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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on the US and vaccine disinformation: a stupid, shocking and deadly game | Editorial

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      In July 2021, Joe Biden rightly inveighed against social media companies failing to tackle vaccine disinformation: “They’re killing people,” the US president said. Despite their pledges to take action, lies and sensationalised accounts were still spreading on platforms. Most of those dying in the US were unvaccinated. An additional source of frustration for the US was the fact that Russia and China were encouraging mistrust of western vaccines, questioning their efficacy, exaggerating side-effects and sensationalising the deaths of people who had been inoculated.How, then, would the US describe the effects of its own disinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic? A shocking new report has revealed that its military ran a secret campaign to discredit China’s Sinovac vaccine with Filipinos – when nothing else was available to the Philippines. The Reuters investigation found that this spread to audiences in central Asia and the Middle East, with fake social media accounts not only questioning Sinovac’s efficacy and safety but also claiming it used pork gelatine, to discourage Muslims from receiving it. In the case of the Philippines, the poor take-up of vaccines contributed to one of the highest death rates in the region. Undermining confidence in a specific vaccine can also contribute to broader vaccine hesitancy.The campaign, conducted via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now X) and other platforms, was launched under the Trump administration despite the objections of multiple state department officials. The Biden administration ended it after the national security council was alerted to the issue in spring 2021. The drive seems to have been retaliation for Chinese claims – without any evidence – that Covid had been brought to Wuhan by a US soldier. It was also driven by military concerns that the Philippines was growing closer to Beijing.It is all the more disturbing because the US has seen what happens when it plays strategic games with vaccination. In 2011, in preparation for the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the CIA tried to confirm that it had located him by gathering the DNA of relatives through a staged hepatitis B vaccination campaign. The backlash was entirely predictable, especially in an area that had already seen claims that the west was using polio vaccines to sterilise Pakistani Muslim girls. NGOs were vilified and polio vaccinators were murdered. Polio resurged in Pakistan; Islamist militants in Nigeria killed vaccinators subsequently.The report said that the Pentagon has now rescinded parts of the 2019 order that allowed the military to sidestep the state department when running psychological operations. But while the prospect of a second Trump administration resuming such tactics is alarming, the attitude that bred them goes deeper. Reuters pointed to a strategy document from last year in which generals noted that the US could weaponise information, adding: “Disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”The US is right to challenge the Kremlin’s troll farms, Beijing’s propaganda and the irresponsibility of social media companies. But it’s hard to take the moral high ground when you’ve been pumping out lies. The repercussions in this case were particularly predictable, clear and horrifying. It was indefensible to pursue a project with such obvious potential to cause unnecessary deaths. It must not be repeated. More

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      in US Politics

      Louisiana’s move to criminalize abortion pills is cruel and medically senseless | Moira Donegan

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      This week, Louisiana moved to expand the criminalization of abortion further than any state has since before Roe v Wade was decided. On Thursday, the state legislature passed a bill that would reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol – the two drugs used in a majority of American abortions – as dangerous controlled substances.Under both state and federal classifications, the category of controlled substances includes those medications known to cause mind-altering effects and create the potential for addictions, such as sedatives and opioids; abortion medications carry none of this potential for physical dependence, habit-forming or abuse. The move from Louisiana lawmakers runs counter to both established medical opinion and federal law. Jeff Landry, the anti-choice Republican governor, is expected to sign the bill. When he does, possession of mifepristone or misoprostol in Louisiana will come to carry large fines and up to 10 years in prison.Louisiana already has a total abortion ban, with no rape or incest exceptions. But the Louisiana lawmakers are pursuing this new additional criminalization measure because while abortion bans are very good at generating suffering for women, they are not very good at actually preventing abortions. Data from the Guttmacher Institute suggests that the United States saw an 11% increase in abortions between 2020 and 2023 – a possible indication that pregnant people are still managing to obtain abortions in spite of post-Dobbs bans. As was the case in the pre-Roe era, women have continued to seek out ways to end their pregnancies, even in defiance of abortion ban laws.In the pre-Roe era, illegal abortions were often unsafe, and abortion bans caused a public health crisis: many hospitals had to open septic abortion wards, where women who had had incompetent or careless illegal abortions were treated for frequently life-threatening conditions. But the post-Dobbs reality is that advances in communications technology and medicine mean that illegal abortions need no longer be unsafe ones. Now, women living in states with abortion bans can access safe, effective abortion care in the comfort of their own homes, and often law enforcement and anti-choice zealots are none the wiser. Women can perform their own abortions, safely and effectively, without regard to the law’s opinion on whether they should be free to. They can do this because they can access the pills.The criminalization measure, then, is part of an expanding horizon of invasive, sadistic and burdensome state interventions meant to do the impossible: to stop women from trying to control their own lives. The Louisiana bill nominally will not apply to pregnant women – they’re exempted from criminal punishments for possession of the medications. But it will take square aims at the vital, heroic efforts of feminists, medical practitioners and mutual aid networks that have been distributing the pills in Louisiana: the people who have adhered to the principles of bodily autonomy and women’s self-determination even amid a hostile climate. These people’s courage and integrity is the greatest threat to the anti-choice regime, and so it is these people whom Louisiana’s new medical criminalization law will be used against first.But pro-abortion rights and women’s rights activists are not the only ones who will be hurt by the new law. For one thing, the criminalization of possession is likely to scare many Louisiana abortion seekers out of ordering the pills online, even if the bill itself technically excludes them from prosecution. These abortion seekers, dissuaded and threatened out of seeking the most reliable and safe method of self-managed abortion, may then turn to less safe options.But the new drug classification also has implications for a wide array of healthcare treatments. Mifepristone and misoprostol are not only used in elective abortions. They are also the standard of care for spontaneous miscarriages – the management of which has already become legally fraught for doctors in Louisiana, causing women to suffer needlessly and endanger their health. Misoprostol is used in labor, too, and in the treatment of some ulcers. The drugs’ needless, cruel and medically senseless reclassification as “controlled” substances will make these medical practices more difficult in a state that already has one of the worst rates of maternal mortality in the country. That’s part of why more than 200 Louisiana physicians signed a letter opposing the bill.The Republican legislators who have pushed the new criminalization do not pretend to actually believe that abortion drugs are habit-forming. Thomas Pressly, the state senator who introduced the bill, frankly said that his aim was to “control the rampant illegal distribution of abortion-inducing drugs”.But there is something to the notion that abortion access might be “habit-forming”. In the Roe era, after all, women began to conceive of themselves as full persons, able to exercise control over their own destinies – as adults, that is, with all the privileges and entitlements of citizenship. They formed a habit of independence, a habit of imagining themselves as people entitled to freedom, equality, self-determination and respect. It is these habits that the Republican party is trying to break them of.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      in UK Politics

      Voices: Invest money and lose the bureaucracy: Independent readers have their say on a reformed NHS

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      Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in healthGet our free Health Check emailThe NHS has come under additional scrutiny this week, following comments from shadow health secretary Wes Streeting.On Monday, Streeting warned the NHS will get no extra funding from Labour without “major surgery” or reform, including more use of the private sector.Public satisfaction with the NHS at lowest level on recordWe asked Independent readers how they felt the NHS could be improved, and whether a total reform of the service was necessary. Some argued against significant reforms, emphasizing the importance of proper funding and reducing bureaucracy within the NHS. Many cautioned against privatisation, while others stressed the need for better working conditions for healthcare staff and improved infrastructure, such as more modern hospitals. Concerns were also raised about the balance between managerial roles and frontline healthcare providers, as well as the consequences of whistleblowing and the potential loss of NHS principles. Here’s what you had to say:‘What kind of healthcare does society want?’Deep breath. The first thing to do is to try and identify what kind of healthcare society wants and what it is willing to give up to achieve that. Part, but only part, of that is who pays? Is it to be paid for out of current income or future income (debt) to be paid for by future generations? The second thing is how do you impose discipline on the provision of a service that is either wholly funded or partially funded by the state. What stops it being self-indulgent, complacent and lazy, and what drives it to strive every minute of every day to do its best to make its patients satisfied? The third thing is how do you encourage healthy practices that reduce demand for health services? Which models do the most for promoting self-care and reduce a kind of state healthcare provision dependency whereby responsibility for health is farmed out to a third party? Finally, none of these questions can be answered without thinking about what the alternatives are, how their efficiency and effectiveness compares, and what the barriers to change are.Bruxellois‘Less managers’The NHS doesn’t need reforming, what it does need is doctors, nurses and assorted clinicians and far less managers; the last time I checked there was a manager of some sort for every four staff.TomSnout‘The NHS does not need root and branch reform’The NHS does not need root and branch reform. Apart from anything else, reform takes time and money, the NHS has neither of these things.Let us face facts, when the (soft, firm and hard) right say ‘reform’ they mean scrapped. Perhaps more accurately they mean the founding principles of ‘free at the point of delivery’ needs to be scrapped.You can hide behind all the rhetoric you want, you can string all the usual platitudes about ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘freeloaders’, ‘self-inflicted’, blah, blah, blah at the end of the day, at some point removing the ‘free at the point of use’ principle will mean that normal decent, people will be denied healthcare at some level because it is unaffordable to them.What Streeting’s ‘middle class, lefties’ need to confront is what those ‘socially liberal, decent Tories’ at the dinner party mean by modernise’ is that they want a tax cut and if poor people suffer so much the better.It is rather strange that those ‘paitriots’ who find hot tick buns and purplish St George flags so objectionable are willing to abandon a uniquely British institution designed during the Second World War on British culture?Anyone who thinks our NHS needs a whole raft of health insurance bureaucracy welded onto the side, and then expect a better outcome are deluding themselves.Jim987‘Healthcare shouldn’t be about personal profit’The NHS needs to be properly funded. The current government provide 1.5% funding per year when 3.5% funding at least is needed. Protect whistleblowers. Doctors, nurses and care assistants have raised concerns about patient care but have then been sacked. Rather than cover-ups, support for whistleblowers would protect patients and enhance NHS care. Stop entrepreneurs like Branson and Mone bidding for NHS contracts: healthcare shouldn’t be about personal profit/gain. As for the suggestion by the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting about using the private health sector, as private hospitals stand, it’s unsafe and unworkable; private hospitals don’t have A&E nor critical care facilities as backup unlike NHS hospitals. Furthermore, there is only a skeleton staff at night, no doctors to oversee patient care; if anything goes wrong, the patient has to be ferried to an NHS hospital for care. Better to keep patients within a well-funded and well-structured NHS. Keep the private sector completely separate.Benitas‘The people’s health should be a cooperative venture’If the UK experience of NHS reform is the template Solzhenitsyn is bang on the money. Health is not a “good” to be traded in the marketplace. The creation of an internal market has not led to improved outcomes for patients but increased profits for players. The most obvious example being PFI which is not unlike borrowing from loan sharks. More and more loans become necessary to service earlier loans.The people’s health should be a cooperative venture not a competitive venture.PinkoRadical‘Big is not always better’The problem with using private hospitals is that it makes NHS waiting lists longer. The consultants in the private sector are the same consultants practicing in the NHS, consequently more “private” patients equals consultants spending more time in private practice and less in NHS. Consultants need to be made to provide a minimum number of hours in NHS medicine or leave it altogether and promote the registrars to consultant posts. It also may be better to split up the regional services into more smaller units. Big is not always better. The regions have continued to centralise services making it more difficult for people in outlying areas. The old model of a matron also worked very well and should be considered again.Stardust‘Kicking the can down the road’“Using the private sector” usually boils down to getting the private sector to provide the upfront cash required, which they do in exchange for profits over the longer term. The most famous example is the PFI hospital building which has cost us a considerable amount more in the long term. It’s not a fix, it just kicks the can down the road, causing long-term budget issues and is poor value for money.The Mark in remarkable‘Cut the bureaucracy’Just cut the bureaucracy. Internal market dogma has almost brought the NHS to its knees. All levels of staff spend more time on paperwork than on delivering care.Paul‘Invest’Instead of reducing N.I. contributions the money should have been invested in NHS. Unless the intention from the government is to sell it off to the US and other foreign companies.Worker‘Look elsewhere before taking a saw to the NHS’The NHS provides a core functionality and should not be changed. I disagree strongly with Labour that the NHS is suffering from 1948 organization syndrome. Other countries do it differently, and this is shown in the performance tables where the UK languishes at the bottom of most of them. Germany has a strong network of independent medical specialists that take patients under the government’s legally required insurance scheme, as well as private schemes. Later in life people often suffer being in the private schemes as they can no longer afford them, in early life the private schemes cost less than the legally required schemes. Laws are changing in Germany, but patients can go directly to specialists. For example, if I developed a cataract I would just go direct to the eye doctor. This relieves both the GPs and hospitals of unnecessary load. It could be argued the small specialist clinics are more efficient than the hospitals. For something standard like a cataract operation in Germany, this is now a “conveyor belt” operation outside of the hospitals. Anything difficult with such an operation still ends up with the hospitals. The same applies to many frequent ageing illnesses, and specialists outside of the hospitals handle them. The UK should check other systems before taking any saw to the NHS, as the finest of surgical changes will be more successful, and that requires careful analysis and consultation.MP‘Postcode lottery’The NHS cannot be run like a business which is what the Tories tried to do. Too much money spent on bureaucracy towards that end. There needs to be a review to retain what is necessary and discard what isn’t. Healthcare has become a postcode lottery and this should not be the case. Failing hospitals need to be given detailed plans to resolve their identified issues within a timeframe and to be reviewed without notice within that time. Not all healthcare staff are angels and some are incompetent and a threat to their patients. The competent ones are leaving and the reasons are heartbreaking; their concerns for patient care are being ignored or they are being forced out. Whistleblowing can have dire consequences in hospitals with a toxic management culture. Standardized treatment protocols may be useful as some hospitals do not appear to have them or are ignoring them if they do. Cutting waiting lists would have to involve triaging patients in terms of urgency and perhaps identifying hospitals with shorter waiting lists and available beds to send them to. The other major issue is bed blockers, and that means sorting out social services also so suitable accommodation can be found in order to free beds. The Tories destroyed a vital functioning national resource and a somnolent populace couldn’t see it.Galileo666‘Hospitals are overloaded’Should the NHS be reformed to improve service?’Many have tried and failed.Until it’s recognised that the NHS is dealing with people and unpredictable events, nothing will change. You can plan as much as you like but no-one can forecast a major incident that fills all the hospitals in a region on a Saturday night when fewer doctors are working or the outbreak of a disease, virus etc. that closes a hospital down and so on. Until the planners see this and it’s calculated in nothing can change.It isn’t only about money. It’s about working conditions. The only way to improve things is to include those working in the NHS in discussions about change.The hospitals are simply overloaded. There has to be a better system for dealing with those who don’t need to go to hospital but do because they simply can’t get help anywhere else. There should be more day clinics for routine surgery where people arrive in the morning and depart later after treatment instead of having to go to hospital in the first place. It operates well in other countries.How any of it can be achieved without the new, modern, well-equipped hospitals the Tories promised but didn’t deliver, is hard to see!AmibigirlsSome of the comments have been edited for this article. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article.All you have to do is sign up, submit your question and register your details – then you can then take part in the discussion. You can also sign up by clicking ‘log in’ on the top right-hand corner of the screen.Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines, which can be found here. For a full guide on how to comment click here. More

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      in US Politics

      Arizona’s abortion ban is a political nightmare for Republicans in the 2024 election

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      When the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, Republicans across the country cheered. Freed from Roe’s regulations, GOP lawmakers promptly blanketed the US south and midwest in near-total abortion bans.But today, after a string of electoral losses, stories of women being denied abortions and polls that confirm abortion bans remain wildly unpopular, the political calculus has changed. Republicans are now trying to slow down the car whose brakes they cut – and to convince voters that, if the car crashes, they had nothing to do with it anyway.Nowhere encapsulates the GOP’s backpedal on abortion better than Arizona, whose state supreme court on Tuesday ruled to let an 1864 near-total abortion ban go into effect. That ban, which outlaws abortion in all cases except to save the life of a woman, was passed before Arizona became a state, before the end of the civil war and before women gained the right to vote.Kari Lake, a Republican running to represent Arizona in the US Senate and a diehard ally of Donald Trump, once called that ban “a great law”. But on Tuesday, the inflammatory politician became one of several GOP officials to denounce the ruling, urging the state legislature to “come up with an immediate commonsense solution that Arizonans can support”. On Wednesday, Trump also indicated that he thought Arizona’s near-total ban – whose revival was enabled by a US supreme court ruling he has repeatedly taken credit for – had gone too far. “It’ll be straightened out and as you know, it’s all about states’ rights,” he said.Abortion remains banned past 15 weeks in Arizona, since the 1864 ban is being held up by legal delays. But Arizona is expected to be a key battleground state in the 2024 elections, and abortion rights supporters have gathered more than half a million signatures in support of a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution. Democrats are hoping that measure will boost turnout and their candidates – including Joe Biden – to victory.In other words, this ban threatens to become a political nightmare for Republicans come November.Lake and Trump are caught in the quandary that is now facing Republicans in Arizona and beyond its borders. For 50 years, the GOP became increasingly wedded to the anti-abortion movement, passing restrictions that cut off access to the procedure and littering the courts with lawsuits to overturn Roe. These restrictions won them votes from anti-abortion advocates, as well as cash from influential advocacy groups. But because Roe stopped many of these restrictions from taking effect, it shielded Republicans from reckoning with the real-world consequences of anti-abortion policies – or with the outrage of voters. Since Roe was overturned, and those real-world consequences have come into focus, abortion rights-related ballot measures have succeeded in several Republican strongholds, including Kansas and Kentucky.Lake didn’t say what that “commonsense solution” might be, but other Republicans have tried to take a stab at it. Juan Ciscomani, who represents Arizona in the US House, called the decision no less than “a disaster” and claimed he was a “strong supporter of empowering women to make their own healthcare choices”. He also, in the same statement, said the 15-week ban “protected the rights of women and new life”.This seems to be the party line that many Arizona Republicans are now congealing around: they will support a 15-week ban, which the state legislature first passed in 2022, but not a near-total ban. This, too, is a gamble. Last year, when Virginia Republicans tried to take control of the state legislature by proposing to “compromise” and ban abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy, they fell short.Yet the post-Roe electoral firepower of abortion has never been tested in a presidential election. Biden has spent months trying to blame abortion bans on Trump, since he appointed three of the justices who overturned Roe. Trump, meanwhile, alternates between congratulating himself for overturning Roe, both rebuking and flirting with the idea of a national ban, and claiming, as he did earlier this week, that abortion access should now be left up to the states.For Republicans, the only option may be to take a cue from their party’s leader and rewrite their own history. When asked about Lake’s previous support for the 1864 ban, her campaign suggested to the New York Times that Lake was referring to a different law.But in the comments praising it, Lake even referred to the 1864 ban by its statute number, 13-3603. “I’m incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that’s already on the books”, she said. More

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      in UK Politics

      Voices: Should the NHS be reformed to improve service? Join The Independent Debate

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      Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in healthGet our free Health Check emailThe Government has been increasingly turning to private sector capacity to help prop up the NHS – but is this the right approach to cut waiting lists and improve the service?On Monday, Wes Streeting warned the NHS will get no extra funding from Labour without “major surgery” or reform, including more use of the private sector.The shadow health secretary has long been a staunch proponent of NHS reform. He has previously called the health service “not fit for the modern era” and said that “if the NHS doesn’t change, it will die.”His comments have been met with anger from campaign organisation Every Doctor, which has said Mr Streeting is “attempting to make an argument for unnecessary NHS reform and privatisation by pitting one group of voters against another”.Amid the furious back and forth, we want to know what you think. Is the NHS long overdue an organisation overhaul? And should private companies play a part in a restructure?What changes would you make to the NHS to ensure it remains a useful part of British society?Share your thoughts by adding them in the comments – we’ll highlight the most insightful ones as they come in.All you have to do is sign up and register your details – then you can then take part in the discussion. You can also sign up by clicking ‘log in’ on the top right-hand corner of the screen.Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines, which can be found here. For a full guide on how to comment click here.Join the conversation with other Independent readers below. More

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      in US Politics

      US supreme court seems skeptical of arguments against abortion drug mifepristone

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      The supreme court on Tuesday seemed skeptical of arguments made by anti-abortion doctors asking it to roll back the availability of mifepristone, a drug typically used in US medication abortion. The arguments were part of the first major abortion case to reach the justices since a 6-3 majority ruled in 2022 to overturn Roe v Wade and end the national right to abortion.The rightwing groups that brought the case argued that the justices should roll back measures taken since 2016 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand the drug’s availability. A decision in the anti-abortion doctors’ favor would apply nationwide, including in states that protect abortion access, and would probably make the drug more difficult to acquire.Medication abortion now accounts for almost two-thirds of abortions performed in the US.Much of Tuesday’s arguments focused on whether the anti-abortion doctors who sued the FDA, a coalition known as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, have standing, or the right to bring the case in the first place. The doctors claim they will suffer harm if they have to treat women who experience complications from mifepristone, an argument the Biden administration, which appealed the case to the court, has rejected as too speculative.The US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, who defended the FDA, argued that the doctors do not come within “100 miles” of having the legal right to bring the case, arguing that their case rests on a “long chain of remote contingencies”. Under their argument, Prelogar said, a woman would have to face complications from a medication abortion that were so serious that she needed emergency care at a hospital – an unlikely scenario, given mifepristone’s proven safety record – and then end up in the care of an anti-abortion doctor who was somehow forced into taking care of her in such a way it violated the doctor’s conscience.A number of the justices – even the ones who ruled to overturn Roe two years ago – seemed skeptical that the doctors met the threshold required to establish standing. Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh seemed to seek assurances that the doctors represented by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine were already covered by laws that protect doctors from having to undertake cases that violated their consciences.Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed to express concern over the sweeping implications of the doctors’ request of the court. “This case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other federal government rule,” he said.The supreme court has historically rejected standing arguments based on such potential harm. However, Justice Clarence Thomas raised the possibility that perhaps the court’s own threshold for standing was too strict.His fellow conservative Samuel Alito also seemed incredulous of Prelogar’s argument. “Is there anybody who can sue and get a judicial ruling on whether what FDA did was lawful?” he asked. “Shouldn’t somebody be able to challenge that in court?”Since the fall of Roe in June 2022, more than a dozen states have banned abortion. The result has been legal and medical chaos. Dozens of women have come forward to say that they were denied medically necessary abortions. Abortion clinics in states that still allow abortion are overwhelmed by the flood of patients fleeing states with bans. More than 1m abortions were performed in the US in 2023, a record high.The availability of medication abortions, which are usually performed using mifepristone as well as another drug called misoprostol, has helped soften the impact of the bans. Telehealth medication abortions, permitted by the FDA since the pandemic, helped ease some of the burden on abortion clinics; shield laws, passed in a handful of states, even allowed providers to offer telehealth abortions to people living in states with abortion bans.But the accessibility of medication abortion also made it the next target of the anti-abortion movement after Roe was overturned. In 2022 the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine challenged the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone. The group, which includes anti-abortion doctors and is being defended by the Christian powerhouse legal firm the Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that the FDA overstepped its authority and that mifepristone is unsafe. (More than 100 studies have concluded that mifepristone can be safely used to terminate a pregnancy.)A federal judge ruled in favor of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a move that could have yanked mifepristone off the market entirely. But an appeals court narrowed that ruling, deciding that it was too late to challenge mifepristone’s original 2000 approval.Instead, the appeals court ruled to rewind later measures taken by the FDA that expanded access to mifepristone, including by removing requirements that abortion providers dispense mifepristone in person. A recent analysis found 16% of all US abortions are facilitated through telehealth.Mifepristone’s availability has remained unchanged as litigation has progressed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDuring oral arguments, Thomas and Alito also raised the specter of the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-vice law that bans the mailing of abortion-related materials. Long regarded as a relic, the Comstock Act has now seen a resurgence of post-Roe support among anti-abortion activists who believe it is the key to a de facto nationwide abortion ban.“How do you respond to an argument that mailing your product and advertising it would violate the Comstock Act?” Thomas asked Jessica Ellsworth, a lawyer for Danco Laboratories, a manufacturer of mifepristone.After some back and forth, Ellsworth told Thomas: “That statute has not been forced for nearly 100 years and I don’t believe that this case presents an opportunity for the court to opine on the reach of the statute.”Regardless of what the supreme court decides, Americans will still be able to order mifepristone online from suppliers who help people “self-manage” their own abortions. A study released on Monday found self-managed abortions had soared since Roe fell.Outrage over the overturning of Roe has turned abortion into a key election issue, since most Americans support at least some degree of abortion access. Voters in multiple states, including conservative strongholds, have voted in ballot initiatives in favor of abortion rights; roughly a dozen states are now expected to put abortion-related ballot measures to voters come November. Democrats are hoping that the issue will bolster turnout for their candidates, including Joe Biden.The supreme court is expected to issue a ruling in the mifepristone case by the summer, just months ahead of the 2024 elections.The case’s consequences could stretch far beyond abortion. If the justices greenlight attempts by ideologically driven groups to second-guess the authority of the FDA, the agency’s regulation of all manner of drugs – such as contraception and vaccines – could be challenged in court.Ellsworth, the Danco attorney, argued that the doctors’ argument in the case “is so inflexible it would upend not just mifepristone, but virtually every drug approval”. More

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      in US Politics

      Judge imposes gag order on Trump in hush-money trial – as it happened

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      The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case has imposed a gag order that forbids him to attack witnesses, prosecutors or jurors involved in the criminal trial that’s due to begin next month, the New York Times has just reported.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, asked the judge, Juan Merchan, to impose the order.The trial in New York is scheduled to begin on 15 April.More details soon.The supreme court heard arguments in a case brought by a conservative group that sought to restrict access to abortion medication mifepristone. The justices seemed skeptical of claims that the drug should be restricted due to its health risks and the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decisions, after an attorney representing the drug’s manufacturer warned that a court ruling against it could have ripple effects across the entire pharmaceutical industry. Meanwhile, an attorney for the Biden administration said cutting off access would “inflict grave harm on women across the nation”. By the hearing’s end, only conservative justice Samuel Alito sounded open to the challenge, and a ruling in the case is expected this summer.Here’s what else happened today:
      Donald Trump is reportedly prohibited from attacking witnesses, prosecutors or jurors in his trial on hush money-related charges under a gag order handed down by judge Juan Merchan.
      Robert F Kennedy Jr announced attorney and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate in an event in Oakland, California.
      Joe Biden said the federal government will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port of Baltimore and rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early this morning after being struck by a container ship.
      Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a force in the conservative legal world, reached a deal with prosecutors to resolve securities fraud charges.
      A federal appeals judge who ruled against mifepristone last year has ties to one of the groups trying to keep it off the market.
      Donald Trump-supporting Super Pac Make America Great Again Inc unleashed an attack on Robert F Kennedy Jr, after he announces Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.“Robert F Kennedy Jr is a far-left radical that supports reparations, backs the Green New Deal, and wants to ban fracking. It’s no surprise he would pick a Biden donor leftist as his running mate,” said spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer.Third party candidates with dedicated followings can add an element of unpredictability to tight presidential races – just ask Al Gore. But despite Team Trump’s vitriol, polls have shown Kennedy may sap support from Biden in states where he’s on the ballot.The Democratic National Committee has gone on the attack against Kennedy’s campaign, including by filing a complaint accusing him of improperly coordinating with a political action committee:Independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has announced attorney and wealthy philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.He made the announcement in Oakland, California, at an event attended by hundreds of supporters, as well as protesters outraged by his opposition to vaccines.Wendy Bloom, a registered nurse who has worked in pediatric cancer units for 37 years, said she disagrees with many of Kennedy’s ideas, and was particularly enraged by his opposition to vaccines.“Besides being anti-vaccines, he’s not pro-science, and anti-research,” she said. She also dismissed the choice of Shanahan as a running mate.“His choice of VP tells us everything we need to know,” Bloom said. “She has no experience. She’s just a wealthy individual can help raise money. Voters deserve someone with experience.”Kennedy supporter Marilyn Chin, 71, said she voted Democrat for most of her life, but is now supporting Kennedy.“Get out of the duopoly,” she said. “Don’t vote Republican, don’t vote Democrat, start looking for something else.”In seeking a gag order against Donald Trump, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office argued the former president had a “longstanding history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him”, the New York Times reports.Judge Juan Merchan agreed, writing in the order that, “his statements were threatening, inflammatory, denigrating.”The Times notes that earlier today, Trump called his former fixer Michael Cohen “death”, in a post on Truth Social – just the sort of statement that Merchan’s gag order is meant to prohibit.The supreme court heard arguments in a case that sought to restrict access to abortion medication mifepristone, and seemed skeptical of claims that the drug should be restricted due to its risks and the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decisions. An attorney representing the drug’s manufacturer warned that a court ruling against the drug could have ripple effects across the entire pharmaceutical industry, while an attorney for the Biden administration said cutting off access would “inflict grave harm on women across the nation”. By the hearing’s end, only conservative justice Samuel Alito sounded open to the challenge, and a ruling in the case is expected this summer.Here’s what else happened today:
      Joe Biden said the federal government will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port of Baltimore and rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early this morning after being struck by a container ship.
      Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a force in the conservative legal world, reached a deal with prosecutors to resolve securities fraud charges.
      A federal appeals judge who ruled against mifepristone last year has ties to one of the groups trying to keep it off the market.
      The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case has imposed a gag order that forbids him to attack witnesses, prosecutors or jurors involved in the criminal trial that’s due to begin next month, the New York Times has just reported.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, asked the judge, Juan Merchan, to impose the order.The trial in New York is scheduled to begin on 15 April.More details soon.Liz Cheney, the Donald Trump foe who ended up being forced out of Congress due to her opposition to the former president, also described NBC’s elevation of McDaniel as a danger, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:The Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “enabled criminality and depravity” in her support for Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former congresswoman Liz Cheney said as controversy swirled over McDaniel’s media role.“Ronna facilitated Trump’s corrupt fake elector plot and his effort to pressure Michigan officials not to certify the legitimate election outcome,” Cheney, a Republican who was vice-chair of the House January 6 committee, wrote on social media.“She spread his lies and called January 6 ‘legitimate political discourse’. That’s not ‘taking one for the team’. It’s enabling criminality and depravity.”McDaniel rose in Republican politics as a member of the powerful Romney family before reportedly dropping the name at Trump’s behest and becoming RNC chair in 2017.In February 2022, the RNC said Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the other anti-Trump Republican on the committee that investigated the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, were engaged in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”.Cheney lost her seat in Congress that year. Kinzinger chose to retire. McDaniel was eased out of the RNC last month, to be replaced in part by Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law.The White House said that meetings over the last two days between the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, have been “productive”.The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday canceled a high-level delegation from Israel to the White House to discuss Rafah, with the visit meant to take place today. He withdrew his agreement for talks after the US abstained from – rather than vetoed – a UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas.Gallant was already in Washington for longer-planned talks at a lower level. Meanwhile, in the Middle East earlier today, Israel recalled its negotiators from Doha, in Qatar, after deeming mediated talks on a Gaza truce “at a dead end” due to demands by Hamas, Reuters reported earlier, citing an Israeli official.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said to reporters board Air Force One moments ago: “We are committed to supporting Israel in its fight against Hamas … We cannot expect Israel to live under active threat.” She added that it was critical for Israel to do “whatever is possible” to protect civilians in Rafah.There, about 1.7 million Palestinians are trapped under Israeli siege and suffering bombardment and food deprivation as international talks about a ceasefire and access for more aid founder.Aid agencies and international bodies including United Nations officials have said that people stranded further north in Gaza are on the brink of famine.The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has just been speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, on the way to Raleigh, North Carolina.Joe Biden and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, are holding a joint event there to talk about healthcare.Reporters were firing off their questions, in a short gaggle on a short flight. Jean-Pierre is confirming the US president’s position is he will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge.She’s being asked about the state of US infrastructure but emphasizes that although the government pledges to work with Congress for funding to rebuild the bridge, the search and rescue effort that’s still under way in Baltimore is the main focus.Here’s what Yale University historian Timothy Snyder had to say about the danger of NBC News hiring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, as told by the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:The former Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “tried to disassemble our democracy” by supporting Donald Trump’s electoral fraud lies and should not be given such a media role, a leading historian said amid uproar over the appointment.“What NBC has done is they’ve invited into what should be a normal framework someone who doesn’t believe that framework should exist at all,” Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor and author of On Tyranny, told MSNBC, part of the network now employing McDaniel.“What NBC has done of its own volition is bring into a very important conversation about democracy, one which is going to take place for the next seven months or so, someone who … tried to disassemble our democracy. Who personally took part in an attempt to undo the American system.”NBC announced the hire on Friday. Carrie Budoff Brown, the senior vice-president for politics, said McDaniel would contribute analysis “across all NBC News platforms”.On Sunday, McDaniel told Meet the Press Joe Biden won the 2020 election “fair and square”, adding that she did “not think violence should be in our political discourse”.NBC News will drop former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel after an outcry from its top talent over her promotion of Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election, Puck reports:McDaniel’s hiring by the network attracted criticism from former lawmakers and historians, who argued they were elevating a voice who had helped Trump attack US democracy. On Sunday, McDaniel acknowledged that the 2020 election had not been stolen, though maintained it was acceptable to say there were “problems” with the vote:Joe Biden did not say when he expected the Francis Scott Key Bridge to be rebuilt or, more crucially for the nation’s economy, the port of Baltimore to be able to resume operations.The president also gave no update on the six people still missing from the collapse, but said the search and rescue operation to find them is a “top priority”.For the latest on this developing story, follow our live blog:Joe Biden says he has instructed the federal government to “move heaven and earth” to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and reopen its economically vital port.The government will also cover the cost of the reconstruction, the president added in a speech from the White House.“I’m directing my team to move heaven and earth to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as humanly possible,” Biden said.“We’re going to work with our partners in Congress to make sure the state gets the support it needs. It’s my intention that federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect the Congress to support my effort. It’s gonna take some time, and people of Baltimore can count on us so to stick with them at every step of the way till the port is reopened and the bridge is rebuilt.”The port is currently closed due to the span’s collapse, which occurred early this morning after the cargo ship Dali collided with it. The president noted that 15,000 workers rely on the its operations, and “we’re gonna do everything we can to protect those jobs and help those workers”.As we wait for Joe Biden to begin his speech on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, here are some scenes from earlier today in Baltimore: More