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On June 26, 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized in all 50 states. This is a major break-through for people in the LGBT+ community. This is something that means a lot to me because I know some people who are gay and now they can get married. This is a big step for equal rights for those who are not heterosexual.

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The US Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriage is a legal right across the United States.

It means the 14 states with bans on same-sex marriage will no longer be able to enforce them.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the plaintiffs asked "for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

The ruling brings to an end more than a decade of bitter legal battles.

Same-sex couples in several affected states including Georgia, Michigan, Ohio and Texas rushed to wed on Friday.

However officials in other states, including Mississippi and Louisiana, said marriages had to wait until procedural issues were addressed.

President Barack Obama said the ruling was a "victory for America".

"When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free " he said.

However, Christian conservatives condemned the decision.

Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called it "an out-of-control act of unconstitutional, judicial tyranny".

And Kellie Fiedorek, a lawyer for an anti-gay marriage advocacy group, said the decision "ignored the voices of thousands of Americans".

Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, a state where marriages licences will now be issued to same-sex couples, said the justices "have imposed on the entire country their personal views on an issue that the Constitution and the Court's previous decisions reserve to the people of the states".

At the scene - Paul Blake, BBC News

Loud cheers erupted outside the court after the ruling was announced, and there were tears, hugs, and cheers of "USA USA USA!".

A sea of rainbow flags overwhelmed the few anti-gay marriage activists who reacted in disbelief, and the demonstration seemed to turn into a street party.

A tour bus drove past honking as hundreds cheered the decision.

One of the demonstrators, Jordan Monaghan, called his mother from his mobile phone amid the celebrations.

"Hey mom, I'm at the Supreme Court. Your son can have a husband now," Mr Monaghan said.

Minutes after the ruling, couples in one of the states that had a ban, Georgia, lined up in hope of being wed.

In Texas, Yasmin Menchaca and her partner Catherine Andrews told the BBC that they are "trying to round up our parents" in order to get married on Friday.

The two have been together for six years, and had attempted to marry in Washington state - but decided to wait because of the financial burden of flying their parents across the country.

On social media, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton merely tweeted the word "proud" and the White House changed its Twitter avatar into the rainbow colours.

The case considered by the court concerned Jim Obergefell, an Ohio resident who was not recognised as the legal widower of his late husband, John Arthur.

"It's my hope that gay marriage will soon be a thing of the past, and from this day forward it will simply be 'marriage,'" an emotional Mr Obergefell said outside the court.

States affected:

Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, most of Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.

The first state to allow same-sex marriage was Massachusetts, which granted the right in 2004.

In recent years, a wave of legal rulings and a dramatic shift in public opinion have expanded gay marriage in the US.

In 2012, the high court struck down a federal anti same-sex marriage law.

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The US Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriage is a legal right across the United States. It means the 14 states with bans on same-sex marriage will no longer be able to enforce them. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the plaintiffs asked "for equal dignity in the eyes of the law.

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In early November of 2015, over 100 people were killed in a terror attack in Paris. Six cities were attacked by suicide bombers. This event stuck out in my mind because so many innocent people were killed and that the world is still not a peaceful place, even in the city of love.

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Scores were killed in the coordinated attacks late Friday, leaving a nation in mourning and the world in shock. CNN will update this story as information comes in:

[Latest developments, posted at 11:59 p.m. ET]

* Paris Prosecutor spokeswoman Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre said eight extremists are dead after attacks. Seven of them were killed in suicide bombings.

* U.S. President Barack Obama spoke with French President Francois Hollande to offer condolences and assistance in the investigation, the White House said. Earlier, Obama said, "This is an attack not just on Paris, not just on the people on France, but an attack on all humanity and the universal values we share." He called the attacks an "outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians."

* A total of six locations were attacked in and just outside the capital, Paris prosecutor François Molins told reporters Saturday.

* Five suspected attackers have been "neutralized," said Molins. It was unclear whether that term meant the terrorists were dead.

* A witness tells Radio France that attackers inside the Bataclan concert hall entered firing rifles and shouting "Allah akbar."

* At least 128 people were killed in the Paris and Saint-Denis shootings and bombings, French officials said. Saint-Denis is home to the national stadium where the soccer match was being played.

* The worst carnage occurred at Bataclan, with at least 80 left dead.A journalist who was at a rock concert there escaped and told CNN: "We lied down on the floor not to get hurt. It was a huge panic. The terrorists shot at us for 10 to 15 minutes. It was a bloodbath." Julien Pearce didn't hear the attackers speak, but he said one friend who escaped heard them talk about Iraq and Syria. Later, he said the men were speaking French. Two men dressed in black started shooting and after wounded people fell to the floor, the gunmen shot them again, execution-style, he said.

* CNN affiliate BFMTV, citing French officials, said some gunmen were still at large.

* Charlotte Brehaut and a friend were dining in Le Petit Cambodge, a Cambodian restaurant, when the shooting started from the street, she told CNN. "All of a sudden we heard huge gunshots and glass coming through the windows. We ducked with the other diners," she said. She grabbed the arm of a woman on the floor. The woman didn't respond. The woman was shot in the chest and there was blood all around her. At least 14 people were killed in Le Petit Cambodge, authorities said.

* Four attackers were killed, including three who were wearing explosives belts, at Bataclan during the police raid, Paris police spokesman Michel Cadot told France Info radio.

* There is great alarm over the apparent methodology and likely planning that would have been needed to pull off such a series of attacks, one U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN. The attacks resembled tactics that have been used by a number of terror groups -- including al Qaeda's focus on mass casualties and visibility, and the small, tactical nature of attacks that are more the hallmark of ISIS and its acolytes. It is still not clear who is responsible.

* U.S. citizens in Paris who are safe are being asked by the State Department to call their families. Those Americans in France needing assistance should call 001-202-501-4444. Americans concerned about loved ones in Paris should call 1-888-407-4747. An official told CNN the hotline was flooded with calls.

* Michael Dorio, brother of a member of the band that was playing at the Bataclan concert, said he spoke to Eagles of Death Metal drummer Julian Dorio about 20-30 minutes after the attack. "He said he had been performing and heard the gunshots. They stopped playing and hit the deck and went backstage and exited," Michael Dorio told CNN.

* BFMTV reports that SWAT units stormed Bataclan and that the siege was over. Two attackers were killed, a police union said. Police brought out at least 100 hostages from the concert hall, a CNN producer said; some appear to be wounded. Hollande told reporters outside Bataclan that "terrorists capable of carrying out such atrocities must know that they will face a France that is determined and united."

* Deputy Mayor Patrick Klugman told CNN the death toll is going to rise significantly. "We are facing an unknown and historic situation in Paris," he said.

* Hollande called the events "unprecedented terrorist attacks" and added, "This is a horror." In a tweet, he said, "Faced with terror, this is a nation that knows how to defend itself, how to mobilize its forces and once again, knows how to overcome the terrorists."

* One of the explosions at the Stade de France, home of the French national sports teams, outside Paris appears to be a suicide bombing, a Western intelligence source receiving direct intelligence from the scene told CNN's Deb Feyerick. A dismembered body, consistent with the aftermath of an explosion from that type of device, was found at the scene, the source said. Watch: Explosion heard at Paris soccer game

* People were inviting people off the streets into their apartments, reports Philip Crowther, Washington correspondent for France 24.

* Traffic on several subway lines has been interrupted following the attacks, the Paris police prefecture reported.

* There is no credible or specific threat in the United States, according to a U.S. government official. An FBI spokesperson said the agency and the Department of Homeland Security were closely monitoring the unfolding events.

* Hollande, in an address to the nation, said he had declared a state of emergency, meaning border security will be ramped up. "We have to show compassion and solidarity and we also have to show unity and keep our cool. France must be strong and great," he said.

* The Paris prefecture of police instructed residents to stay home. The prefecture said via Twitter that people should stay inside "unless there's an absolute necessity."

* French authorities have launched a terrorism investigation, Eric Pelletier, a reporter with Le Pariesien, tells CNN Paul Cruickshank. There has been no official claim of responsibility, though ISIS has applauded the attacks on Twitter, Cruickshank reports.

* Russian leader Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to Hollande and the people of France. "Russia strongly condemns this inhumane killing and is ready to provide any and all assistance to investigate these terrorist crimes," he said.

* Three explosions took place at the Stade de France, CNN affiliate BFMTV said.

* Counterterrorism officials around the United States convened secure conference calls to try to gather information, according to two U.S. counterterrorism officials. Immediate suspicion for the events in Paris falls to so-called returnees -- people who have traveled to Syria and Iraq and have returned, the officials said.

In early January of this year, two gunmen attacked the Paris offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 and wounding 11.

Said and Cherif Kouachi wanted to punish the magazine for the publication of cartoons that they believed mocked the Prophet Mohammed. The Kouachi brothers two days later were shot and killed in a standoff with police in Dammartin-en-Goele.

Amedy Coulibaly, an associate of Said and Cherif Kouachi, attacked a Jewish grocery store in Paris, taking more than a dozen people hostage and killing four. Coulibaly had killed a policewoman the day before, on January 8. Coulibaly was killed when police stormed the kosher market.

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paris massacre: at least 128 die in attacks - cnn

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Steve Almasy, Pierre Meilhan and Jim Bittermann, CNN

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Paris massacre: At least 128 die in attacks - CNN

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Scores were killed in the coordinated attacks late Friday, leaving a nation in mourning and the world in shock. CNN will update this story as information comes in: [Latest developments, posted at 11:59 p.m. ET] * Paris Prosecutor spokeswoman Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre said eight extremists are dead after attacks.

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Yet another shooting has taken place in America, this one ending with 14 people dead. Gun laws are a highly controversial topic in America, with the people not wanting their 2nd amendment to be violated but also wanted to feel safe. This shooting just goes to show how much stricter gun laws are needed.

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The family has not been able to track down recently named suspect Syed Farook or his wife since Wednesday morning, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations).

[Update 12:02 a.m ET Thursday]

Farhan Khan, the brother-in-law of the suspect Syed Farook, told reporters: "I have no idea why he would he do something like this. I have absolutely no idea. i am in shock myself." Khan said he last talked to Farook a week ago.

ATF tells CNN that one of the guns used in the shooting was legally purchased and traces back to someone believe to be connect with the shooting. The agency would not disclose the name of the purchaser.
[Update 11:56 p.m. ET Wednesday]
One of the suspects involved in the San Bernardino shootings has been identified as Syed Farook, an inspector with the county health department, who abruptly left the event at the Inland Regional Center before the shootings, multiple law enforcement sources tell CNN.

The sources said the residence in Redlands, California, surrounded by law enforcement is connected to Farook. It is that house where the chase began that led to the shootout with the occupants of the SUV.

The sources could not say for certain that he was in the SUV, if he was a shooter, or that he is one of the dead. The sources did say that Syed Farook is known to be a U.S. citizen.
[Previous story 11:56 ET]
Two suspects died in a gun battle with police Wednesday hours after authorities say they burst into a holiday party at a center for people with developmental disabilities and killed 14 people.

But it was unclear whether the furious shootout with the male and female suspects was the end of a daylong manhunt after the mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.

An FBI raid was unfolding late Wednesday at an apartment in Redlands, where authorities were serving a search warrant connected to the shooting.

Mass shooting

The violence began around 11 a.m. at the convention building at the Inland Regional Center where employees with the county health department were attending a holiday event. Witnesses said at least two shooters opened fire, killing 14 people.

Another 17 people were hurt -- many wounded by bullets from automatic-style rifles, some injured in the panic to escape.

The shooters fled in a black SUV, prompting a huge police response in the area.

As the hours passed, the hunt for the suspects continued with a tip taking officers to a home about 10 miles away in Redlands.

When detectives followed up on it, a black SUV with Utah plates passed by slowly then sped up and raced off, a law enforcement official close to the investigation told CNN. A police car spotted it and took up pursuit.

There was a shootout, the official said. The male suspect shot out of the vehicle while the woman drove. The SUV stopped a quarter a mile later, as an officer returned fire.

A device that looked like a bomb also flew out of the vehicle, Meredith Davis with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives told CNN affiliate KCAL/KCBS. The SUV was racing back toward San Bernardino, she said.

Residents were stunned to hear the eruption of continuous gunfire. A barrage of bullets riddled the SUV's windshield.

A third person who was caught running near the scene was detained, but police aren't sure whether he was connected to either shooting.

Suspects dressed for assault

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan didn't say how old the suspects were or physically describe them in detail. He told reporters they were armed with assault-style rifles and handguns.

A law enforcement official told CNN the rifles were AR-15s or similar style weapons.

The man and the woman were dressed in what Burquan said was "assault-style clothing," describing it as "dark, kind of tactical gear."

He wouldn't say if he knew if they were related.

Witnessed text frightened messages

Hours after the shooting, the Inland Regional Center convention center was still an active scene. The bomb squad was working to determine whether they need to blow up two suspicious devices, one of which appeared to be a pipe bomb.

Survivors of the mass shooting told of hiding in offices, bathrooms and closets, texting their loved ones that they feared they were next to be shot.

In the moments after the initial bloodbath, SWAT teams had scoured the facility, unsure whether the shooters were still there and looking for people hiding from the horror.

Marcos Aguilera received a text from his wife who works at the Inland Regional Center.

"She heard the shots and crying," he said. The situation became confusing when the fire alarm went off.

"Everyone was confused," he said, relating his wife's account.

A SWAT team eventually rescued his wife and two other co-workers. "When she exited the building, she said there were multiple bodies on the floor," Aguilera told CNN.

The center's executive director, Lavinia Johnson, told CNN that she believed the county's Department of Public Health was having a holiday party.

Johnson said the fire alarm went off in her building, and people began to evacuate but then the order came to stay in place.

Later police came and took people out of their offices, marching them into the parking lot with their hands in the air.

San Bernardino is a city of just over 200,000 people 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

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14 killed in san bernardino shooting; suspect id'd - cnn

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Steve Almasy, Kyung Lah and Alberto Moya CNN

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14 killed in San Bernardino shooting; suspect ID'd - CNN

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The family has not been able to track down recently named suspect Syed Farook or his wife since Wednesday morning, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations). [Update 12:02 a.m ET Thursday] Farhan Khan, the brother-in-law of the suspect Syed Farook, told reporters: "I have no idea why he would he do something like this.

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Antonin Scalia, one of the U.S. Supreme Court justices, passed away unexpectedly at the age of 79. This creates a major problem in the branches of government because the Supreme Court, which is made of nine judges, now has 4 republican judges and 4 democratic judges The president, a democrat, chooses the next justice, but the Congress, mostly republican, has to confirm it. This creates a rift in the U.S. judicial system.

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His death set off an immediate debate about whether President Barack Obama should fill the seat in an election year. Obama said Saturday night that he plans to nominate a replacement, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the nomination should wait until the next president comes into office while top Democrat Harry Reid called for the seat to be filled "right away."

Scalia died in his sleep during a visit to Texas. A government official said Scalia went to bed Friday night and told friends he wasn't feeling well. He didn't get up for breakfast on Saturday morning, and the group he was with for a hunting trip left without him.

The U.S. Marshals Service is helping to arrange for his body to be returned to his home in McLean, Virginia, an official told CNN, not to investigate his death.

There will be no autopsy performed, a source familiar with the case confirmed to CNN. The decision for no autopsy was made both by the family and the Texas Justice of the Peace, the source said.

Marshals were not at the resort in Texas where he died, but were called there after the fact, a law enforcement source told CNN. Mashals help supplement security for traveling justices.

Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara pronounced Scalia dead over the phone Saturday afternoon, according to the Washington Post. Guevara told the Post she made the determination after being assured by law enforcement at the scene that "there were no signs of foul play."

Guvara also spoke with Scalia's private physician in Washington and learned the 79-year-old had several chronic conditions. "He was having health issues," she told the Post. Based on her conversations, Guevara determined Scalia's heart stopped beating. "It wasn't a heart attack," Guevara told the Post. "He died of natural causes."

In a statement, Chief Justice John Roberts said he and other justices were saddened to hear of Scalia's passing.

"He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues," Roberts said. "His passing is a great loss to the court and the country he so loyally served. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife Maureen and his family."

Obama called Scalia's son, Eugene, to offer his condolences to the entire Scalia family, Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said.

Political fight looming

Scalia's death in an election year sets up a titanic confirmation tussle over his successor on the bench. The already challenging task of getting a Democratic president's nominee through a Republican-controlled Senate will be made even more difficult as the fight over Scalia's replacement will likely emerge as a dominant theme of a wild presidential election.

Speaking while on a presidential trip to Rancho Mirage, California, Obama vowed to nominate a successor to Scalia, who he called "a towering legal figure."

"There will be plenty of time for me to do so and for the Senate to fulfill its responsibility to give that person a fair hearing and a timely vote," Obama said. "These are responsibilities that I take seriously, as should everyone. They're bigger than any one party. They are about our democracy. They're about the institution to which Justice Scalia dedicated his professional life."

Earlier Saturday, McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, called for the vacancy to be filled after Obama's presidency ends.

"The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president," McConnell said in a statement.

But Reid, who represents Nevada, called for the seat to be filled "right away."

"With so many important issues pending before the Supreme Court, the Senate has a responsibility to fill vacancies as soon as possible," Reid said in a statement. "It would be unprecedented in recent history for the Supreme Court to go a year with a vacant seat. Failing to fill this vacancy would be a shameful abdication of one of the Senate's most essential Constitutional responsibilities."

Major presence on high court

Appointed to the court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, Scalia was a conservative icon who transformed the court by instilling in it his belief that judges should follow the precise words of the Constitution and not apply a modern interpretation.

He was the first justice of Italian-American heritage and passed through confirmation with a unanimous vote.

Scalia changed oral arguments as he became an active participant with tough questions for advocates.

He will be best known, perhaps, for his landmark decision District of Columbia v. Heller, holding that the Second Amendment protects the right to posses a firearm at home. He was a critic of Roe v. Wade and dissented in last term's same-sex marriage cases.

He wrote a stinging dissent in the same-sex marriage case Obergefell v. Hodges, calling the decision a "threat to American democracy."

He believed that marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts.

He was also concerned that some members of the bench might determine that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

Scalia caused a stir as recently as December when he made controversial comments during a hearing about the future of a program at the University of Texas that takes race into consideration as one factor of admissions.

Scalia pushed a point that had been made in some friend of the court briefs filed in the case. It concerns a theory called "mismatch" popularized by authors Stuart Taylor Jr. and Richard Sander that suggests affirmative action programs don't always benefit minorities.

Although Roberts had mentioned the theory in a different case in 2013, Scalia's language was blunt.

"There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well," he said.

"One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas," he said.

This term was slated to be every bit as blockbuster as last term. The court is considering a major challenge to public sector unions, a race-conscious admissions plan at the University of Texas, a big abortion case, voting rights, the contraceptive mandate and a challenge to Obama's immigration actions.

Although in some of the cases Scalia probably indicated to his colleagues in conference which way he was going to vote, those preliminary votes aren't binding and are now void.

"The entire tenor of this term has now changed," said Stephen Vladeck, a CNN contributor and a law professor at American University Washington College Law. "The court can try to go ahead, but on cases where they are split 4-4, their only options are to leave the lower court decision intact or to hold the case over until Justice Scalia's replacement is confirmed."

If the Supreme Court is equally divided in a case, ruling 4-4, it means the lower court opinion stands and there is no precedent set by the high court.

Conservative in thought, not in personality

The jaunty jurist was able to light up, or ignite, a room with his often brash demeanor and wicked sense of humor, grounded always in a profound respect for American law and its constitutional traditions.

"What can I say," was a favorite phrase of the man colleagues knew as "Nino."

As it turned out, quite a lot.

"Justice Scalia had an irrepressibly pugnacious personality," said Edward Lazarus, a former Supreme Clerk law clerk who wrote about the experience in "Closed Chambers."

"And even in his early years of the Court, that came out at oral argument when he was the most aggressive questioner. And behind the scenes, where the memos he would write -- what were called 'Ninograms' -- inside the court had a real galvanizing effect on the debate among the justices."

A sharp mind combined with a sharp pen allowed Scalia to make his point, both to the pleasure and disappointment of his colleagues and the public.

"He could be belligerent, he was obviously very candid about he felt about things," said Joan Biskupic, a USA Today reporter who wrote a biography of Scalia. "He loved to call it as he saw it, completely not politically correct. In fact, he prided himself on not being PC on the bench in court."

His New York and Mediterranean roots -- "I'm an Italian from Queens," he was fond of saying -- helped fashion a love of words and debate, combining street smarts with a well-calculated conservative view of the law and its limits on society.

"He was very good with audiences that weren't predisposed to like him," said Paul Clement, a former Scalia law clerk. "He was incredibly disarming and charming in his own way."

Scalia, a Catholic, regularly attended Red Mass before each term. He and his wife had nine children and more than 30 grandchildren.

His best friend on the bench was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom he called his "best buddy" on the court. Last winter, they appeared together in a wide-ranging discussion on constitutional issues.

"Why don't you call us the odd couple?" Scalia said.

Political world reacts

Reaction and condolences quickly poured in from politicians and presidential hopefuls. President George H.W. Bush, who was vice president when Scalia was appointed to the court, called him one of Reagan's "many enduring legacies to the United States."

"Both his admirers and his detractors agreed that Justice Scalia was one of the sharpest constitutional intellects to ever serve on the bench," Bush said in a statement. "I considered him a personal hero, and Barbara and I were honored to call him a friend. Our heart breaks today for our country, but especially for his wife Maureen and his nine children and extended family. His death is a great loss for us all."

GOP 2016 front-runner Donald Trump issued his condolences to Scalia's family in a statement but tweeted that his death was a "massive setback" for conservatives.

"The totally unexpected loss of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a massive setback for the Conservative movement and our COUNTRY!" Trump tweeted.

Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders also tweeted his condolences to Scalia's family.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee, echoed McConnell's call for Obama to hold off on selecting a replacement.

"Justice Scalia was an American hero. We owe it to him, & the Nation, for the Senate to ensure that the next President names his replacement," Cruz tweeted.

Hillary Clinton said in a statement that she "did not hold Justice Scalia's views, but he was a dedicated public servant who brought energy and passion to the bench."

But, she added, "The Republicans in the Senate and on the campaign trail who are calling for Justice Scalia's seat to remain vacant dishonor our Constitution. The Senate has a constitutional responsibility here that it cannot abdicate for partisan political reasons."

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Jamie Gangel, Ariane de Vogue, Evan Perez and Kevin Bohn, CNN

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Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court justice, dies at 79 - CNNPolitics

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His death set off an immediate debate about whether President Barack Obama should fill the seat in an election year. Obama said Saturday night that he plans to nominate a replacement, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the nomination should wait until the next president comes into office while top Democrat Harry Reid called for the seat to be filled "right away."

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North Carolina recently passes a law that states that you have to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on your birth certificate, which cause a major problem for transgender people. North Carolina claims that it is not a discriminatory law, although any disagree, especially those of the LGBT+ community. The national government and North Carolina's state government are in a big dispute about it, and laws from the national government are soon to follow.

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In the week since it was signed, North Carolina's controversial new law restricting transgender rights has drawn fierce criticism from across the country. Elected officials from Seattle to San Francisco to New York have ordered their employees to steer clear of the state. Big businesses like American Airlines and Wells Fargo have said they are worried about the law. Small businesses have said they will skip conventions in North Carolina.

The NBA even hinted it might move its 2017 All-Star Game, scheduled to take place in Charlotte.

And then there's the federal lawsuit filed against North Carolina by two transgender individuals and an array of civil liberties groups.

But the issue only reached full fiasco level on Tuesday, when, in equally fiery statements, the state's Republican governor and its Democratic Attorney General lambasted one another.

"Not only is this new law a national embarrassment, it will set North Carolina's economy back," said Roy Cooper, the AG, who also refused to defend the state against the lawsuit.

"We're talking about discrimination here," he said.

[Transgender students' access to bathrooms is at front of LGBT rights battle]

Shortly after Cooper's dramatic press conference, Gov. Pat McCrory - who signed the law March 23 and has staunchly defended it - accused Cooper of breaking his oath of office.

"As the state's attorney, he can't select which laws he will defend and which laws are politically expedient to refuse to defend," McCrory said in a video statement. One GOP state senator called on Cooper to resign.

Underlying the spat is the fact that Cooper and McCrory will face off in the November election, considered one of the most competitive and crucial gubernatorial races in the country.

As criticism of the law intensifies inside and outside North Carolina, it increasingly appears as if the state will have to wait until Election Day to resolve its expanding rift over the issue.

The saga began last month when Charlotte, North Carolina's largest city, passed a sweeping civil rights ordinance.

The left-leaning city's ordinance expanded protections for individuals on the basis of marital status, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression. Among those protections: a guarantee that transgender people would be allowed to use their preferred restroom.

Even before Charlotte's city council had voted 7-4 to pass the ordinance, however, McCrory - a former mayor of Charlotte - was promising to override it.

"The only issue I think the state needs to be involved in is the issue regarding locker rooms and restrooms, that's the one that draws concern that has ramifications beyond city limits," McCrory said in an email to council members, according to ABC11.

He wasn't alone in his opposition.

At the time of the vote, more than 12,000 people had signed an online petition concerned the ordinance would encumber small business owners and put women and children at risk in Charlotte bathrooms.

But supporters called that argument absurd.

[As a transgender high school student, going to the bathroom is scary]

"It's very unfortunate because it's a myth," Devin Lentz, a Raleigh resident and transgender woman, told ABC11. "The idea that it's a danger or that it's something people need to worry about because it poses a threat is, it's just not true."

Lentz said that the bathroom issue was real, but that the danger was the other way around.

"If you take a transgender woman and force her to go into the men's room, which appears to be what the governor wants to do, what you're going to do is put her in danger, she's much more likely to be assaulted and harassed," she said. "Transgender people, especially transgender women are assaulted, harassed, raped, murdered at really heartbreaking levels."

McCrory's call for a state law overriding the Charlotte ordinance had the overwhelming support from his party.

The only problem: the legislature wasn't in session. Moreover, it wasn't scheduled to reconvene until after the Charlotte ordinance went into effect.

So, on March 21, leaders of the Republican-controlled legislature invoked a seldom-used constitutional provision to call themselves into session just two days later.

"We aim to repeal this ordinance before it goes into effect to provide for the privacy and protection of the women and children of our state," Lt. Gov. Dan Forest and House Speaker Tim Moore said in a joint statement announcing the special one-day session, which cost the state cost $42,000.

[Backlash builds against N.C. law on transgender bathroom use]

Comments on local news websites captured the deep divides in the state.

"We are lucky to have legislators willing to protect taxpayers who have to take a leak in Charlotte," wrote one man.

"But they aren't. Transgender people need protection, and they are about to take it away," responded another person.

"Transgender people don't need protection. They need help to stop pretending they are something they are not and can never ever be no matter what has been added or removed," chimed in a third.

"I hate to break this to you but you are probably already using public restrooms with transgendered people," replied a fourth person. "Are you really that concerned if someone squats when urinating?"

On March 23, a bizarre and frantic day at the Raleigh statehouse, the legislature passed the bill. Although a handful of Democratic representatives voted in favor, Democratic state senators walked out of the chamber in protest.

"We choose not to participate in this farce," Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue said, according to CBS.

That same night, McCrory signed the bill into law.

In doing so, McCrory set himself apart from a handful of Republican governors across the country who have recently vetoed or promised to veto similar measures.

On March 1, South Dakota's Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoed a bill that would have been the first in the nation to restrict transgender students' access to school restrooms and locker rooms.

Daugaard said the statewide mandate "does not address any pressing issue concerning the school districts of South Dakota."

"Instead of encouraging local solutions, this bill broadly regulates in a manner that invites conflict and litigation, diverting energy and resources from the education of the children of this state," he continued.

On Monday, Georgia's GOP governor came to a similar conclusion, promising to veto a similar bill.

"I have examined the protections that this bill proposes to provide to the faith based community and I can find no examples of any of those circumstances occurring in our state," announced Nathan Deal. "I do not think that we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in Georgia."

That leaves North Carolina as the first, and so far only, state to pass such a measure.

Local newspapers have rejected the title in disgust.

In an editorial ominously titled "McCrory joins a dark list of Southern governors," the Charlotte Observer shamed the governor.

['Wrong beyond repair.' 'The worst in us.' N.C. papers blast transgender bathroom law.]

"This week, as then, North Carolina needed a leader who understood the damage this law might do - most importantly to its vulnerable citizens, but also to the face we present to businesses and workers considering our state," the paper wrote. "Instead we got a late-night bill signing Wednesday and some campaign tweets. We got a state newly stained, and a governor joining a sorrowful list of those who decided not to lead us forward, but to bow to the worst in us."

The Daily Tar Heel went further.

"This bill is wrong beyond repair," wrote the University of North Carolina's student paper. "This law is a chapter in America's horror story."

Unsurprisingly, the Charlotte mayor who championed the anti-discrimination ordinance blasted the law.

The General Assembly is on the wrong side of progress," said Jennifer Roberts. "It is on the wrong side of history."

That argument was bolstered by a cascade of city and state officials from across the country, who said they were ordering their employees to avoid nonessential publicly funded travel to North Carolina.

"We are standing united as San Franciscans to condemn North Carolina's new discriminatory law that turns back the clock on protecting the rights of all Americans including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals," said San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee in a statement released last Friday. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo followed suit on Monday.

"In New York, we believe that all people - regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation - deserve the same rights and protections under the law," Cuomo said in a statement. "From Stonewall to marriage equality, our state has been a beacon of hope and equality for the LGBT community, and we will not stand idly by as misguided legislation replicates the discrimination of the past."

Even the White House weighed in, calling the N.C. law "mean-spirited."

That same day, The American Civil Liberties Union, along with LGBT advocacy groups Lambda Legal and Equality North Carolina, filed a federal lawsuit against North Carolina on behalf of two transgender people and a lesbian law school professor.

[Liberal groups sue North Carolina over transgender bathroom law]

"Lawmakers made no attempt to cloak their actions in a veneer of neutrality, instead openly and virulently attacking transgender people, who were falsely portrayed as predatory and dangerous to others," the lawsuit claims.

Cooper, who as AG is one of the defendants on the suit, announced on Tuesday that his office would not defend the state in the suit.

He said that he had defended laws that he didn't agree with in the past, but this time was different.

"This is a unique and different situation, and as attorney general there are often times situations where you have to make choices with different agencies that are conflicted," he said in his press conference. "Here, this is the right choice."

Cooper said that the law conflicted with his own office's non-discrimination policies, and that the bathroom restrictions were already hurting the state's economy.

"We know that businesses here and all over the country have taken a strong stance in opposition to this law," he said.

Republican State Sen. Phil Berger called on Cooper to quit.

"He is telling everybody that it's more important to him to apply for and work towards the job he wants than the job he has," Berger said, according to ABC11. "If he wants to run for governor, he's perfectly free to do that. But he can't do that and ignore the job he's being paid for now."

Gov. McCrory also accused Cooper of playing politics.

"Some have called our state an embarrassment. The real embarrassment is politicians not publicly respecting each other's positions on complex issues," he said.

"North Carolina has been the target of a vicious, nation-wide smear campaign," McCrory continued. "Disregarding the facts, other politicians, from the White House to mayors and city council members and yes our Attorney General, have initiated and promoted conflict to advance their political agenda. Even if it means defying the constitution and their oath of office."

Polls taken before the transgender law turmoil showed the gubernatorial race as neck-and-neck.

It's unclear how the dueling politicians' defiant positions have affected the outlook. Come Election Day, however, people across the nation will be following North Carolina's returns very closely.
Read more about the battle over bathroom rights: A transgender teen used the girls' locker room. Now her community is up in arms. Feds say Illinois school district broke law by banning transgender student from girls' locker room How North Carolina's controversial 'bathroom bill' could backfire on Republicans

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N.C. transgender bathroom ban is a 'national embarrassment,' state attorney general says

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In the week since it was signed, North Carolina's controversial new law restricting transgender rights has drawn fierce criticism from across the country. Elected officials from Seattle to San Francisco to New York have ordered their employees to steer clear of the state.

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The water crisis in Flint, Michigan is a major health issue that has been going on for 2 years. Massive amounts of lead have been found in Flint's water supply, which can create birth defects, mental disability, and lead poisoning. And now, 3 of Flint's government officials are being put on trial for ignoring the complaints of the people and allowing their water to be dirty. It is important for the government to make sure that the food and water that we ingest is safe , and any sort of negligence should be punished.

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Mike Glasgow, Stephen Busch and Mike Prysby could face years of prison time if they're convicted. They're the first government employees to face charges tied to the Flint water crisis.

But they shouldn't be the last, according to residents of the city who had water contaminated with lead pumped into their homes.

"I won't rest until the governor is charged," she told CNN.

The case is far from closed. Busch and Prysby have pleaded not guilty. Glasgow has yet to appear in court.

State Attorney General Bill Schuette told reporters that the charges "are only the beginning" of a lengthy and exhaustive probe.

"No one is above the law, not on my watch," he said.

Gov. Rick Snyder maintained that he'd done nothing wrong. "Due process," he said, will reveal whether anyone acted criminally.

"What I've said consistently from the beginning is this tragic situation was the result of bad decisions by bureaucrats. Again, I always described it as people lacking common sense. This puts it in the context of criminal behavior," Snyder said. "Was it actually criminal? Or was it poor decision-making? And again, I'm not looking for vindication. This is about getting to the truth, getting to accountability."

'This is exactly what we were afraid of'

Two years ago, in a move to save money, the state switched Flint's water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River, a tributary notorious for its filth. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality failed to treat the corrosive water, which ate into the city's iron and lead pipes, causing lead to leach into the drinking water.

It's a massive public health crisis that's drawn national attention, and there's plenty of blame to go around. Already one group of investigators has concluded that government at every single level failed Flint.

Even as state authorities trumpet their push for accountability, Laura MacIntyre says she's worried they're passing the buck.

MacIntyre, a Flint resident who said the water crisis makes her fear for the safety of her three children, said it would be a "miscarriage of justice" if Snyder isn't charged. She worries that the announcement of charges represented "just two to three people who will take the fall for actions that have included many, many more people. It definitely goes much higher."

She said: "This is exactly what we were afraid of. That it would fall down to a couple of individuals."

In addition to Snyder, MacIntyre would like to see the city's former emergency manager charged for the decisions he made -- or precautions he didn't take -- in switching the drinking source.

Resident Aaron Stinson says recent tests show he has lead levels almost double what is considered toxic. He suffers from various aches and pains and he flatly blames the drinking water and those who allowed that water to arrive in his tap.

"It's all good and well to get the folks in the middle," he said, "but we all know this started at the top, and those top officials should also be charged for their role."

The accused

Schuette didn't mince words when he announced the charges against the two state employees and one city employee Wednesday.

"They failed Michigan families. Indeed, they failed us all. I don't care where you live," Schuette said.

Busch, a district water supervisor for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and Prysby, a district water engineer, each face six charges.

Accusations include misleading federal regulatory officials, manipulating water sampling and tampering with reports.

Glasgow, a former laboratory and water quality supervisor who now serves as the city's utilities administrator, is accused of tampering with a lead report. He is charged with tampering with evidence, a felony, and willful neglect of duty, a misdemeanor.

He hasn't appeared in court yet to respond to the charges. But his attorney described him as "an honest, decent person who has faithfully worked for the city of Flint and its residents" for years.

His attorney, Robert Harrison, said he has not received a copy of the warrant and complaint filed against his client, and most of what he knows is what's been in the news.

"So, obviously, I cannot comment specifically about these charges," Harrison said.

In an interview with CNN last month, Glasgow alleged that Busch and Prysby told him to alter water quality reports and remove the highest lead levels.

Prysby and Busch could not be immediately reached to respond to the allegation.

An email sent April 17, 2014 -- eight days before Flint switched its water source -- seems to indicate that Glasgow had problems with the monitoring schedule and his staffing ahead of the switch.

"I do not anticipate giving the OK to begin sending water out anytime soon. If water is distributed from this plant in the next couple weeks, it will be against my direction," Glasgow wrote to state officials, including Busch and Prysby. "I need time to adequately train additional staff and to update our monitoring plans before I will feel we are ready. I will reiterate this to management above me, but they seem to have their own agenda."

Governor: Charges are 'deeply troubling'

The charges against the three men "are deeply troubling and extremely serious," Snyder told reporters.

Asked at the news conference whether he did anything criminal, Snyder replied, "I don't really want to get into that kind of speculation. I don't believe so."

In a statement released by his spokesman, Snyder said he has supported the probe and promised the state would pursue evidence of wrongdoing and hold those responsible accountable.

"The people of Flint and across Michigan are owed straight answers about how the Flint water crisis happened," the statement said.

Dozens of lawsuits filed

More than 50 lawsuits have been filed since January, though one federal class-action was dropped Tuesday over a jurisdictional issue.

The state made the decision to switch the water source, but some lawsuits accuse the city of being complicit by not doing enough during the 18 months that residents received their drinking water from the Flint River.

City employees were involved in treating water at the Flint Water Treatment Plant as well as in testing residents' water for the state.

One class-action lawsuit says residents have suffered skin lesions, hair loss, vision loss, memory loss, depression and anxiety. There are also concerns about miscarriages, imminent learning disabilities in children and Legionnaires' disease.

Though Flint's water supply is "definitely on its path to recovery," concerns about lead and other issues hinder the cleanup of the system's corroded pipes, according to the Virginia Tech researcher who exposed the water crisis in the city of 100,000.

Professor Marc Edwards said last week that lead contamination levels continue to surpass acceptable federal standards, and he urged residents to keep using bottled or filtered water for cooking or drinking.

"We're still drinking bottled water, using the filters to wash our hands, hoping that we're not being poisoned by the shower," MacIntyre said.

The Flint resident worries about her family, especially her three children, and she said she hasn't seen any large-scale changes in her hometown.

"It's just been so discouraging and disheartening," she said. "We're exhausted and really nothing has changed. None of our pipes have been changed. It's like they're waiting us out ... waiting for us to quit."
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misstated the number and nature of the charges against the three men.

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Eliott C. McLaughlin and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN

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Criminal charges against three men in Michigan on Wednesday marked a milestone in a crisis that's been years in the making, potentially harmed tens of thousands of people and cast a harsh spotlight on infrastructure issues across the country. .

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Harriet Tubman is to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. This is something that I fully support. Not only is Harriet Tubman going to be the first women on American currency, but she is a much better person than Andrew Jackson. Whereas Andrew Jackson committed mass genocide and created the Trail of Tears, Harriet Tubman created the Underground Railroad and helped free slaves.

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WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew on Wednesday announced the most sweeping and historically symbolic makeover of American currency in a century, proposing to replace the slaveholding Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman, the former slave and abolitionist, and to add women and civil rights leaders to the $5 and $10 notes.

Mr. Lew may have reneged on a commitment he made last year to make a woman the face of the $10 bill, opting instead to keep Alexander Hamilton, to the delight of a fan base swollen with enthusiasm over a Broadway rap musical based on the life of the first Treasury secretary.

But the broader remaking of the nation's paper currency, which President Obama welcomed on Wednesday, may well have captured a historical moment for a multicultural, multiethnic and multiracial nation moving contentiously through the early years of a new century.

Image

From left, Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul and Elizabeth Cady Stanton will be featured on the back of the new $10 bill. Credit From left: Hulton Archive, via Getty Images; via Library of Congress: via Library of Congress; Hulton Archive, via Getty Images; Associated Press

Tubman, an African-American and a Union spy during the Civil War, would bump Jackson - a white man known as much for his persecution of Native Americans as for his war heroics and advocacy for the common man - to the back of the $20, in some reduced image along with the White House. Tubman would be the first woman so honored on paper currency since Martha Washington's portrait briefly graced the $1 silver certificate in the late 19th century.

While Hamilton would remain on the $10, and Abraham Lincoln on the $5, images of women would be added to the back of both - in keeping with Mr. Lew's intent "to bring to life" the national monuments depicted there.

The picture of the Treasury building on the back of the $10 bill would be replaced with a depiction of a 1913 march in support of women's right to vote that ended at the building, along with portraits of five suffrage leaders: Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul and Susan B. Anthony, who in more recent years was on an unpopular $1 coin until minting ceased.

On the flip side of the $5 bill, the Lincoln Memorial would remain, but as the backdrop for the 1939 performance there of Marian Anderson, the African-American classical singer, after she was barred from singing at the segregated Constitution Hall nearby. Sharing space on the rear would be images of Eleanor Roosevelt, who arranged Anderson's Lincoln Memorial performance, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who in 1963 delivered his "I have a dream" speech from its steps.

The final redesigns will be unveiled in 2020, the centennial of the 19th Amendment establishing women's suffrage, and will not go into wide circulation until later in the decade, starting with the new $10 note. The unexpectedly ambitious proposals reflect Mr. Lew's tortuous attempt to expedite the process and win over critics who have lodged conflicting demands, pitting mainly women's advocates against Hamiltonians newly empowered by the unlikely success of their hero's story on Broadway.

Mr. Lew's design proposals are the culmination of 10 months of often-heated public commentary that began almost immediately after he invited Americans last June to help him decide which woman from history to honor on the $10 bill. That feel-good initiative proved to be hardly as simple as he first imagined.

Eleanor Roosevelt, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Marian Anderson will be depicted on the back of the new $5 bill. Credit From left: Keystone, via Getty Images; Allyn Baum/The New York Times; London Express, via Getty Images

Immediately an online group called Women on 20s insisted that the woman to be honored - Tubman was its choice - had to go on the more common $20 note, displacing not the popular Hamilton but Jackson, whose place in history has suffered lately with attention to his record of forcibly relocating Native Americans, supporting slavery and - despite his prominence on currency - opposing a national banking system and paper money. But the $10 was next in line for redesign, based on federal officials' assessment of counterfeiting threats.

Yet other women mobilized by the Girls' Lounge, a networking organization for female corporate leaders, demanded that a woman go on the $10 note, as Mr. Lew first proposed, because they did not want to wait years for a new $20 bill. Within the administration, Rosie Rios, who as treasurer of the United States oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, was also pushing for a woman on the $10 bill.

But nothing so roiled the debate as the phenomenon of the musical "Hamilton."

Weighing in for his place on the $10 bill were well-to-do theater patrons and teenagers rapping to the soundtrack, as well as the show's creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda. When Mr. Lew and his wife caught a performance last August, the Treasury secretary hinted to Mr. Miranda that Hamilton would stay. Just this week, the show won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

By July, in fact, Mr. Lew already had decided to keep his long-ago predecessor on the $10 note, and put a vignette of suffragists on the back, with Tubman scheduled for the $20 bill and changes to the $5 note as well.

"I had a kind of 'aha' moment where I said we're thinking too small," Mr. Lew said on Wednesday.

He decided to redesign all three notes to accommodate the various views, and sooner. As for the choice of Tubman, he said that in the public comments he reviewed each night, "the pattern became clear that Harriet Tubman struck a chord with people in all parts of the country, of all ages."

"This is a good solution," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who wrote to the secretary "strongly suggesting he not remove Hamilton" from the bill.

Harriet Tubman's death announcement in the The New York Times in 1913.

Mr. Lew directed the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to hasten the redesign of the $20 and $5 notes at the same time. Subsequent production of the $10 bill would take precedence, though Mr. Lew said all three notes could be in wallets before 2030. The final decision on release is up to the Fed.

One wild card is that Mr. Lew and President Obama have just months left in office. But Mr. Lew expressed confidence that his successors would not veto the currency makeovers.

"I don't think somebody's going to probably want to do that - to take the image of Harriet Tubman off of our money? To take the image of the suffragists off?" he said.

Not since 1929 has American currency undergone such a far-reaching change. That year all paper money changed, with more standard designs and smaller size to save costs.

In advance of Mr. Lew's decision, the emotion that the Treasury initiative had prompted was reflected in a letter to the Treasury secretary on Tuesday evening. More than three dozen women including actors, feminists, corporate executives and journalists objected to preliminary news reports that he was planning to renege on putting a woman on the $10 face, calling it, if true, "a major blow to the advancement of women."

They admonished the Treasury secretary, saying: " Could there be a better metaphor for second-class status that continues to limit our girls?"

The signers included the actresses Ellen DeGeneres, Geena Davis and Jane Lynch; the former soccer star Abby Wambach; former Representative Gabrielle Giffords; the news media figures Katie Couric and Arianna Huffington; the feminist leader Gloria Steinem; and the photographer Annie Leibovitz.

Mr. Lew's compromise did not satisfy the letter writers since the new note, the $10 bill, will picture women on the back. But Women on 20s released a statement "celebrating" the decision, despite Mr. Lew's inability to say how quickly the government can accelerate a new $20 note given technological and production complexities.

Yet, as Mr. Lew said Wednesday: "I said we were going to listen. We really did listen."

Correction:

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the number of slaves escorted to freedom by Harriet Tubman. It was hundreds, not thousands. The error was repeated in a capsule summary.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: $20 Billing: Tubman Is In, Jackson Is Out. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Harriet Tubman Ousts Andrew Jackson in Change for a $20

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WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew on Wednesday announced the most sweeping and historically symbolic makeover of American currency in a century, proposing to replace the slaveholding Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman, the former slave and abolitionist, and to add women and civil rights leaders to the $5 and $10 notes.

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Recently, there has been a new disease outbreak. The disease is called Zika, and is carried by mosquitos. Although it does not harm a grown human being, the only symptoms are that of a common cold, it hurts fetuses. They are born with a head that is too small, which can cause mental disabilities. Zika is very is mostly an issue in South America, including Brazil, which is where the Summer Olympics are being held this year. Athletes are considering whether it is worth risking their health to go, and tickets are not sold out.

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The authors also noted that despite increased efforts to wipe out the mosquitoes that spread Zika, the number of infections in Rio de Janeiro have gone up rather than down.

The experts came from more than two dozen countries in fields including public health, bioethics and pediatrics, and included former White House science adviser Dr. Philip Rubin.
Related: Nearly 150 Health Experts Ask WHO to Move, Delay Olympics
WHO, however, said "based on current assessment, cancelling or changing the location of the 2016 Olympics will not significantly alter the international spread of Zika virus."

Several public health academics have previously warned that having hundreds of thousands of people travel to the Aug. 5-21 games in Brazil will inevitably lead to the births of more brain-damaged babies and speed up the virus' global spread.

But the Geneva-based U.N. health agency argued that Brazil is just one of dozens of countries reporting the transmission of the Zika virus by mosquitoes and says "people continue to travel between these countries and territories for a variety of reasons."

"Based on the current assessment of the Zika virus circulating in almost 60 countries globally and 39 in the Americas, there is no public health justification for postponing or cancelling the games," it said. "WHO will continue to monitor the situation and update our advice as necessary."

It pointed to its existing advice urging pregnant women not to travel to areas with Zika virus transmission, among other recommendations.

WHO declared the spread of Zika in the Americas to be a global emergency in February.
Related: Zika Virus Mutation May Explain Spread: Study
The agency's statement Saturday made no direct reference to the health experts' letter, which also highlighted the decades-long collaboration between WHO and the International Olympic Committee. The experts called it an "overly close" relationship that left the U.N. health agency unable to be impartial in Olympic matters.

The IOC rejected the idea that the two organizations were too close, saying it "does not currently have an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with the World Health Organization." The last one, it added, "outlined cooperation between the two organizations to promote physical activity to fight strokes, heart attacks, diabetes and obesity."

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WHO Rejects Call to Cancel Rio Olympics Over Zika Scare

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The authors also noted that despite increased efforts to wipe out the mosquitoes that spread Zika, the number of infections in Rio de Janeiro have gone up rather than down. The experts came from more than two dozen countries in fields including public health, bioethics and pediatrics, and included former White House science adviser Dr. Philip Rubin.

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Bill Cosby is being put on trial for allegedly raping over 50 women. He had spiked their drinks with a date rape drugs. He has yet to be charged or acquitted by a jury.

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At a hearing on Tuesday, comedian and alleged serial rapist Bill Cosby was ordered to stand trial on sexual assault charges. District Judge Elizabeth McHugh determined the prosecutors had enough evidence to bring Cosby to trial. If convicted, Cosby could be sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The accuser in this case is former Temple University employee Andrea Constand, who alleges Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her at his mansion in Cheltenham, a suburb of Philadelphia, in 2004. Though some had expected Constand would come face-to-face with Cosby on Tuesday, she was not in court. Judge McHugh ruled that Constand did not have to testify. Instead, segments of the statement she gave to the police in 2005 were read and entered into the record.

As the Associated Press reported, Constand "told police in 2005 that the comedian penetrated her with his fingers after giving her pills that made her dizzy, blurry-eyed and sick to her stomach, her legs 'like jelly.'"

Constand said Cosby gave her pills that he claimed were "herbal medication" and that he pressured her to drink wine, even though she told him she didn't want to drink and hadn't eaten anything. "Everything was blurry and dizzy. I felt nauseous," she told police.

Constand told police that she said, "'I can't even talk, Mr. Cosby.' I started to panic," and Cosby told her to lie down on the couch as he got behind her. She woke up with her bra out of place, she said, and has no memory of undoing it.

Cosby told the police that the encounter was consensual and that the pills he gave Constand were Benadryl.

Nearly 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct. Many have filed civil cases against him; most of those cases, due to expired statutes of limitation, concern defamation. (Chloe Goins, a notable exception, is suing Cosby in civil court for sexual assault; she recently added Playboy founder and aging mascot Hugh Hefner to her lawsuit on the grounds that he was a "conspirator" in her assault, which she says took place at the Playboy Mansion in 2008.)

But the statute for aggravated indecent assault in Pennsylvania is 12 years. Cosby was criminally charged days before the statute was due to run out, on December 30, 2015.

Cosby has been trying to get this case thrown out for months. Earlier this year, he claimed that former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, who did not bring charges against Cosby, promised Cosby he would not be prosecuted in the Constand case. (Constand and Cosby settled in civil court in 2006.) Cosby's lawyers insisted that this promise should extend to all future holders of the district attorney's office, and that Cosby had testified "freely" in Constand's civil suit because he believed he was immune from further criminal prosecution.

That deposition made headlines when portions of it were published last July; in it, Cosby admits to getting Quaaludes to use on "young women that [he] wanted to have sex with." It is, to date, arguably the most damning evidence against Cosby that has been made available to the public.

Update:

The judge set Cosby's arraignment for July 20, but after the hearing, Cosby waived his right to a formal arraignment. This means Cosby, who has denied all the allegations against him, automatically enters a plea of not guilty. Another judge will be assigned to the case and set a trial date.

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Bill Cosby Ordered To Stand Trial In Criminal Case

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At a hearing on Tuesday, comedian and alleged serial rapist Bill Cosby was ordered to stand trial on sexual assault charges. District Judge Elizabeth McHugh determined the prosecutors had enough evidence to bring Cosby to trial. If convicted, Cosby could be sentenced to 10 years in prison.

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Donald Trump is now the only Republican campaigning to be president. Ted Cruz , follow by John Kasich, dropped out after a particularly hard loss in Indiana. Recently, Donald Trump has clinched the presidential nomination for the republican party. He now has an even greater chance to become president.

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Donald Trump has gone from long-shot contender to the Republican party's presumptive nominee for president with a crushing win in Indiana that forced his main rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich out of the race.

Addressing jubilant supporters at Trump Tower in New York after romping to his seventh straight state-wide victory, the real estate mogul promised them: "We're going to win in November, and we're going to win big, and it's going to be America first."

Kasich announced he dropped out of the Republican presidential race on Wednesday evening.

Trump won at least 51 of 57 possible delegates awarded in Indiana, according to the Associated Press news agency delegate tracker. His victory in the state pushed him to 1,047 delegates of the 1,237 needed to clinch the nomination, compared with 153 for Kasich.

Cruz had 565 delegates before suspending his campaign.

"This phenomenon is just amazing," Peter Mathews, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera. "Trump seems to have got free television time. He got an estimated $1bn of free time during the election."
READ MORE: Passionate and odd - the end of Ted Cruz
Trump's immediate challenge is to unite deep fissures within the Republican Party as many party loyalists are appalled at his bullying style, his treatment of women and his signature proposals to build a wall on the border with Mexico and deport 11 million illegal immigrants.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called Trump the party's presumptive nominee in a tweet and said, "We all need to unite and focus" on defeating Clinton.

The former reality TV star himself called for unity in a speech at a victory rally that was free of his usual bombast and flamboyance.

Calling Indiana a "tremendous victory", he immediately directed fire at Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

"We're going after Hillary Clinton," he said. "She will not be a great president, she will not be a good president, she will be a poor president. She doesn't understand trade."

Clinton upset

Clinton on Tuesday suffered an upset in Indiana as her rival Bernie Sanders mounted a come-from-behind victory, denying the former secretary of state a feather in her cap as she seeks their party's presidential nomination.

Sanders, a self-declared socialist, beat Clinton by 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent with about three quarters of precincts reporting - although Clinton remained well ahead in the overall delegate battle for the nomination.

"Bernie Sanders was behind several points just a few weeks ago. Thousands were turning up to his rallies even in thunderstorms to hear what he had to say," Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from Indianapolis, said.

"A narrow victory in Indiana is enough to re-inject his campaign with momentum and for him to say that he is going to take it all the way to Democratic convention in Philadelphia in the summer."

As the race was called overwhelmingly in Trump's favour, Cruz conceded to supporters in Indianapolis that he no longer had a viable path forwards.

"We left it all on the field in Indiana," Cruz said. "We gave it everything we've got, but the voters chose another path.

"And so with a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign."

Al Jazeera's Fisher said that Indiana had become a pivotal point in the race.

"On the Republican side, Cruz lost the primary by a significant margin. His appeal to voters simply did not work," he said.

Trump, who has never held public office, is likely to formally wrap up the nomination on June 7 when California votes, although Ohio Governor John Kasich had vowed to stay in the race as his last challenger.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and agencies

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Donald Trump becomes presumptive Republican nominee

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Donald Trump has gone from long-shot contender to the Republican party's presumptive nominee for president with a crushing win in Indiana that forced his main rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich out of the race.