内容摘要：Emily Mwaka doesn’t like speculating about the next pope, especially on the color of his skin. So when the head of the Catholic laity in Kampala, Uganda, recently came upon a small group of Christians discussing a newspaper article about possible papal contenders — including some from Africa — she asked them to stop it.

Emily Mwaka doesn’t like speculating about the next pope, especially on the color of his skin. So when the head of the Catholic laity in Kampala, Uganda, recently came upon a small group of Christians discussing a newspaper article about possible papal contenders — including some from Africa — she asked them to stop it.

Women’s rights activists hold placards outside the Supreme Court to challenge gender recognition laws, in London, Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)For Women Scotland had argued that the Scottish officials’ redefinition of woman went beyond Parliament’s powers. But Scottish officials then issued new guidance stating that the definition of woman included someone with a gender recognition certificate.

FWS sought to overturn that.“Not tying the definition of sex to its ordinary meaning means that public boards could conceivably comprise of 50% men and 50% men with certificates, yet still lawfully meet the targets for female representation,” the group’s director Trina Budge said previously.The challenge was rejected by a court in 2022, but the group was granted permission last year to take its case to the Supreme Court.

Aidan O’Neill, a lawyer for FWS, told the Supreme Court judges — three men and two women — that under the Equality Act “sex” should refer to biological sex as understood “in ordinary, everyday language.”“Our position is your sex, whether you are a man or a woman or a girl or a boy, is determined from conception in utero, even before one’s birth, by one’s body,” he said. “It is an expression of one’s bodily reality. It is an immutable biological state.”

Women’s rights activists celebrate outside the Supreme Court to challenge gender recognition laws, in London, Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Women’s rights activists celebrate outside the Supreme Court to challenge gender recognition laws, in London, Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)The response from Congolese civil society Friday mixed hope with skepticism.

Rights advocate Christophe Muisa in Goma, a city in east Congo that the powerful, Rwandan-backed M23 armed group seized earlier this year, said the U.S. is the main beneficiary of the deal. He urged his government not to “subcontract its security.”Georges Kapiamba, the president of the Congolese Association for the Access to Justice, a nongovernmental organization focusing on rights, justice and addressing corruption, said he supported a mineral-and-security deal with the U.S., but worried his own government could blow it by siphoning off the proceeds.

Three months into Trump’s second term, his administration and Republican lawmakers have made good on pledges to pare U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance down to agreements that most directly serve their perception of U.S. strategic and financial interests. The administration has terminated thousands of U.S. aid and development workers and programs that worked more broadly for global development.In another such transactional deal, the Trump administration is negotiating with Ukraine over a minerals deal that the U.S. is demanding as repayment for past U.S. military support after Russia invaded in 2022.