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Most people remember Sinéad O'Connor one of two ways: as that angelic, lovelorn figure in the video of her smash "Nothing Compares 2 U," or for tearing up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live. Her 20-year career has been marked with pop stardom and accolades, but also with controversy and misunderstanding. Even as she takes the stage at Joe's Pub in New York, one can sense the polarity. The venue only seats 150, enough to house a handful of fans and some of the biggest papers in town. But O'Connor, 40, isn't there to impress anyone. Her...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Sandra Day O'Connor is no longer on the Supreme Court but that doesn't mean the pro-abortion judge can't use her influence to try to shape its decisions. In an interview with Fox News, the ex-justice offered a hidden rebuke to the Supreme Court members for their recent decision upholding the federal partial-birth abortion ban. The high court's decision overturned her opinion in a similar 2000 case regarding a Nebraska partial-birth abortion ban. In the 2000 case, O'Connor wrote for the 5-4 majority saying the state's ban on the three-day-long abortion procedure was unconstitutional because it lacked...

A civil servant who leaked a secret memo about George W. Bush wanted it to be seen by US presidential candidate John Kerry, the Old Bailey heard. David Keogh, 50, from Northampton, is said to have passed a highly sensitive document detailing talks between Mr. Bush and Tony Blair to Leo O'Connor. Mr. Keogh told jurors the contents of the memo had preyed on his mind. Mr. Keogh and Mr. O'Connor, 44, also of Northampton, deny three charges under the Official Secrets Act. Mr. Keogh had been asked to copy out the memo for distribution to high-ranking UK officials. The...

A civil servant and an MP's researcher have been found guilty of leaking a secret memo about talks between George Bush and Tony Blair. David Keogh, 50, from Northampton, has been found guilty of two offences under the Official Secrets Act. MP's researcher Leo O'Connor was found guilty of one Official Secrets offence. It recorded Oval Office talks between Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair about Iraq in 2004, the Old Bailey was told. Sentencing was adjourned for reports........

Just seven years ago, Justice O’Connor voted with the court’s liberals to strike down a similar Nebraska law banning the procedure, known medically as intact dilation and extraction. It involves removing an intact fetus rather than dismembering the fetus in the uterus. The decision recast the court’s approach to abortion, shifting its emphasis toward fetal life and away from deference to medical judgments about women’s health. The decision last week brought into focus the greatest hopes of conservatives and the worst fears of liberals. Is the court about to make sweeping changes in important areas of constitutional law, including in...

Justice O'Connor continued to defend her original position. She lamented statistics that showed that as a result of California's Proposition 209 (passed in 1996) only 2.2% of UCLA freshmen were black, and a fifth of those were on athletic scholarships. (California's overall population is 6.1% black.) She seemed strangely unaware, however, of the growing evidence that racial preferences might have actually decreased the likelihood that blacks and Hispanics will graduate from college. Put differently, if the body of evidence is correct, the whole affirmative action enterprise has been deeply and tragically flawed from the beginning, failing to achieve its most...

WASHINGTON - Three of the five Supreme Court justices who handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 say they had no choice but to intervene in the Florida recount. Comments from Justice Anthony Kennedy and retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor are in a new book that was published this week. Justice Antonin Scalia made his remarks Tuesday at Iona College in New York. Scalia, answering questions after a speech, also said that critics of the 5-4 ruling in Bush v. Gore need to move on six years after the electoral drama of December 2000, when it seemed the...

The latest critic of a Supreme Court ruling turns out to be the justice who supplied the key vote in its favor: Sandra Day O'Connor. Addressing a legal conference in Texas, the former associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court had some second thoughts about her opinion in Minnesota v. White back in 2002, which struck down that state's restrictions on judges' expressing their political views in campaigns for the bench. The case was decided 5 to 4, and Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion made all the difference. Renowned in her time on the court as its swing vote, she's now...

The latest critic of a Supreme Court ruling turns out to be the justice who supplied the key vote in its favor: Sandra Day O'Connor. Addressing a legal conference in Texas, the former associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court had some second thoughts about her opinion in Minnesota v. White back in 2002, which struck down that state's restrictions on judges' expressing their political views in campaigns for the bench. The case was decided 5 to 4, and Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion made all the difference. Renowned in her time on the court as its swing vote, she's now...

As a Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O'Connor exasperated critics by balancing on a reed-thin beam without planting her feet firmly on either side. But in retirement, she doesn't equivocate in defense of judicial independence. She has crossed the country warning that "spurious" attacks on the judiciary -- by politicians and other talking heads -- threaten judges' doing their jobs without fear or favor. When federal appellate Judge Danny Boggs said at a Friday legal conference at Las Colinas that physical assaults aimed at judges have come mainly from "the deranged," O'Connor underscored the safety concerns. "Every member of the...

Latest deaths illustrates 'the evil' Canadians are fighting in Afghanistan, PM says Mike Blanchfield CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen Tuesday, September 19, 2006 OTTAWA - The suicide bombing deaths of four Canadian soldiers Monday while trying to give candy to Afghan children illustrates the "evil" they are fighting and the nobility of their cause, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said. "Nothing more than this incident illustrates the evil that they are fighting and the goodwill and the nobleness of the cause that they are taking to the Afghan people," Harper told the Commons as his government confronted its toughest political...

PITTSBURGH -- On a day when this city experienced the confluence of grieving and glory, burying a popular mayor in the morning and then having to turn out to support its beloved Super Bowl champions just a few hours later, it was left to a Pittsburgh Guy to turn tears into cheers. OK, so Steelers backup Charlie Batch isn't really from Pittsburgh. But Homestead, Pa., just a short drive across his city's locally well-known High Level Bridge, a span that once carried thousands of steel workers to their sooty jobs in the blast furnaces and to a livelihood in a...

Mayor Robert E. O'Connor Jr. was his formal title and name, but even in untimely death it seems too pretentious. The people knew him as Bob, a Pittsburgh original, as friendly and straightforward as the city where he lived and died ... the city of Pittsburgh that now comes together to mourn him. The passing of Bob O'Connor is so freighted with irony and disappointment that calling it tragic doesn't convey the full measure of sadness. If Mr. O'Connor were a literary scholar instead of a man of the people, you might more easily call it Shakespearean in its abundant...

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- Canadian soldiers should join local forces fighting Taliban insurgents inside Pakistan, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says, making a tentative first attempt at raising the explosive issue of foreign troops trespassing on Pakistani territory. Mr. O'Connor held meetings with several military and intelligence officials in Islamabad yesterday in which he urged his counterparts to step up their actions against the insurgents who emerge from hideouts in Pakistan to attack Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan. "Among other things, I suggested that some Pakistan officers be stationed with our troops in Kandahar and Canadian troops be stationed on the Pakistan...

(KDKA) PITTSBURGH The man next in line to replace Mayor Bob O’Connor will be sworn in tonight. At 10:30pm, City Council President Luke Ravenstahl will officially become the next mayor of Pittsburgh. At 26 years old, Ravenstahl will be the youngest mayor in the city’s history. Earlier today, he told reporters he was ready. “My experience and my actions on council here over the last two-and-a-half years,” Ravenstahl cited. “I’ll let the people decide that. That is an issue that many will raise. “I’m here. I’ve been the president, I have been elected by my district, I have been elected...

(KDKA) PITTSBURGH It's the news people in Pittsburgh and beyond have been dreading; this afternoon, Dick Skrinjar announced that Mayor Bob O'Connor has passed away. O'Connor had been hospitalized since July 10th after learning that he suffered from a rare form of cancer called primary central nervous system lymphoma. On Monday, doctors downgraded the mayor's condition after revealing that brain scans showed "seizure activity" and tests indicated an infection in his spinal fluid. The hospital stopped issuing updates on Mayor O'Connor's condition on Tuesday, which fueled rumors and speculation about his deteriorating condition. Sources told KDKA late Wednesday night that...

Mayor O'Connor Near Death POSTED: 11:06 am EDT August 31, 2006 UPDATED: 11:23 pm EDT August 31, 2006 PITTSBURGH -- A representative has confirmed the suspected gravity of Mayor Bob O'Connor's medical situation late Thursday night.After a nearly two-month battle with a rare form of brain cancer, O'Connor was taken off life support and is living "hour to hour," mayoral spokesman Dick Skrinjar said.The mayor was resting comfortably with family and close friends by his side at UPMC Shadyside, according to Skrinjar.As long as he is alive, O'Connor will remain the city's mayor -- a job he has held for...

O'Connor Still In Intensive Care POSTED: 4:11 pm EDT August 28, 2006UPDATED: 6:37 pm EDT August 29, 2006PITTSBURGH -- Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O'Connor remains in intensive care at UPMC Shadyside Hospital after doctors spent Tuesday putting him through neurological tests to find out the exact cause of his seizures and his downward turn.After undergoing surgery on Monday, the hospital's latest statement on O'Connor was that he was in serious condition."I was with my classmate, Father Terry, and Judy O'Connor was there, and some other family and friends," said Father Thomas Burke, a family friend of the O'Connors. "We had some...

Mayor Bob O'Connor was admitted to UPMC Shadyside today to begin treatment for primary central nervous system lymphoma.

Aaron Harber of the Aaron Harber show (harbertv.com) has an interview with Justices Breyer and O’Connor tomorrow afternoon, and he has solicited SCOTUSblog readers to help him formulate some questions for the two Honorable interviewees. So, if you have a query or two about the law or the Court that you think would be appropriate for either of the two Justices, post it as a comment on this post or e-mail jharrow [at] akingump.com by 1:00 PM Eastern Time tomorrow, Thursday, July 6. Hopefully, we can send Aaron a few good questions and he will report back to us with...