Boehner to succeed DeLay as House Majority Leader after GOP vote News
Boehner to succeed DeLay as House Majority Leader after GOP vote

[JURIST] In a close vote Thursday, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) [official website] beat out stand-in GOP chief Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) [official website] to win election as GOP House Majority Leader [official website], vowing to move the party away from recent ethics and corruption scandals. Boehner, who beat Blunt 122-109 on a second ballot, said that Republicans would now recommit to "restore the trust between Congress and the American people." Boehner takes over from Rep. Tom DeLay, who formally stepped down [JURIST report] last month while still caught up in a Texas criminal case over campaign finance. One of Boehner's first challenges will be to limit the political fallout from the corruption scandal involving former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff [JURIST news archive], who pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to fraud, conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud charges in January. 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.