US Unveils Mural Honoring 'Rebel Women' who Campaigned for Voting Rights

Artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, in white, stands in front of a maintenance worker on a lift following the unveiling of her mural in the Statehouse honoring women who campaign for decades for voting rights, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
Artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, in white, stands in front of a maintenance worker on a lift following the unveiling of her mural in the Statehouse honoring women who campaign for decades for voting rights, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
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US Unveils Mural Honoring 'Rebel Women' who Campaigned for Voting Rights

Artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, in white, stands in front of a maintenance worker on a lift following the unveiling of her mural in the Statehouse honoring women who campaign for decades for voting rights, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
Artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, in white, stands in front of a maintenance worker on a lift following the unveiling of her mural in the Statehouse honoring women who campaign for decades for voting rights, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas has a new mural in its Statehouse honoring women who campaigned for voting rights for decades before the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution granted those rights across the nation.
Gov. Laura Kelly and other state officials unveiled the “Rebel Women” painting that spans an entire wall on the first floor on Wednesday, the anniversary of Kansas' admission as the 34th US state in 1861.
While Kansas Day is traditionally marked with renditions of the official state song, “Home on the Range,” Wednesday's event also featured the women's voting rights anthem, "Suffrage Song,” to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
A 2022 law authorized the mural, and artist Phyllis Garibay-Coon, of Manhattan, in northeastern Kansas, won the contest with a depiction of 13 prominent Kansas suffragists. A few women in the crowd of several hundred people were dressed as 19th century campaigners who were active before statehood.
Kansas prides itself as entering the union as an anti-slavery free state, but it also was more progressive than other states in gradually granting women full voting rights. Women could vote in school elections in 1861 and in city elections in 1887, and the nation's first woman mayor, Susanna M. Salter, was elected in Argonia, Kansas, that year. Voters amended the state constitution in 1912 to grant women full voting rights.



South Korea Birthrate Rises for First Time in 9 Years, Marriages Surge 

People walk through a train station in Seoul on February 26, 2025. (AFP)
People walk through a train station in Seoul on February 26, 2025. (AFP)
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South Korea Birthrate Rises for First Time in 9 Years, Marriages Surge 

People walk through a train station in Seoul on February 26, 2025. (AFP)
People walk through a train station in Seoul on February 26, 2025. (AFP)

South Korea's fertility rate rose in 2024 for the first time in nine years, supported by an increase in marriages, preliminary data showed on Wednesday, in a sign that the country's demographic crisis might have turned a corner.

The country's fertility rate, the average number of babies a woman is expected to have during her reproductive life, stood at 0.75 in 2024, according to Statistics Korea.

In 2023, the birthrate fell for the eighth consecutive year to 0.72, the lowest in the world, from 1.24 in 2015, raising concerns over the economic shock to society from such a rapid pace.

Since 2018, South Korea has been the only member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with a rate below 1.

South Korea has rolled out various measures to encourage young people to get married and have children, after now impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol declared a "national demographic crisis" and a plan to create a new ministry devoted to tackling low birth rates.

"There was a change in social value, with more positive views about marriage and childbirth," Park Hyun-jung, an official at Statistics Korea, told a briefing, also citing the impact of a rise in the number of people in their early 30s and pandemic delays.

"It is difficult to measure how much each factor contributed to the rise in new births, but they themselves had an impact on each other too," Park said.

Marriages, a leading indicator of new births, jumped 14.9% in 2024, the biggest spike since the data started being released in 1970. Marriages turned up for the first time in 11 years in 2023 with a 1.0% increase powered by a post-pandemic boost.

In the Asian country, there is a high correlation between marriages and births, with a time lag of one or two years, as marriage is often seen as a prerequisite to having children.

Across the country, the birthrate last year was the lowest in the capital, Seoul, at 0.58.

The latest data showed there were 120,000 more people who died last year than those who were newly born, marking the fifth consecutive year of the population naturally shrinking. The administrative city of Sejong was the only major center where population grew.

South Korea's population, which hit a peak of 51.83 million in 2020, is expected to shrink to 36.22 million by 2072, according to the latest projection by the statistics agency.