Social Issues

ABORTION-NORTH DAKOTA_Live.jpg

North Dakota Republican Sen. Margaret Sitte poses for a picture at the state Capitol in Bismarck on March 22, 2013. The Bismarck Republican is the primary sponsor of a bill that the North Dakota Legislature passed that would essentially ban abortion by defining human life as beginning at conception. The bill is one of a series North Dakota lawmakers have passed this year, chipping away at abortion rights. (Associated Press)

20130321-220454-pic-524711498.jpg

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks during her Capitol Hill news conference Thursday. The California Democrat wants President Obama’s health care law expanded to mandate that drug companies give Medicare better rebates on prescription drug purchases. (Associated Press)

AP331100553768.jpg

**FILE** Kurds march with flags and a banner showing pictures of the three PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) activists killed in Paris last month to show support for them and to their leader Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned in Turkey, during a Feb. 16 2013, protest in Strasbourg, France. Kurds from France, Germany and Belgium gathered for the march. (Associated Press)

Biden Bloomberg_Live.jpg

Vice President Joseph R. Biden shakes hands with Neil Heslin (center), whose son Jesse Lewis died at the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., after Biden spoke in New York's City Hall Blue Room on March 21, 2013. Relatives of shooting victims from Newtown, Conn., stood with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (right) and Biden as they spoke in favor of an assault weapons ban. (Associated Press)

Russia NGOs_Lea.jpg

Oleg Orlov, a member of the Russian human rights group Memorial, talks to the media in his office in Moscow on Thursday, March 21, 2013, as prosecutors search for documents pertaining to all of the organization's activities. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Spending Cuts_Live.jpg

**FILE** Government workers, supporting union members and activists protest against the across-the-board federal spending cuts called sequestration at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia on March 20, 2013. (Associated Press)

AP335807745843.jpg

Indian Tamil activists and supporters lie on a road and shout slogans during a protest against Sri Lanka's alleged wartime abuses in Chennai, India, on March 21, 2013. A key ethnic Tamil party withdrew from India's coalition government Tuesday, accusing the government of watering down a U.N. resolution criticizing Sri Lanka's war-time conduct against its minority Tamil population. The party has demanded the U.N. Human Rights Council resolution accuse Sri Lanka of genocide and that it leads to the formation of an international inquiry into possible war crimes. (Associated Press)