Constitution

CAIRO - Egypt postponed early voting on a contentious draft constitution, and aides to President Mohammed Morsi floated the possibility of canceling the whole referendum in the first signs Friday that the Islamic leader was finally yielding to days of protests and deadly street clashes. Tens of thousands marched on the presidential palace after pushing past barbed wire fences installed by the army and calling for Morsi to step down. Thousands also camped out in Tahrir Square, birthplace of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The top spot belonged first to a Bush and then to a Clinton. Now, in a familiar American formula, the National Constitution Center is turning again to a Bush. The center announced Thursday that former Florida Gov. John Ellis "Jeb" Bush had been elected chairman of its board of trustees. Bush, 59, who runs an education foundation and who has been mentioned as a possible 2016 presidential candidate in a theoretical race against Hillary Rodham Clinton, will succeed former President Bill Clinton, who has served as chairman since January 2009.

The top spot belonged first to a Bush and then to a Clinton. Now, in a familiar American formula, the National Constitution Center is turning again to a Bush. The center announced Thursday that former Florida Gov. John Ellis "Jeb" Bush had been elected chairman of its board of trustees. Bush, 59, who runs an education foundation and who has been mentioned as a possible 2016 presidential candidate in a theoretical race against Hillary Rodham Clinton, will succeed former President Bill Clinton, who has served as chairman since January 2009.

CAIRO - Protesters flooded Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday in the second giant rally this week, angrily vowing to bring down a draft constitution approved by allies of President Mohammed Morsi, as Egypt appeared headed toward a volatile confrontation between the opposition and ruling Islamists. The protests have highlighted an increasingly cohesive opposition leadership of prominent liberal and secular politicians trying to direct public anger against Morsi and the Islamists - a contrast to the leaderless youth uprising last year that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

CAIRO - Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi called Saturday for a referendum in two weeks on a disputed draft constitution, as tens of thousands of his supporters celebrated the decision. Morsi set the date for Dec. 15 in a nationally televised speech to the Islamist-led assembly that hurriedly approved the draft charter amid widening opposition from secular and Christian groups. Egypt's Constitutional Court was due to rule Sunday on whether to dissolve the panel. If the judges decide to hold their session, whatever the decision, it is still a challenge and a continuation of the tug of war between Morsi and the powerful judiciary, which dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament earlier this year.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The drive from Amway's World Headquarters to Windy Hill, the company founders' estate, takes less than five minutes up a country road. Stone pillars flank the iron-gated entrance. The driveway curves around tennis courts and landscaped gardens, where petunias still bloom in mid-November. A young woman answers the door and leads the way through a glass-walled hallway overlooking a man-made waterfall tumbling rapturously down a rock wall into a clear pool. At the end of the wing is the sunroom, an aerie perched on hills that descend to the Thornapple River, a wide indigo swath tracing its course through the valley.

The kids got a gala event like none other, with red-carpet treatment and cheers from the city's fashionistas. The evening was presented by Susquehanna Bank, with local law firm Zarwin Baum among the sponsors. Former Flyer Brian Propp and NBC10's Dawn Timmeney were honorary chairpersons. Welcome to my new column, DN Party People, as I bring you photos from notable events around the region. Planning something special? Let me know. E-mail: bigrube@streetgazing.com @BigRubeHarley, Blog: streetgazing.com

At a glance last week, the flutes on the luncheon tables at the National Constitution Center didn't hold much promise. They were brimming with bubbly, all right. But it had a suspiciously marigold hue. And it was hard to ignore, beneath the servers' swaddling napkins, the labels on the bottles they were pouring. It was, ahem, Martinelli's (explicitly nonalcoholic!) Sparkling Cider. For the curtain-raiser, for goodness sake, for the center's ambitious exhibition "American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition"!

CAIRO - An Egyptian court on Tuesday asked the country's highest tribunal to rule on whether to disband the body tasked with writing a new constitution. The delay in a ruling is a possible blow to liberals, since it could give Islamists time to finish drafting the contested document. The referral of the case to a higher court is the latest twist in a bitter struggle between Islamists and their secular rivals over Egypt's first constitution since it set out on a path to democracy, following the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last year.

ON THE 300 block of Walnut Street in Old City lies the dichotomy of Prohibition. At one end of the block is the site where Dr. Benjamin Rush, Declaration of Independence signer and father of the American temperance movement, had his office. At the other is a building where, a century later, bootlegger Joel D. Kerper bottled illegal gin for the city's elite. How could one city block, let alone an entire nation, produce such contrasting views about alcohol? Or, as author and journalist Daniel Okrent might have put it if his book editors at Scribner hadn't objected: "How the Hell Did That Happen?"