advancin......

Rolling Fork (United States) (AFP) - Outside, houses are torn open and trees lie with their roots in the air. Inside, stretchers are lined up in front of tables overflowing with food. In Rolling Fork, Mississippi, where a tornado caused chaos and death, volunteers are pouring in from surrounding towns to help. The American Red Cross moved into a National Guard building less than 24 hours after the tornado struck Friday night, killing at least 25 people in the community of 2,000. An ambulance is parked at the entrance of a room being used as an infirmary and, through the back door, boxes full o......

Washington (AFP) - It's a profession which is increasingly under the spotlight as the culture wars rumble on: "sensitivity readers" -- editors who identify insensitivities or stereotypes in manuscripts -- are becoming a lightning rod for the publishing industry. Such readers have worked in the wings of the Western literary world for years now, though they were largely confined to children's literature. But amid social reckonings such as the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, sensitivity readers are becoming prominent in contemporary fiction publishing also -- and not everyone is pleased ......

Houston (AFP) - A 29-year-old Texas woman has been sentenced to death for killing a pregnant acquaintance in October 2020 to extract and steal the fetus inside her womb. Taylor Parker's sentencing was handed down Wednesday in Texas, following several weeks of trial that began in September, according to court documents. Over months Parker had told her boyfriend and her relatives that she was pregnant. She posted about it on social media and bought a fake silicone belly. It was all a lie. The truth was that she had had a hysterectomy and could not have a child. On October 9, 2020, Parker went to......

Houston (AFP) - At a gas station in Houston, David Blanco fills up the tank of his car, a Glock 19 pistol clearly visible on his left hip.  The Hispanic Texan says that in the crucial mid-term US elections coming up in less than two weeks, "the criteria that would mainly make me want to go out (and vote) is strictly firearms at the moment." Blanco, a serious-looking 33-year-old, had never been interested much in politics before, and didn't normally vote. But things changed, he said, when politicians "started threatening the Second Amendment, saying that, 'Oh, we're gonna ban AR-15s and high-ca......