Briefs

‘Jane Roe’ dies

Norma Mccorvey, the anonymous plaintiff known as ‘‘Jane Roe’’ in the US Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v Wade ruling legalising abortion, died on Saturday at the age of 69, a journalist close to Mccorvey said. Mccorvey died of heart failure at an assisted living home in Katy, Texas, Joshua Prager, a journalist who is writing a book about the ruling, said. Her lawsuit, filed under the pseudonym, resulted in the court’s 1973 decision that established a woman’s right to an abortion. Mccorvey lent her real name to supporters of the abortion-rights movement in the 1980s. She did an about-face and later spoke out on behalf of anti-abortion campaigners, however. In an article in Vanity Fair magazine in February 2013, Prager wrote that Mccorvey had never set out to further a cause when the Roe v Wade lawsuit was filed in Dallas, Texas, in 1970. Unwed and poor, she simply wanted an abortion after becoming pregnant for the third time and could not get one in the state.

US patrols in South China Sea

A United States aircraft carrier strike group has begun patrols in the South China Sea amid growing tension with China over control of the disputed waterway and concerns it could become a flashpoint under the new US administration. China’s Foreign Ministry last week warned Washington against challenging its sovereignty in the South China Sea. The US navy said the force, including Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, began routine operations in the South China Sea yesterday.

Netanyahu visit opposed

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be greeted with protests during his historic visit to Australia this week. It’s the first visit down under by a serving Israeli prime minister and comes on the heels of Netanyahu meeting US president Donald Trump. More than 60 prominent Australians, including former Labor politicians, senior legal professionals and clergy, have signed a statement opposing Netanyahu’s visit because of his government’s policies towards Palestinians. Protests are planned throughout the week in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney.

Father, son crash

Authorities say a father and son have been killed in a head-on collision with each other in Fayette County, Alabama. Alabama state troopers say alcohol was a factor in the crash that killed 50-year-old Jeffrey Morris Brasher and 22-year-old Austin Blaine Brasher. They both lived in Bankston, 90km west of Birmingham. Troopers say the 2006 Ford pickup the elder Brasher was driving collided with his son’s 2004 Chevrolet pickup. Neither man was wearing a seatbelt.

Abdel Rahman dies

Omar Abdel Rahman, the Egyptianborn ‘‘blind sheikh’’ and spiritual leader who was convicted in 1995 of being a mastermind of terrorist plots against the United States, and who was called the ‘‘godfather’’ of radical Islamist movements, died yesterday at a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, where he was serving a life sentence. He was 78. Kenneth Mckoy, a Bureau of Prisons official, confirmed the death. The cause was diabetes and heart disease. He was twice acquitted of helping plot the 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat.