Elections

The ruling found that two state laws — one barring use of abortion pills, and one banning all forms of abortion — violated the state Constitution’s “fundamental right to make health care decisions.” A Wyoming judge ruled on Monday that two state abortion bans — including the first state law specifically banning the use of pills for abortion — violated the Wyoming Constitution and could not be enforced.Judge Melissa Owens of Teton County District Court wrote in her ruling that both the ban on medication abortion and a broader ban against all methods of abortion “impede the fundamental right to make health care decisions for an entire class of people, pregnant women.” She added, “The abortion statutes suspend a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions during the entire term of a pregnancy and are not reasonable or necessary to protect the health and general welfare of the people.”Enforcement of the two abortion bans, passed last year, had been temporarily halted by Judge Owens while the court case proceeded. Her decision on Monday blocks the laws permanently, although the state is expected to appeal. Efforts to reach the state attorney general’s office and the governor’s office were unsuccessful on Monday night.The suit to block the bans was filed by a group of plaintiffs that included two abortion providers in Wyoming; an obstetrician-gynecologist who often treats high-risk pregnancies; an emergency-room nurse; a fund that gives financing to abortion patients; and a woman who said her Jewish faith required access to abortion if a pregnant woman’s physical or mental health or life was in danger.An amendment to the Wyoming Constitution, approved by an overwhelming majority of the state’s voters in 2012, guarantees adults the right to make their own health care decisions.In court last year, the state, represented by Jay Jerde, a special assistant attorney general for Wyoming, argued that even though doctors and other health providers must be involved in abortions, there were many instances in which abortion was not “health care” because “it’s not restoring the woman’s body from pain, physical disease or sickness.”Mr. Jerde also argued that the constitutional amendment allowing people to make decisions about their own health care did not apply to abortion because terminating a pregnancy affected not just the woman making the decision, but the fetus as well.Judge Owens rejected both of those arguments. She wrote: “The uncontested facts establish that the abortion statutes fail to accomplish any of the asserted interests by the state. The state did not present any evidence refuting or challenging the extensive medical testimony presented by the plaintiffs.”Dr. Giovannina Anthony, an obstetrician-gynecologist and abortion provider who was one of the plaintiffs in the case, said on Monday night that she was “grateful and relieved that the judge agreed that abortion is health care and that abortion bans violate the rights of pregnant women.”Dr. Anthony said she expected the state to appeal. “This is not the end of the fight in Wyoming, but for now we can continue to provide evidence-based care without fear of a prison sentence.” More

Erik Agard runs down the clock.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — People tell me that I’m elusive. I hear from one friend or another that I’m hard to get a hold of, that I seem eternally busy. Despite my protestations, these assessments may have some truth to them: My social calendar is active to the point of exhaustion, and I can’t resist sopping up any free hours with hobbies (sign language classes, a gym routine, sourdough).Erik Agard has a solution for those in a similar position, but he has hidden it in the theme of today’s crossword. How many minutes can you spare to solve it?Today’s ThemeMr. Agard’s novel approach to scheduling consists of a yin and a yang: We should SAVE THE DAY (17A) and SPEND THE NIGHT (38A). This cycle of saving and spending is described at 62-Across, [What 17- and 38-Across combine to form?] — a TIME BUDGET.I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a minimalist theme, nor one so cleanly and cleverly executed. Mr. Agard used just two themed entries to achieve the wordplay in his revealer, but the effect was exponential.Tricky Clues19A. I confess to being a fair-weather fan of spoken clues. It’s satisfying if I can solve one at first glance, but when I can’t, I feel justified in criticizing them as a group. The phrase [“Who ___?”] might be completed by “says” or “said,” for instance, but in this case it solves to ISN’T.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Colin “Smiley” Petersen, the original drummer, and Dennis Bryon, who played during the band’s disco heyday, died within four days of each other.Two drummers for the Bee Gees — one during the long-running Anglo-Australian pop group’s early days of hit-making ballads, the other during its white-hot disco superstardom — died four days apart, according to posts from a tribute band and former bandmates.Dennis Bryon, 76, the Bee Gees’ drummer starting in 1973, died on Nov. 14, according to Blue Weaver, who played in the band Amen Corner with Mr. Bryon. He announced his death on Facebook on Thursday, but gave no cause of death for Mr. Bryon.Colin “Smiley” Petersen, the band’s first professional drummer, died on Nov. 18 at the age of 78, according to Evan Webster and Sue Camilleri, who work on The Best of The Bee Gees Show, a tribute band. Mr. Petersen died from a fall, they said.Mr. Petersen, who joined the Bee Gees in 1967, played on the band’s first four albums. He started playing in the The Best of The Bee Gees Show five years ago, Mr. Webster said.Mr. Petersen played on a string of hit ballads from 1967 to 1970, including “Massachusetts,” “To Love Somebody,” “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You,” “I Started a Joke” and “Words.” He was also a child actor, known for his role in the 1956 film “Smiley,” which was the origin of his nickname, among a few other movies in the late ’50s.In a 2022 interview with The Strange Brew Podcast, Mr. Peterson said that the band would always create songs together in the studio.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The 45 defendants, including Joshua Wong, were at the forefront of the opposition movement crushed by Beijing. Many have already been in jail for years.A Hong Kong court on Tuesday sentenced 45 former politicians and activists in a mass trial that has decimated the city’s once vibrant pro-democracy opposition and served as a warning that resistance to Beijing can be costly.The landmark trial is the most forceful use of a national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 in response to months of large protests against Chinese rule. The prosecution of the activists, the vanguard of Hong Kong’s opposition, has delivered what experts described as a knockout blow to hopes for democracy in the city.Their offense, according to the authorities: holding or taking part in an unofficial primary election.In one fell swoop in 2021, the authorities arrested Benny Tai, 60, a legal scholar and opposition strategist; Joshua Wong, 28, a prominent pro-democracy activist; and dozens of others, including veteran former lawmakers and younger politicians who called for self-determination for Hong Kong. Mr. Tai was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years in prison. Several opposition politicians and activists, including Au Nok Hin, Andrew Chiu and Ben Chung, were handed terms of around six and seven years each. Mr. Wong was given a sentence of about four years and eight months.The trial made clear that any form of dissent or criticism, however moderate, carried significant risk, analysts said. “If you are being critical of the authorities both in Hong Kong and in China, then it’s open season,” Steve Tsang, a Hong Kong-born political scientist and director of the SOAS China Institute in London, said in an interview.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The warning, which extends beyond the city to include 10 other counties in New York state, was announced as wildfires burned and residents continued to await meaningful rainfall.Mayor Eric Adams on Monday elevated New York City’s drought watch to a drought warning, the last step before declaring a drought emergency, which would come with mandatory water restrictions.The warning extends beyond the city to include 10 additional New York State counties, including much of the Hudson Valley. In the rest of the state, which is also experiencing abnormally dry conditions, Gov. Kathy Hochul has declared a drought watch.Although no restrictions are required under a drought warning, officials are urging residents to voluntarily conserve water, while water suppliers focus on contingency plans. The city’s reservoirs, which are usually around 79 percent full at this time of year, are down to about 60 percent of their total capacity, and the inch of rain forecast in the coming days will not be enough to replenish them, officials said. New York City has received less than a quarter-inch of rain since Oct. 1, according to the National Weather Service.One such contingency plan involves the pause of the Delaware Aqueduct repair project, a $2 billion, eight-month initiative, planned for decades, that required the shutdown of a crucial tunnel responsible for transporting about half the city’s water supply. Since repairs began in early October, access to four major reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains has been cut off.Now, the mayor plans to halt the construction project and reopen the aqueduct so the water from those four reservoirs can flow into New York again.“The ongoing and historic lack of rainfall, both in the city and in the upstate watershed where our reservoirs are located, has become more critical,” said Rohit T. Aggarwala, the city’s climate chief and the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the city’s water supply system.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

In other testimony, law enforcement witnesses placed the suspect, José Ibarra, at the scene of Ms. Riley’s killing, mainly through cellphone and GPS tracking data.Details of how the Venezuelan migrant charged with killing Laken Riley ended up in Athens, Ga., came into sharper focus on Monday, the second day of a trial that is being closely followed by supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s planned immigration crackdown.The migrant, José Ibarra, was apprehended by the Border Patrol when he entered the country illegally in 2022 near El Paso. Like many migrants, he was released with temporary permission to stay in the country, and he headed to New York.A former roommate of Mr. Ibarra’s testified that she met Mr. Ibarra last year in New York City and traveled with him to Athens in September 2023 after Mr. Ibarra’s brother told them they could find jobs there.They lived for a while with Mr. Ibarra’s wife and mother-in-law at a Crowne Plaza hotel in Queens that had been converted to a migrant shelter, the roommate, Rosbeli Flores-Bello, said. And for a few weeks, she added, she and Mr. Ibarra lived in a car parked on the street by the hotel.Ms. Flores-Bello said that Mr. Ibarra’s brother Diego had constantly called him in New York, telling him to move to Athens because there were good work opportunities.Laken Riley was a nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia.Augusta University, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

A lawyer representing two women who testified that former Representative Matt Gaetz paid them for sex told multiple news outlets on Monday that one of the women described witnessing Mr. Gaetz having sex with an underage girl at a party in 2017.The lawyer, Joel Leppard, told CBS News, ABC News and CNN about his clients’ testimony to the House Ethics Committee, which was investigating allegations about Mr. Gaetz and young women, as well as accusations of drug use.Mr. Gaetz resigned last week shortly after President-elect Donald J. Trump announced he planned to nominate the Florida lawmaker to be his attorney general, despite having been investigated by the Justice Department previously.After the resignation, Speaker Mike Johnson announced that he would not make public the committee’s report because Mr. Gaetz was no longer in office.Mr. Leppard, speaking to ABC News, said one of the women testified that “in July of 2017, at this house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw” Mr. Gaetz “having sex with her friend, who was 17.”He told CNN that Mr. Gaetz later discovered the girl was underage.Both women also told the committee that they were paid for sex using Venmo, Mr. Leppard said.Mr. Gaetz has previously denied the allegations. Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for the Trump transition, said, “Matt Gaetz will be the next Attorney General. He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponization of our justice system. These are baseless allegations intended to derail the second Trump administration.” Mr. Gaetz is one of several controversial nominees whom Mr. Trump has announced he will submit for Senate confirmation. But he is the one who has provoked the most negative reactions from Republican senators. More

A former Wisconsin congressman and Fox Business host, Sean Duffy, was selected by President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday to lead the Transportation Department.In a statement announcing his choice, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Duffy as a “tremendous and well-liked public servant” with the experience needed to lead the department, which has an annual budget of more than $100 billion and a vast work force.“Sean will use his experience and the relationships he has built over many years in Congress to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure and usher in a golden age of travel,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.Mr. Duffy served in Congress from 2011 to 2019 as a Republican. He resigned in September 2019 to help care for a newborn daughter with a birth defect, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.Mr. Duffy resigned from Fox News Media on Monday, according to a spokeswoman for the network. He had joined as a contributor in 2020, offering political analysis across all Fox News Media platforms, and had hosted “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business with Dagen McDowell since 2023. He originally rose to fame on the MTV reality show “The Real World: Boston.”If confirmed, Mr. Duffy will oversee a Federal Aviation Administration struggling with air traffic control and a Federal Railroad Administration still pushing for safety reforms after a fiery derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, in 2023. He will also be in charge of assessing how to rebuild the country’s crumbling infrastructure.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More