Pickering to step down from federal appeals bench News
Pickering to step down from federal appeals bench

[JURIST] Judge Charles Pickering, named by President Bush to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals through a "recess appointment" in January of this year after his regular nomination stalled in the Senate, has said he is retiring and will make a formal announcement to that effect Thursday. Pickering's nomination was bitterly opposed by Democrats and liberal activist groups that regarded him as being anti-abortion and have a questionable civil rights record. His recess appointment, which lasts only to the start of the next Congressional session, is scheduled to expire in January 2005. Pickering is 67. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.