Friday, December 1, 2000

• U.S. Supreme Court Will Hear Bush’s Challenge to Recounts

  
  

  Today, the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing for a historic showdown between two men who want to be president, in a hearing that could decide the next leader of the world’s most powerful nation.

• Supreme Court to Decide Redistricting and Race in North Carolina

  
  

  The Supreme Court heard arguments earlier this week on another voting case, this time in North Carolina. It centers on a long, skinny congressional district in the North Carolina Piedmont whose very existence has been challenged before the nation’s high court for the fourth time, in a continuing battle over whether it was created unconstitutionally using race as a basis. The Supreme Court’s decision this time could determine the role that race can play in the round of redistricting that will result from the year 2000 census.

• Aristide Declared Winner in Haiti Elections

  
  

  Now we go from elections in the U.S. to elections in Haiti. Former president Jean Bertrand Aristide won an overwhelming mandate to return to lead Haiti in a virtually uncontested presidential election, according to official results issued on Wednesday.

• World AIDS Day: Death Toll Mounting, As Vatican Reaffirms Opposition to Condom Use

  
  

  Today is Worlds AIDS day and twenty years into the global epidemic, the toll of death and dying is numbing. In 20 years, more than 21 million people have died. This year alone, 3 million have already died.

• Half Million Signatures Requesting Executive Clemency for Leonard Peltier Are Handed Over to the White House

  
  

  This week, the White House legal counsel’s office was presented with a half a million signatures requesting that President Clinton grant executive clemency to Native American activist Leonard Peltier. The signatures had been compiled over the years, and urge the president to free Peltier, who has served almost 24 years in prison for the 1972 killing of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation, a crime he says he did not commit.

• Seattle Police Arrest Around 100 Demonstrators On the Anniversary of the WTO Protests

  
  

  Seattle police arrested around 100 people last night, on the one-year anniversary of WTO protests that became known as the Battle in Seattle. Police in riot gear moved in on a crowd that had been demonstrating and pepper sprayed it before making the arrests. We end this program bringing you once again the sounds of the streets.