Zimbabwe announces poll run-off

By Nelson Banya

HARARE - Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat President Robert Mugabe in the presidential election but faces a run-off vote after failing to win an outright majority, the electoral body said on Friday.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change called the announcement of the long-delayed result "scandalous daylight robbery". It says Tsvangirai won more than 50 percent at the March 29 election and Mugabe's 28-year rule is over.

But the MDC has few options. If Tsvangirai refuses to take part in a second round of votes, then Mugabe would automatically keep his hold on power according to electoral law.

An aide to Mugabe said the president accepted the result of the first round and would contest the run-off.

MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti told a news conference in neighbouring South Africa that the results clearly showed that Tsvangirai should be declared president. He said the party would decide at the weekend whether to contest a run-off.

"According to the law, the person receiving the highest number of votes is the president of the republic of Zimbabwe with effect from the day of such declaration," he said.

"Even on their own announcement, we have won this election and therefore Morgan Tsvangirai is to be declared the president of the republic of Zimbabwe."

Chief Elections Officer Lovemore Sekeramayi said Tsvangirai won 47.9 percent with Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from Britain, on 43.2 percent. Independent Simba Makoni, a ruling party defector, took 8.3 percent.

"Since no candidate has received the majority of the total votes cast ... a second election shall be held on a date to be announced by the commission," Sekeramayi said.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) will set the date of the runoff. By law, a second round should be held within 21 days of the result, but the ZEC has the power to extend it. Political observers say it is likely to extend the period to within about 40 days.

The United States and former colonial power Britain questioned the credibility of the official results more than one month after the election and voiced concern over how fair a run-off could be.

The European Commission also called on Friday for Zimbabwe to allow international monitors to ensure a free and fair presidential run-off after the electoral body there said no clear winner emerged from the first round.

Opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the verification of the votes had not been done properly.

"This whole thing is a scandal, scandalous daylight robbery and everyone knows that," he told Reuters. "We won this election outright, and yet what we are being given here as the outcome are some fudged figures meant to save Mugabe and ZANU-PF."

He said the party executive would decide the next move. Initial MDC estimates had given Tsvangirai 50.3 percent of the vote although independent and ruling ZANU-PF party projections had suggested he was unlikely to win an outright majority.

NYPD acquittals in groom shooting spark anger, outrage

By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer

Three detectives were acquitted Friday in the 50-shot killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day, a case that put the NYPD at the center of another dispute involving allegations of excessive firepower.

Scores of police officers surrounded the courthouse to guard against potential chaos, and as news of the verdict spread, many in the crowd began weeping. Others were enraged, swearing and screaming "Murderers! Murderers!" or "KKK!"

Inside the courtroom, spectators gasped. Sean Bell's fiancee immediately walked out of the room; his mother cried.

Bell, a 23-year-old black man, was killed in a hail of gunfire outside a seedy strip club in Queens on Nov. 25, 2006 as he was leaving his bachelor party with two friends. The case ignited the emotions of people across the city and led to widespread protests among those who felt the officers used unnecessary force.

Officers Michael Oliver, 36, and Gescard Isnora, 29, stood trial for manslaughter while Officer Marc Cooper, 40, was charged with reckless endangerment. Two other shooters weren't charged. Oliver squeezed off 31 shots; Isnora fired 11 rounds; and Cooper shot four times.

The case brought back painful memories of other NYPD shootings, such as the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo — an African immigrant who was gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets by police officers who mistook his wallet for a gun. The acquittal of the officers in that case created a storm of protest, with hundreds arrested after taking to the streets in demonstration.

Though emotions ran high, there were no immediate problems outside the courthouse Friday, where many wore buttons with Bell's picture or held signs saying "Justice for Sean Bell." Some people approached police after the verdict was read, but they were held back and the jostling died down quickly.

William Hardgraves, 48, an electrician from Harlem, brought his 12-year-old son and 23-year-old daughter to hear the verdict. "I hoped it would be different this time. They shot him 50 times," Hardgraves said. "But of course, it wasn't."

The officers, complaining that pretrial publicity had unfairly painted them as cold-blooded killers, opted to have the judge decide the case rather than a jury.

The judge, Justice Arthur Cooperman, indicated when he delivered the verdict that the officers' version of events was more credible than the victims' version. "The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified" in firing, he said.

Hours later, the officers appeared at a news conference.

"I'd like to say sorry to the Bell family for the tragedy," Cooper said, thanking God, his lawyers and the police officers who supported him.

The U.S. attorney's office said after the verdict that it had been monitoring the state's prosecution and would conduct an independent review of the case. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who represents Bell's family, called for a federal investigation.

"This verdict is one round down, but the fight is far from over," Sharpton said on his radio show. "What we saw in court today was not a miscarriage of justice. Justice didn't miscarry. This was an abortion of justice."

Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association, responded angrily to Sharpton's suggestion that the verdicts were unfair.

"That's despicable for him to say that because we have the greatest criminal justice system on earth," he said.

The nearly two-month trial was marked by deeply divergent accounts of the night.

The defense painted the victims as drunken thugs who the officers believed were armed and dangerous. Prosecutors sought to convince the judge that the victims had been minding their own business, and that the officers were inept, trigger-happy aggressors.

Both sides were consistent on one point: The utter chaos surrounding the last moments of Bell's life.

"It happened so quick," Isnora said in grand jury testimony. "It was like the last thing I ever wanted to do."

Bell's companions — Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman — offered dramatic testimony. Both were wounded in the shooting; Guzman still has four bullets lodged in his body.

Referring to Isnora, Guzman said, "This dude is shooting like he's crazy, like he's out of his mind."

The victims and shooters were set on a fateful collision course by a pair of innocuous decisions: Bell's to have a last-minute bachelor party at Kalua Cabaret, and the undercover detectives' to investigate reports of prostitution at the club.

As the club closed around 4 a.m., Sanchez and Isnora claimed they overheard Bell and his friends first flirt with women, then taunt a stranger who responded by putting his right hand in his pocket as if he had a gun. Guzman, they testified, said, "Yo, go get my gun" — something Bell's friends denied.

Isnora said he decided to arm himself, call for backup — "It's getting hot," he told his supervisor — and tail Bell, Guzman and Benefield as they went around the corner and got into Bell's car. He claimed that after warning the men to halt, Bell pulled away, bumped him and rammed an unmarked police van that converged on the scene with Oliver at the wheel. The detective also alleged that Guzman made a sudden move as if he were reaching for a gun.

Guzman said Isnora "appeared out of nowhere" with a gun drawn and shot him in the shoulder — the first of 16 shots to enter his body.

"That's all there was — gunfire," he said. "There wasn't nothing else."

With tires screeching, glass breaking and bullets flying, the officers claimed that they believed they were the ones under fire. Oliver responded by emptying his semiautomatic pistol, reloading, and emptying it again, as the supervisor sought cover.

The truth emerged when the smoke cleared: There was no weapon inside Bell's blood-splattered car.

Zimbabwe observers point to runoff vote, suspect possible rigging

(CNN)

Zimbabwe's government Monday began releasing the results of the weekend parliamentary vote, but offered no data on the hotly contested presidential race.

President Robert Mugabe is facing the most formidable challenge to his 28-year rule from two opponents, including his former finance minister, Simba Makoni, who is running as an independent.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, led by presidential contender Morgan Tsvangirai, announced Sunday that it had won enough votes in Saturday's presidential and parliamentary election to end the 84-year-old incumbent's reign.

But a group of non-governmental organizations monitoring the election released exit polling data Monday that indicated the race possibly headed for a runoff vote.

Noel Kututwa, chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, said that his group's polling data gave Tsvangirai 49.4 percent of the vote -- short of the 51 percent needed to win. Mugabe was second with 41.8 percent, and Makoni third with 8.2 percent.

Election authorities have released no data on the presidential race. Government officials said it takes time to verify and "harmonize" the counts.

The United States, which has raised concerns about election fraud in the southern African country, called on Zimbabwe's government to make sure "the counting of the votes ... ensures the will of the people is heard," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday.

While election observers have urged prompt reporting of the results to avoid political unrest, government officials said it would take time to verify and "harmonize" the counts.

It is unlikely that Mugabe will receive any congratulations from the U.S. if he emerges as the victor.

Speaking to reporters during her trip to the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the long-time president and his government "a disgrace to the people of Zimbabwe and a disgrace to southern Africa and to the continent of Africa as a whole."

Kututwa said the delay in announcing all the results was "fueling speculation" that Mugabe's government was tampering with the ballot count. His group was monitoring the election.

"This is very worrying," Kututwa said.

Despite the lack of official results, the MDC insisted it had won enough votes to end Mugabe's rule, which has seen the nation slide into economic meltdown.

Defying a government order, the Movement for Democratic Change said it tallied the results posted outside each polling station -- and based on one-third of the returns, that count shows Tsvangirai won 67 percent of the votes, journalists inside Zimbabwe told CNN.

The Zimbabwean government has denied CNN and other international news organizations permission to enter the country to report on the elections.

MDC also claimed it had won the majority of parliamentary seats in Zimbabwe's urban centers, including Harare and Bulawayo. It enjoys widespread support in the cities, while Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has its base in Zimbabwe's rural areas, where white farmers have been driven out.

By Monday evening, just 67 of 210 parliamentary races were released -- ZANU-PF won 31; MDC won 30; and six won by a party that split from the MDC.

Two members of President Robert Mugabe's cabinet -- Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Interactive Affairs Minister Chen Chimutengwende -- lost their seats to the MDC. But Mugabe's nephew, Patrick Zhuwao, won a seat in his uncle's home district.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa held onto his seat in a district of Harare.

Kututwa said some MDC members had been arrested for celebrating in the streets.

MDC leaders began declaring victory just hours into Saturday's vote. But there are concerns that if each side claims victory, tensions could ignite and violence could erupt -- as happened this year in Kenya.

Observers from the South African Democratic Alliance opposition party also said its sources had said the opposition had won a majority in most areas.

"If this is not reflected in the results, this will be yet another indication that the election was rigged," they added.

Critics of the government had predicted voting would be rigged. The United States warned of a possible unfair election, and New York-based Human Rights Watch said the elections were likely to be "deeply flawed."

Makoni, who was expelled from the Zanu-PF after announcing his own bid to unseat Mugabe, said it was "premature to judge that the environment before the balloting has had some impediment."

Makoni said: "We know our people are clear about what they want... We will wait and see the results."

The announcement of results appeared to have been delayed despite election observers saying some results were known on Saturday night, four hours after polls closed. In previous elections, partial results were announced hours after voting ended.

Criticism of Mugabe has grown across Zimbabwe, with unemployment running at 80 percent. Most Zimbabweans survive on less than $1 a day and inflation is the highest in the world at more than 100,000 percent.

People also suffer from chronic shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine, and thousands of Zimbabweans flood into neighboring countries looking for jobs.

Part of the economic freefall is traced to Mugabe's land redistribution policies, including his controversial seizure of commercially white-owned farms in 2000.

Mugabe gave the land to black Zimbabweans he said were cheated under colonialist rule, and white farmers who resisted were jailed.

In 2005, Mugabe launched Operation Clean Out the Trash, in which he razed slum areas across the country. Mugabe denies mismanagement and blames his country's woes on the West, saying sanctions have harmed the economy.

Curious details discovered on J.F. Kennedy's assasination

Associated Press

A curious transcript purportedly about President John F. Kennedy's assassination has been discovered among boxes of memorabilia that were long forgotten in an old safe at the Dallas County district attorney's office.

While the transcript reads like a conspiracy theorist's dream — Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby plotting to kill Kennedy — the DA's top assistant said it's likely material for a proposed movie.

Other items found in an old safe on the 10th floor of the county courthouse include letters to and from former DA Henry Wade, the now-dead prosecutor in the Ruby trial, The Dallas Morning News reported in Sunday's editions. Ruby shot and killed Kennedy assassin Oswald two days after the president's death.

There are also letters to Ruby, records from his trial, a gun holster and clothing that probably belonged to Ruby and Oswald, said District Attorney Craig Watkins, who planned to discuss the find at a news conference Monday.

Much of the attention is bound to focus on the transcript purporting that Ruby and Oswald met at Ruby's nightclub on Oct. 4, 1963, less than two months before the Nov. 22 assassination. In it, they talked of killing the president because the Mafia wanted to "get rid of" his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

Says Oswald in the transcript, "I can still do it, all I need is my rifle and a tall building; but it will take time, maybe six months to find the right place; but I'll have to have some money to live on while I do the planning."

Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum near where the president was shot, hasn't seen the transcript but doubts it's real. It is well-documented that Oswald was in Irving the evening of Oct. 4, at a home where his wife was staying, Mack said.

"The fact that it's sitting in Henry Wade's file, and he didn't do anything, indicates he thought it wasn't worth anything," Mack said. "He probably kept it because it was funny. It's hilarious. It's like a bad B movie."

Terri Moore, Watkins' top assistant, said she believes the latest transcript is part of a movie Wade was working on with producers. The former prosecutor wrote about the proposed movie, "Countdown in Dallas," in letters found in the safe.

"It's not real. Crooks don't talk like that," Moore said. "If that transcript is true, then history is changed because Oswald and Ruby were talking about assassinating the president."

The transcript resembles one published in a report by the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination and determined that Oswald was the lone gunman. The FBI determined that conversation between Oswald and Ruby about killing the governor was definitely fake.

The account in the commission report was "re-created" for authorities by a now-deceased Dallas attorney who claimed he recognized Oswald in a newspaper photo as the man he saw talking to Ruby.

It's unknown whether the boxes Watkins and others found in the courthouse about a year ago have information previously undisclosed to the public or the Warren Commission.

The search began after Watkins was told the gun used to kill Oswald was somewhere in the courthouse. They didn't find the gun, which Mack said is privately owned. The boxes probably sat in the safe since being moved when the courthouse opened in 1989.

The items are still being processed and eventually will be donated to an entity that can authenticate them, preserve them and make them available to the public, Watkins said.

"It's interesting, and it's not ours," Watkins said. "It's the public's."

Dry cleaner wins missing pants case

"Pants not worth $54 million" - Judge

By LUBNA TAKRURI, Associated Press Writer

A judge ruled Monday in favor of a dry cleaner that was sued for $54 million over a missing pair of pants.

The owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the city's consumer protection law by failing to live up to Roy L. Pearson's expectations of the "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign once displayed in the store window, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled.

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands" or to agree to demands that the merchant would have reasonable grounds for disputing, the judge wrote.

Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the court costs of defendants Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung.

Pearson, an administrative law judge, originally sought $67 million from the Chungs, claiming they lost a pair of trousers from a blue and maroon suit, then tried to give him a pair a pair of charcoal gray pants that he said were not his. He arrived at the amount by adding up years of alleged law violations and almost $2 million in common law fraud claims.

Bartnoff wrote, however, that Pearson failed to prove that the pants the dry cleaner tried to return were not the pants he taken in for alterations.

Pearson later dropped demands for damages related to the pants and focused his claims on signs in the shop, which have since been removed.

The court costs amount to just over $1,000 for photocopying, filing and similar expenses, according to the Chungs' attorney. A motion to recover the Chungs' tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees will be considered later.

Chris Manning, the Chungs' attorney, praised the ruling, which followed a two-day trial earlier this month.

"Judge Bartnoff has spoken loudly in suggesting that, while consumers should be protected, abusive lawsuits like this will not be tolerated," Manning said in a statement. "Judge Bartnoff has chosen common sense and reasonableness over irrationality and unbridled venom."

Pearson did not immediately respond to a call and an e-mail seeking comment.

6 Signs Your Bank is Evil

We knew there were going to be fees. But booby traps? Here's how to fight back.

By Liz Pulliam Weston

Banks have to make money to stay in business. I was an economics major, so I get that.

What I don't get is why so many consumers do nothing as banks get bolder and bolder about picking their pockets. It's no longer nickel-and-diming -- we're losing $10, $20 and $30 a pop as banks come up with ever-more-creative ways to "fee" us to death.

The banking industry collects more than $50 billion a year in various service charges, more than twice the total of a decade ago. It's time we pushed back.

Sometimes just shining the light of scrutiny on these policies is enough to get banks to back down; read below about what happened recently with ING Direct bank. Other times, we need to protest, involve our lawmakers or even move our money elsewhere.

Here are some of the most egregious practices, and what you can do about them:

Checks clear almost immediately; deposits take days

In recent years, changes in federal laws have all but eliminated "float" -- the time it takes for a check to clear from the writer's bank account. What used to take days now often takes hours or less. What hasn't been speeded up is the time it takes for deposits to clear and be available for your withdrawal.

The Fed is required by law to reduce maximum deposit hold times as check-processing gets faster, but it recently decided against requiring banks to make deposits available sooner. Essentially, regulators concluded that even though money disappears from your account a lot quicker these days, it still doesn't disappear fast enough to warrant the extra costs banks might face from crediting you with your deposits more quickly. So: Heads you lose, tails the banks win.

What you can do: Kick up a fuss with your lawmakers. Banks make billions from consumer accounts; they should be required to invest some of that in speeding up deposits. (You can locate your U.S. representative here and your senators here. You'll find telephone numbers, addresses and e-mail addresses on their individual pages.)

Stacking the deck against you

Most big banks, and many smaller ones, process checks that arrive the same day in order of their size, with the largest check processed first. Banks say they do this to increase the odds that consumers' most important checks, such as mortgage and car payments, get paid. Consumer advocates say it's simply a way to jack up overdraft fees, which make up the majority of account service charges that banks collect. Here's how it works: Let's say you have $500 in your account, and you write checks for $10, $55 and $450. If the bank processed from smallest to largest, only one overdraft fee would be generated. By processing them from largest to smallest, two bounce fees can be collected.

What you can do: Obviously, you should try to avoid writing checks when there's not enough money in your account to cover them. But even the most conscientious consumer can get tripped up now and then (especially if there's a hold on your deposits, or if the bank messes up -- as mine did recently by processing a $403.50 transaction as $4,035.00). So sign up for overdraft protection that links your checking account to a savings account or line of credit; the fees and other costs involved are generally much lower than when you bounce a check. If you do get hit with an overdraft free, ask your bank to waive it as a one-time courtesy.

Charging for 'potential' overdrafts

(Note to readers: This section has been rewritten to clarify how Wachovia Bank assesses bounced-check fees.) A poster named haberschmidt recently alerted the blogosphere to the way Wachovia Bank increases bounced check fees. Some of the poster’s charges are incorrect, according to bank spokeswoman Mary Beth Navarro, including his assertion that Wachovia deducts bounce fees before processing transactions that overdraw an account. Each night, Navarro said, Wachovia first credits deposits, then deducts all transactions that have posted, and then finally assesses bounced-check fees.

But Navarro confirmed that the bank does assess bounced-check fees when transactions exceed an account’s “available” balance, even if the real balance in the account is actually high enough to prevent an overdraft.

Here's how it works: You use your debit card like a credit card at a store, signing your name to the transaction instead of entering a personal identification number (PIN). Because this is a signature-based transaction, the money is processed through the credit card payments system, which means the cash takes a few days to actually leave your account.

Banks typically don't wait, however, to deduct the transaction from your so-called "available balance" -- the money that's available for other spending. Where Wachovia differs from many of its banking brethren is what happens when other transactions are processed that exceed this "available balance." With many banks, you won't get a bounced-check fee unless you exceed the actual balance in your account. With Wachovia, you can wind up with a fee if you exceed the "available balance" -- even if you actually have enough money in your account to cover the transactions.

What you can do: As above, it's important to closely monitor your accounts and to keep a pad of cash in them (read "Why you need $500 in the bank" for more details). That said, banks shouldn't be allowed to charge for overdrafts before they happen. If you're a Wachovia customer, raise hell, contact your lawmakers and consider moving to another bank.

The oxymoronic 'courtesy overdraft'

Courtesy overdraft, also known as bounced-check protection, is a far cry from true overdraft protection. Instead of tapping into one of your own accounts, you're borrowing the bank's money and being charged hefty fees for the privilege. What's more, banks often sign you up for this "service" without your consent, and the sneakiest ones even add the amount of the "protection" to the balance you see when you check your account at an ATM. In other words, you're being told you have more money in your account than you actually do, which can lead you to overdraft your account and create more fees for the bank. (For more details, read "Don't be duped by bounced-check 'protection.' ")

What you can do: Call your bank and ask if you have "courtesy overdraft" or "bounced-check protection;" if so, try to get it removed from your account and replace it instead with real overdraft protection.

Fat fees for using personal-finance software

One of the best ways to track your accounts and prevent problems like overdrafts is by using personal-finance software such as Money or Quicken. These programs not only allow you to easily download your recent transactions, but help you forecast your cash flow in the future so you can predict when you might need to get extra cash into your checking account. So naturally, some banks ding you for $6 to $10 a month for using the software to automatically download your transactions.

Do I have a dog in this fight? You bet I do. I'm a longtime user of this software, and I write for MSN Money, which is owned by Microsoft, maker of Money. Even if neither of those things were true, however, I'd find it awfully suspicious that the majority of financial institutions find a way to provide automatic downloads for free, yet a handful of large banks -- Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo among them -- find it necessary to charge over $100 a year for the same service.

What you can do: You may be able to get around the charges by using a more manual download process that involves going to the institution's Web site and clicking a few buttons, but that's a hassle. A better solution if you like the more automated download feature may be switching financial institutions. Washington Mutual, Charles Schwab, ING Direct and others support the automatic downloads without charging for the privilege.

Closing accounts because of bad credit

ING Direct, an online bank, says it was all a mistake. But some 5,300 customers were recently sent e-mails telling them their checking accounts would be closed because of their low credit scores. Many of these customers were understandably disturbed, since there are plenty of ways your credit scores can plummet that have nothing to do with your ability to manage a checking account.

When I called ING Direct USA CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann to ask about this seemingly unprecedented move, he couldn't apologize fast enough. "That was obviously an error," he said of the mass e-mailing. "The letter was worded wrong. . . . We do not give or deny one of our accounts" based solely on credit scores. The bank does use credit scores, he said, to help determine the size of a customer's overdraft line of credit. Within hours of my phone call, ING Direct customers who received the original e-mails reported receiving e-mails from the bank's chief operating officer, Jim Kelly, apologizing for the mess and assuring them their accounts would be restored.

What you can do: If you run across an obviously unfair bank practice, don't keep it to yourself. Someone who received the original ING Direct e-mail posted a message about it on the Consumerist Web site; Wachovia's practice of "potential" overdrafts was highlighted on Wesabe.com. Shout about what you see on those sites, or on MSN Money's own Your Money message board. Draw enough attention, and perhaps we can head off some of the worst policies before they become "industry standards."

Supreme Court upholds ban on controversial abortion procedure

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The administration defended the law as drawing a bright line between abortion and infanticide.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how — not whether — to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups as well as the leading association of obstetricians and gynecologists have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions.

"I applaud the Court for its ruling today, and my hope is that it sets the stage for further progress in the fight to ensure our nation's laws respect the sanctity of unborn human life," said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, Republican leader in the House of Representatives.

Said Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: "This ruling flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women's health and safety. ... This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them." She had argued that point before the justices.

More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Wednesday's ruling.

Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an impermissible restriction on a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The law bans a method of ending a pregnancy, rather than limiting when an abortion can be performed.

"Today's decision is alarming," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling "refuses to take ... seriously" previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."

She was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman's uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.

Abortion opponents say the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method — dismembering the fetus in the uterus — is available and, indeed, much more common.

In 2000, the court with key differences in its membership struck down a state ban on partial-birth abortions. Writing for a 5-4 majority at that time, Justice Breyer said the law imposed an undue burden on a woman's right to make an abortion decision.

The Republican-controlled Congress responded in 2003 by passing a federal law that asserted the procedure is gruesome, inhumane and never medically necessary to preserve a woman's health. That statement was designed to overcome the health exception to restrictions that the court has demanded in abortion cases.

But federal judges in California, Nebraska and New York said the law was unconstitutional, and three appellate courts agreed. The Supreme Court accepted appeals from California and Nebraska, setting up Wednesday's ruling.

Kennedy's dissent in 2000 was so strong that few court watchers expected him to take a different view of the current case.

Kennedy acknowledged continuing disagreement about the procedure within the medical community. In the past, courts have cited that uncertainty as a reason to allow the disputed procedure.

But Kennedy said, "The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice."

He said the more common abortion method, involving dismemberment, is beyond the reach of the federal ban.

While the court upheld the law against a broad attack on its constitutionality, Kennedy said the court could entertain a challenge in which a doctor found it necessary to perform the banned procedure on a patient suffering certain medical complications.

Doctors most often refer to the procedure as a dilation and extraction or an intact dilation and evacuation abortion.

The law allows the procedure to be performed when a woman's life is in jeopardy.

The cases are Gonzales v. Carhart, 05-380, and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 05-1382.